Getting the most from a free pass

A free pass here is not a walk round reception with somebody holding a clipboard. It gets you onto the whole floor: the free weights, the platforms, the machines, the cardio, the bags and the turf. Its job is to tell you whether this is a gym you would actually use, and a little planning makes that easier to answer by the end.

If you have not claimed one yet, do that first on the free pass page. The form is three boxes.

Before the first visit

Check what to bring on the free pass page. The ID it asks for is specific, and it is the thing most likely to send somebody home on their first visit.

The first visit: get your bearings

Ask at the desk for a walk round the floor before you start, and somebody will show you where everything is. Then do something you already know how to do, on equipment you recognise. The first visit is for learning where things are, not for proving anything.

After that: train the way a member would

Spend the next visit on the part of the floor you would use most. If you lift, that is the racks and the platforms. If you are here for conditioning, it is the turf and the bags. What a pass has to answer is whether the equipment you care about is here, and free when you want it, and you cannot find that out from the machines by the door.

The last visit: come at your time

Make the last visit at the hour you would normally train, so you can see how busy the floor is then. One limit applies. A pass is used while the desk is staffed, so if you would be a late-night member, a pass cannot show you the floor at that hour. That is worth knowing before you decide, not after.

Deciding

If the floor suits you, you can join at the desk or online, from the memberships page, and the memberships are month to month with no fee to cancel. If it does not, nothing happens when the pass ends. There is no card on file, so there is nothing to bill.