Equinox - Highland Park

What's up peasants! I just dropped off my masaratti at the valet and am having an organic vegan juice before I  meet up with my personal trainer who's better than yours!  If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm working out at Equinox, the most expensive (non-crossfit) gym out there.

In a city that prides itself on its pretentiousness, Equinox was a welcomed import from NYC.  Heck,

Dallas's answer to the
"Keep Austin Weird" slogan.

the gym is trying so hard to impress it even brags about how it's in Highland Park.  I asked my sister, a naturalized Parky, if it is, in fact, in HP and her response was, "Eehhh, it's really not."  

If you want to try to impress people by the gym you work out at, Equinox is for you.  I must confess a certain... prejudice against anything that smacks of elitism by way of materialism. I went to SMU, which made me intimately familiar with the image-conscious side of Dallas, and not in a good way.

First thing is the people. If you're at a gym where people are their for the image, you're going to have a lot of image-conscious people. Image-conscious people tend to take pretty darn good care of themselves.  Thus, this gym is full of very fit, beautiful, and sometimes plastic people.  This is definitely the land of the $30k millionaires and trophy wives. But's it's also the land of successful business men (Who don't think that "no parking" signs apply to them). I've been to gyms where the trainers are sometimes sporting a bit of a pot belly or seem a little soft. Not here. Every trainer I saw could be in a fitness magazine, and every one I talked to was extremely friendly.

As one would expect from a place like this they have a very extensive spa. It's not just a room off to the side, rather a whole section of the building is dedicated to manis/pedis/facials/massages/whatever else they do in spas.  I was kind of tempted to try out a massage therapist, but it just didn't happen.

Layout/Facilities

The view from the Oly platform

The gym is beautiful. A lot of thought went into the architecture and it shows.  You don't feel like you're walking into a gym, but a high-end hotel or spa.  They have a group class that is in the middle of the main space but because of the frosting in the glass you don't feel like you're in a fishbowl.  They have a very nice, but small, saltwater pool that I was told is very popular with the triathletes.  They also have a very zen yoga studio with soft natural lighting, very peaceful.  This is separate from the Pilates room where the reformers are set up full time.

I typically use bumper plates when I can, and one time I looked around for the 45 plates and realized they have only two plates, and a trainer was using it with a client.  Thankfully I had a work around, but it was surprising that they only have one set of bumper plates for each amount of weight. E.g. only two 45# plates, two 35# plates, and so on.  although they have three squat racks, you could still end up waiting on other people for a long, long time if you're planning on deadlifting and want to use bumpers.

Group Classes

A nice thing is that with membership ALL the classes are free. You don't have to pay an extra $5 for a week of Pilates with the reformer.  So if you go to classes all the time this gym MIGHT actually be a good value.

Even their water is better than yours.
I had to look up GE Homespring
to see what this actually was.

I tried a yoga class, and was surrounded by women who, judging by their crows pose and standing splits, probably do this all the time.  I personally wasn't intimidated but I'm rarely intimidated by any setting.  The instructor was very nice, friendly, and knowledgable.  I think because the majority of the class was so advanced she gave very minimal instruction.  For example she would simply say "Warrior two to Moon's pose*" without much description of what the pose actually is.  I checked and this class is for all levels so again I think if I wasn't the only yoga noob she would've explained more.

Also, the mats are cleaned after each use, but not by you. After class you just put them in the used mat pile and let some one else deal with it. Living the life.

I also got to try their RX series class. I do a lot of mobility work on my own, and this class works on the parasympathetic system, so I was curious to experience mobility work in a class setting.  It was only 30 minutes long, but the instructor was an anatomy geek like me (her eyes lit up when I mentioned "infraspinatus").  I was also introduced to Yoga Tune up balls, which are a little softer than the lacrosse ball I'm used to and actually work better because of it. So I'm glad I went.

Showers

When I was given the tour and we arrived at the locker room, the guy pointed out the khiel products and said, "the goal is so that you don't have to bring any of that stuff to the gym". I decided to take him at his word and see what happened.  Some things worked well, others.... did not.

The shower itself was excellent. Slotted teak(?) wood floors gives you a spa/beach feel. However, more than once I stepped on a sharp screw head sticking out and that did not tickle.  The tiling was excellent and the shower head was top notch; everything was very clean. I had to wait a while for hot water to show up, which was surprising.  Once the water got hot, however, it got really hot.

Pay $150/mo for $80
worth of products.

The khiels products were, as expected, excellent. I left the stall smelling slightly of grapefruit and feeling clean. However, when it came to shaving and styling my hair I was disappointed.  The razors provided were fine, but the shaving cream was not khiels, it was old-school barbasol foam.  I'm not a foam man myself but I gave it a try and I definitely cut myself a couple of times. Perhaps it was the bic razor, I don't know.  After shaving, I then realized there was no aftershave provided.  This was a little alarming as I could feel my skin dry and tighten up.  I decided to use some of the free khiels body lotion provided, but it wasn't the same as real aftershave.

I then tried the non-khiels hair gel that is provided. I found it.... lacking.  It didn't provide any real hold and smelled/felt like rubbing alcohol, which is a filler for lesser quality gels.  So all in all if you plan to shower here bring your shaving equipment and hair supplies. This reminds me of my studio apartment back in law school where they said it came with all appliances only for me to realize upon moving in that it didn't have a dishwasher. "All khiels products" just means lotion, soap, shampoo, and conditioner.

Normally I don't care about this kind of thing, I mean this is the first time I've used a gym's shower.  But if a part of your marketing scheme is what's inside the shampoo bottles then you better damn well back it up. For the money that they charge here, I would expect a better experience. I mean come on, provide at least some kind of aftershave to go with the razor and shaving creme.

Surfability

Only an X5, so he had to
park in an actual parking spot.

This was an incredibly easy gym to surf.  Perhaps it's because I have friends who are trainers here but I was expecting more of a hard sale.  I was simply given a tour of the facilities, given my card, and then left on my merry way.  I was also surprised to learn that their free trial pass is a whole week.  With a place like this I was expecting a day at most.

I should also note that you should view equinox in private mode on your browser. They should
#preapologize for taking over all of my banner ads. God I'm tired of that guy in a tux in a pool.  What the hell does that have to do with working out???

This was actually really fun.  It was cool to see how different this gym is from others.  By the third day I had fully embraced the Equinox lifestyle and was almost expecting some one to be there to load/unload my bar for me.  I was very impressed with the customer service, everyone is very nice and it really does have the feel of a high end hotel/spa.  Sadly, however, my time here has come to an end, so it's on to the next one.

Days in: 24
Amount paid: $0

*I have no idea if that's a real thing I just remember those two poses being mentioned.