Summer Shape Up When…read moreyou live in a climate, where the first sign of sun, makes people abandon their various layers with all the excitement of a kid running along the beach, there will come a time when you decide that you just might want to hit the gym. I'll admit just like so many of you, I've actually spent more time out of the gym than in it this year, but something has lured me back from the my abyss of laziness - Virgin Active! First there's the receptionists - they actually like people! And engage with you, I know shocking !!! Not rocket science, but we all know those places where the receptionists talks on the phone, while swiping your card without even acknowleging you right? The main gym comprises of all the usual suspects in terms of equipment, plus 3 power plates (joy!) and best of all a 20m stainless steel pool, that you can see while you are on treadmill -either very entertaining or throughly distracting depending on how your treadmill slot is going! You can book personal trainer sessions and huba huba - upstairs it has a mini spa ! The two dance studios are great, not too big, just the right size for you to still disappear at the back of the class when you want to. The classes are also good with a class timetable which is helpfully divided into category levels cardiovascular,conditioning etc. Now for the big one the changing rooms - surprisingly good. Lockers and showers that work, cotton buds a plenty, well lit mirrors and very clean. My monthly membership is well spent !

My favourite think about training with Lawrence was no 2 sessions were ever the same in a year of…read moretraining - sessions were fun but firm and drove towards results

Virgin Active state this is a State of the Art Gym but this is complete rubbish. The phrase that…read morewould more accurately describe it is a budget gym in a large building. The gym is in the middle of the London Irish Training ground - and thus on Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday don't even think of trying to use the benches, squat machine, or the bench press. These are surrounded by groups of rugby players at the exclusion of nearly everyone else from 4pm to past 9pm. Some equipment like the dumb bells are falling apart and their simply isn't enough of them. Some of the handles and pully are really looking worn and frayed and should have been replaced long ago. At the lower end of the weights scale there are only one pair of 12kg 20kg weights so that's a particular nuisance with this gym. The gym staffs also ignore you if you are not paying for training. This is quite unfair for new members who need to be shown how to use the cables - as Virgin Active don't have the typical equipment you would find in a standard gym, but rely greatly on cable machines that are difficult to pick up the correct moves. Be aware of the trainers level of Qualifications most are only REPs 3, whilst other gyms like David Lloyd only have trainers at the higher REPs 4 trainers level and yet the charge is the same. Thus Virgin's personal training fees are relatively more expensive than the best gym chain in the country. The gym is about 15 years old now and starting to show its age. The lockers now really look like they are at the end of their life, and have been badly converted from being opened by a magnetic card, to being locked with a padlock which has really mulled them. The toilets smell really bad, and the panelling around the urinals have exploded due to a leak and this damage has gone unrepaired for months. They do the maintenance in house and this accounts for its shabby looks in places - the sort of things you start noticing after a month or so are thing like walls that have been bodged with patches repainted, windows around the pool area that haven't been cleaned in ages, and the air con that is hit & miss in the studios so be prepared to sweat like a pig if you do a class. If you do look around - look carefully at the amount of equipment. It has 7,000 members and serves a large catchment area. Yet they still only have one bench press and one squat rack. Compared to say Fitness First with will have a much smaller membership base you can understand why people have difficulty following a good training programme and many people join and then drift off. In December's Men's Health; they said the key for having a good work out and progressing was the 60 minute test. Can you get in and out of the gym and do you full work out within this time. As the effectiveness of the work out declines significantly if you train for longer. I find that it takes me at least one hour thirty minutes, more often two hours to do a work out that should be taking me 50 minutes. As I train 4x a week (the min number of times to build up) I'm wasting about 4 hours a week waiting for equipment. A word of warning the membership team will try and sign you up for the infamous Diamond Membership, that auto-renews for another 12 month fix term. With only a small 4 week period that you can cancel in. The reps love this as they earn higher commission for trapping you into this contract. Despite what the membership reps tell you you can get a traditional 12 month fix term that has a one month notice to quite afterwards; but you have to demand to be given it. If you are going to join; it's very wise to take out a monthly membership at first to see if you like it. It may cost you a small joining fee of £ 40 but can save you hundreds if you decide it's too busy for you or you want a gym with higher standards. In summary I would say this is a gym you end up enduring rather than enjoying. It's in need of a big capital injection and is too busy if you want to train in the evenings.

This gym is starting to look very tired. The changing rooms need gutting and the mid range exercise…read moremachines are really showing their age. The towels they give you often have holes and are badly frayed. Its also very difficult to follow a program, and their is lots of bad behavior and foul language in the gym not the sort of place you would want to take your girlfriend or your mother too. With standard membership being £63, they are taking the Micky.