There are gyms to work out in, and there are gyms for just about everything else. The gyms we’re interested in are fluent in it all.
The “fluent” gym isn’t necessarily always the hardest workout in the city, but it’s the one that understands the assignment every time.
Good lighting. Skilled instructors. Beautiful people pretending they’re not aware of the beautiful people. A lobby that feels suspiciously like a members club. Somewhere you can disappear into your headphones or end up staying for two hours because everyone who matters is already there.
The right membership can honestly say more about you than your neighborhood does.
So without further ado, these are the non-Equinox gyms where the hottest people in New York are currently sweating, social climbing, healing their nervous systems and building up a six-pack for Euro summer incoming.
Yes, many are invite-only and cost ten Euro summers to get in.
Alo Wellness Club
A gym for those who want their workout to aesthetically align with their Pinterest board. Perfected the art of turning fitness into content without making it feel cringe. Shoutout to @kylerussellhoffman for putting the *work* in workout.
Continuum Club
Hyper-curated, deeply luxury-forward and designed for the kind of person who tracks recovery metrics with the same intensity other people track the stock market. Cheapest price point is $25k/year, ranging as high as a casual $100k/year for all-inclusive.
TMPL Clubs
Dark lighting, intimidatingly hot people and always someone doing an unnecessarily advanced movement nearby. The downtown crowd migrated here the second wellness became nightlife-adjacent.
Gotham Gym
Cool-kid, warehouse-coded boxing gym that somehow makes getting punched in the face feel chic (not actually). Curated contact sports for downtown’s elite and an @ateam.co partner gym, so you know it’s vetted.
Tracy Anderson
Famously intense workouts for the famous. TA attracts the kind of clientele that treats fitness as part of an entire luxury lifestyle regime. Perfectly coordinated sets and iced matcha as far as the eye can see.
The LIV Method
Quietly cultish workout obsession. Polished regulars who actually know their instructors…and reorganize their schedules around them.
DOGPOUND
Still the blueprint for celebrity-coded private training culture. Maintained its mystique because it never really tried too hard to become mainstream.
West Village Athletic Club
The neighborhood gym equivalent of a local hot spot (with effortlessly hot hotties). A quick lift easily turns into a forty-minute standing convo and weekend WSH run club plans.