One of my goals in coming to California was to go all out at the gym. Health Clubs in the states are big, and you have big franchises that exist. Unlike in Canada most are all private, and small.

The two biggest criteria in selecting a gym is location and price. If you go with reputable names, your choices are Gold's Gym, 24HR Fitness, and Club Sport. I think 24HR Fitness is hands down the best place. I paid $700 in total for two years, and after that it's $20/mo. Club Sport is extremely expensive, I feel it caters to people who just want to flaunt their wealth, and the atmosphere there is totally stuck up.

Gold's is ok, but what really makes 24HR Fitness great is the incredible number of locations they have. My membership let's me go to any of their gyms in the world, and they have a lot in the Bay Area. There's two near my work, and two near my home. The locations are huge too, and I need my space and I hate waiting for a machine, and hate people waiting on me.

The other great benefit is that they're open 24 hours a day. I like to go home, relax for awhile, eat, let my body absorb the food for awhile and then go work out. So that tends to be at about 10pm, and sometimes I've gone at midnight. Gyms that close at 10 are way too inconvenient for me.