Doherty’s 24 Hour Gym

Training under a train station, great atmosphere, amazing staff and serious lifters. Highly recommend training there.

Donatellas, Bronuts, Cronuts, Cruffins and Duffins; all kinds of culinary genius in this city is gonna go straight to my waistline. So while walking along the river I spotted the sign advertising «casual drop ins» and knew that I should try and torch some extra calories to justify my next indulgence.
Can’t remember whether it was $ 10 or $ 12 a session? For an hour we rotated between boxing drills and various exercises (push ups/​sit ups/​burpees/​mountainclimbers). Whew! Defintely felt like I took a beating! Its still very «dungeonesque» but that only helps to channel your «inner Rocky»
One suggestion is for the gym to invest in some Lysol for the «guest gloves» or suggest that patrons purchase handwraps as the gloves I borrowed were rank

Although a cold welcome at reception is always a bad thing, other than that I must disagree with previous reviews.
Doherty’s has always advertised itself as an old school gym (essentially a hardcore, no nonsense, no frills place concentrating on mostly free weights ala Gold’s Gym during Arnold’s days). It is by no means intended for soccer mums; rather it’s aimed at ‘the big boys’; so it’s pointless to point out that it’s only good for guys whose biceps are bigger than their brains… as that’s who their intended members are. Frankly if you are a guy that’s putting others down for increasing the size of their biceps at a gym… perhaps your reasons for going to the gym aren’t exactly the best. It’s more for the elite athletes, who are above and beyond what the local jetts/​snap fitness can offer them.
As said previously, it’s a dungeon-​esque gym. The city location has actually only been open since around 2009 or so (around 5 years at the time of this writing), so it’s not that their equipment hasn’t been upgraded… it’s more that they wanted old style equipment that was built to last.
To sum it up, Doherty’s gym is the place to go if you want to train seriously with heavy weights, and achieve results. Giving it 4 stars, due to reception attitude, and the claustrophobic location in the vaults.

The reviews so far are accurate re. my experience here too.
Front counter couldn’t have been any more disinterested.
Equipment is lacking. Minimal cables, minimal plate loaded machines, chin up bar (singular) set up poorly — alternate grips/​v-​bar chins not accommodated.
No clearly defined area to deadlift. Guys deadlifting less than 2m from other guys pressing Dumbbells on a bench. Accident waiting to happen…
One flimsy full squat rack with adjustable support bars, one walk-​in shoulder press type.
This is a grass-​roots bodybuilder gym for those that class cable and plate loaded machines as unnecessary and ‘sissy’. If you go in with that requirement and/​or expectation you won’t be disappointed.

Travis K. gave an unflinching but accurate description of this gym. However, it left me with a decidedly more favorable impression. This is more of an old school dungeon– esque gym, with none of those emasculating fancy-​pants classes, no muss, no fuss. Definitely no frills! I got a great workout, on the cheap, and of course loved that it was ²⁴⁄₇ and so accessible to where I was staying in Melbourne. If your style is Less Talk, More Rock, Doherty’s just might be the place for you, too…

If you’re looking for a bright, airy, fun, sociable gym then Doherty’s is NOT the gym for you.
Located underneath Flinders St Station it’s in a great spot but the 100m long rooms consist of WW2-​esque bunkers with no natural light apart from at each end.
The welcome at the front desk is unhelpful at best, cold at worst. The equipment obviously hasn’t been upgraded since the place opened when men in tights were twirling their moustaches between sets.
All this could MAYBE be forgiven but the price is still not that cheap. At around $ 100 just to join and then about $ 70 a month it is moderately priced but the equipment is ancient. I haven’t even mentioned the change rooms yet!
Doherty’s sells itself as a real gym and there is no denying it is a real gym of the past, but compared to modern offerings it has no real attraction unless your biceps are bigger than your brains.