This has been my gym now since the day after I moved to Camden eight months ago. Being rather demanding with what I like my gym to have, I thought I'd be searching for a while - in the end a stop off after work and a quick whizz round I was signed-up for a year in ten minutes flat!
This isn't because I was lured in by a busty brunette with come hither (... and sign your life away)-eyes, but because Soho Gyms had every box ticked and then some.
The place is pretty huge - it covers about six shop fronts four floors above Camden High Street, and is chock full of equipment. Free-weight benches, dumbbells up to 50kg, kettlebells, pull-up bars and smith machines-aplenty, along with enough cardio equipment to keep a small army fit.
What's always important at a gym - and something the chains, by their very nature - fail to nail, is the atmosphere and staffing (Fitness First/LA Fitness - you know what I'm talking about). The Soho Gym team are all exceptional at the Camden branch - friendly, helpful, cheery and always ready to help spot you!
What's really good also about the Freedom Pass that you get upon signing up is that you can use whichever Soho Gym (on your side of the river - being North I am allowed to also frequent the Covent Garden and Earls Court branches) you fancy - as well as their Buddy Weekend system, which entitles members to bring whoever they want on the second and fourth weekends of the month. Epic.
The other incidentals are all present and correct - single-sex saunas, clean changing rooms and showers, a vast array of supplements and post-workout products to buy if you please, Calvin Klein underwear (!). You want it at your gym and it's there - I mean, where else do you have DJs playing whilst you work out one-night-a-week? (This is less irritating than it may sound to some people).
The place is simply a cut-above: never over-ly busy, very well-equipped, well-maintained, not too expensive, and the Camden branch is full of interesting characters (and not exclusively populated by sweaty, insecure young men) to make your workouts more interesting.
The fact that it's a 90 second walk from my house only makes the deal that much sweeter... *smug face* read more