Fitness Formula Clubs - Halsted Street

3228 N Halsted St
Chicago, IL 60657
(773) 755-3232

Nice looking gym with nice equipment and a trendy Lakeview location. So, why does it suck? Because (I think) a guys experience at this gym is MUCH different from a woman's. Why? The locker room. There is way too much creepy, nasty, shady cruising going on in the locker room. There have been times that the same creepy dude was trolling the locker room from the time I got to the gym, changed into my clothes, worked out, came BACK to the locker room, showered, changed back into my street clothes and left. The.Same.Dude.Was.Still.There! Hanging out in his towel and going back and forth from the steam room to the showers to the lockers. It's really creepy.

And this is not to mention of all the screwing around that happens in the steam room aka the petri dish of filth. Back when I would still frequent it, I would routinely come into some scene out of a (poorly produced, low budget and unattractive cast) porno. Bald guys with wedding rings trying to shimmy away from each other - as though no one could figure out what was going on. What was my breaking point of going to the steam room? Slipping on "There's Something About Mary" hair gel. If I hadn't been wearing flip-flops, something very bad would have happened that day. Doubt me about these happenings? Check out Missed Connections on Craigslist and look at how many 'encounters' guys talk about on there. And the REALLY stupid thing about all of this? There's a freaking bath house right next store! Dudes, you can get all the nasty you need if you walk twenty paces to the north. And it's probably less expensive than the gym!

I don't know if the management has done anything to fix this problem. After I slipped on 'gel' (and cut myself on the razor blade edges they have/had attached to the soap dish; true story; I guess $.10 plastic covers for the edges are too much to expect), I was done. Machines that aren't wiped down? Annoying. The faint aroma of b.o. + perfume. Unappetizing. Dirty towels. Starting to get the heebie jeebies. Wondering if you picked up an STD from your gym? Criminal. If this gym can't enforce some sort of rules that ensure that the membership respects that this is a gym and not a sex den, then I don't see how and why it's still open.

Oh, wait. I just got it.