Curtin Stadium

If I had spent more time at uni whilst doing my degree I would have loved this place… now that I’m working I’ve been back here to do spin class on Sunday mornings. The stadium is really nice, well lit, and clean, with good facilities and a great range of fitness classes. There’s also a café and a distinct lack of posers.
The walk from the car park to the actual gym itself is a bit dodgy, but there’s always a fair few people around, so it doesn’t feel too unsafe.

After nine terrible years as a Fitness First member I «quit» after a major disagreement with the manager. My fall out was due to their refusal to stop direct debiting me despite cancelling my membership months before and being well past the end of my contract.
I then went and joined Curtin… what a difference. Friendly staff, clean shiny new equipment and running distance from my door step.
¹⁰⁄₁₀

This is an awesome, spacious and well equipped gym that brings in toned, attractive men and women by the barrel-​load. Or perhaps it churns them out by the barrel-​load? More likely I think. There’s lots of everything here — treddies, cross trainers, rowing machines, weights, bars, supported weight machines, fit balls, benches. This gym is not for the faint-​hearted. I always feel a little overwhelmed when I walk in, but it’s easily the best work-​out I get from a gym in Perth: there’s something about the new equipment that makes you do the work hard without your realising. Not particularly friendly, and there are those groups of gym-​junkies who hang out in front of the mirrors that can be off-​putting, but for the work out it’s ace.

As far as university gyms go, Curtin Stadium is the cream of the crop. The facilities are all brand spankin’ new and super, super shiny. The building covers a huge 900sqm, boasting a complete cardio area within the main gym, a weights section, a smaller gym just for the ladies, a room for fitness classes and a room for the spin class.
If you have an issue with other’s body odour, you’ll like Curtin Gym. It’s air conditioned and well ventilated, so the place smells a lot nicer than some other fitness centres. The ladies gym even has some scented air freshener thing going on, but I usually just stick to the main gym. I’ve never actually used the ladies gym because it was more expensive and seemed to have the same equipment as the main gym, and when I quizzed the staff about the differences they said the service was more ‘personalised’. I think you pay for the privacy of working out within a secluded area rather than anything else.
The only issue I have with Curtin Stadium is how pushy the staff are about membership. They’re very, very persuasive about getting you to join, and it’s very hard to cancel your membership once signed up. I signed up for 6 months and after breaking my foot, was told not to do cardio for a while. I found it really difficult to get any information from the staff about cancelling my membership, and kept being told to just use the weights room. For $ 14 a week? I think not. There’s no exit fee you can pay to get you off the hook, and because direct debit memberships are handled through a third party, breaking up with Curtin Stadium was a very long process for me.