Ambiance
So this place is the type of gym that is more geared to trainers working with their clients. It's not huge, but has lots of special equipment, and has a very luxe/spa feel. In the rapidly gentrifying area of Greenville and Ross, this gym fits right in with shops like Toasted Coffee + Kitchen and Milk and Cream (which is where I will be going to celebrate a squat PR, btw)
So because of the trainer-centric nature of this gym it reminds me of my time spent at The Studio or Diesel Fitness. But while The Studio feels a bit gritty, and Diesel feels a bit white-collar, Paradigm feels more cool, more luxe, more like an Equinox but without all the pretentiousness.
I also have to mention that everyone who works here has been super friendly, welcoming, and courteous. I work from home so the gym is pretty much my only time to interact with people face to face, and everyone there makes the experience a pleasure. In the near future I can see my gym family starting to feel like a real family (I don't toss around the word "family" lightly).
Layout
This gym is divided into two separate sections. One side is the cardio area, filled with treadmills and rowing machines and some diabolical rope machines (the machine essentially allow you to climb a rope in perpetuity, very nasty). They also have clubs and maces, which is nice because now I don't have to bring my own set of Indian clubs. They have quite a few other machines that I've never seen before so I'm not sure of the proper terms but they were shown to me and they all seem like very legit ways to get one's sweat on.
On the other side you have your strength training (what I call home). They have two squat racks, the fancy kind that have pull up grips and pegs to attach bands to assist with squats and deadlifts. They have all kinds of equipment that is designed to work your leg muscles while being easy on the knees and hips. So if you're like me and are a basic bastard when it comes to exercise (i.e., powerlifting) this place may be more than you need, but it's nice to have the option to do fancy dumbbell/unilateral/machine exercises if you want. It's also very nice for people that actually have lives outside of the gym and can't devote the time and effort for rehab/mobility work to get the joints back to working correctly. Having leg machines that provide a workaround for having a bum knee sounds like a great thing (also makes me grateful I have good knees). They have dumbbells that go at least up to 100, maybe 110.
Locker room
Wish my house was like this. This is where the luxe/spa feel really stands out. Everything is grey and white, with great tiling. At least in the men's locker room, there is only one shower, so it's possible that your schedule gets thrown off. The lockers are the nice ones that do not require you to bring your own lock. Instead they you set the combination and then lock it. They also provide aftershave and lotion and razors, just in case you forget anything.
Extras
This gym also has two very nice perks that I really appreciate: an infrared sauna and a styku body scan system. I must confess that I'm unfamiliar with the technology of the IR sauna, but I've tried it and it proved to be very effective on recovery. I was sitting in the sauna for like 10 minutes wondering if it was working and then suddenly I was drenched in my own sweat. A very unsual experience.
Concerning the body scan, I think this is really cool stuff. You stand on a platform in front of the scanner and the platform rotates. The scanner seems to be uncannily accurate. It gives exact measurements of all kinds of parts of the body. For example, it showed that my left calf is about .8" smaller in circumference than my right calf (an unfortunate result of a spiral fracture of my fibula). As someone who really dislikes the monitoring of weight because it doesn't discriminate between fat and lean body mass, this is a great tool to show progressions, and the unfortunate occasional regression (we're all human).
All in all, this is quite the gem tucked into the corner of Ross and Greenville. read more