1290 Fitness + Wellness

I think the owners must have written the rave reviews. This place is nothing special. The YMCA is nicer. Frequent outages of ratty old towels. The men’s hot tub has been broken for a year. The steamer has been broken for two weeks and running. If you dig that east coast edge — you will like it there. BTW — the machines aren’t in that good of shape either. You get nothing more than you’re paying for here.

Great little secret, super cool people and clean facilities. I have been here for appx 4 months and had no problems. Great place.
Dont tell too many people ;)

1290 Fitness was nearby, inexpensive, and had the equipment I needed. The staff (co-​owners Mike and Tiffany) make a point to greet every single client. The gym is a welcoming environment, where you don’t feel intimidated to exercise. I am very glad that I had a membership when I lived in the neighborhood.

I initially joined 1290 Fitness because it was the closest gym in my neighborhood. I was looking for a place I could walk to and in Capitol hill it’s an awesome location and totally reasonable price. It has everything you need at a gym and the BEST part about this gym are the owners. They are young, friendly, professional and most importantly treat everyone like family which is unusual for a gym these days, especially since most gyms are meat markets. It’s clean, and RARELY crowded. It’s an affordable gym with free classes to members, Carrie Varela is an incredible yoga instructor. I could go on… Oh, did I mention their Personal training sessions kick butt? AND the sessions are priced WAY better than 24 hour fitness. I would absolutely recommend this to a friend.

I’ve gone to this gym a few months now and it’s everything that I needed.
I wanted a gym that wasn’t crowded, that had all my favorite cardio machines, and room to use free weights. On top of that, this gym has a sauna and steam room. And did I mention VERY reasonable prices, especially for students? I can also walk to it (RIGHT downtown) which is fantastic.
I am a girl who gets a little intimidated doing weight training around a bunch of beefy men. Most of the time, the gym has 1 or 2 people in it when I’m there. I really love this most of all.
The reason it only gets 4 stars from me is because it is hard to get a hold of the people who work there. Usually, I write notes if I need to get in touch with someone but calling generally works well if you leave a message.
If you want group classes, this isn’t the best place for that. They only offer one class a day at noon.
But if you’re like me, this is great, laid back gym to get your regular work out in.

I was a member of this gym for close to a year. I loved the location, the cheap price, and the small size. However, the gym underwent a change in ownership three times in that year. Under the current ownership, things have gone downhill. Like Meghan O. said, there were times I would show up for a class and the instructor would be late, unprepared, or sometimes not even show up. Likewise, two or three cardio machines (out of eight total) have been in need of service for months. The new owner ran some sort of special and now more and more new members are appearing. This has made the once intimate and quiet gym rather cramped and uncomfortable. I found myself having to step around and over people doing private training sessions just to make it to the Elliptical. Finally, my biggest complaint is the gym is almost never staffed. It is like pulling teeth to get anyone on the phone or even through email. In January, they changed access cards and told us to pick up new ones. I went in several days a week for many weeks to pick up a new card, but no body was ever at the front desk to hand them out. Finally, one day I was locked out, as they changed the locks but never gave me a new card. After this, I got fed up, complained to the owner, and quit the gym. Two months after quitting, I looked at my bank account, and they are still taking money from my bank account! When I called to speak with them about this, big surprise, nobody answered the phone. I had to call my bank to issue a stop payment and file a dispute. I would encourage everybody to spend your money elsewhere.

I have been going to 1290 Fitness and Wellness for over a year now. Overall, I love this gym: it’s very convenient for me to go to (it’s in my office building), it’s neat, has plenty of machines, weights, and other workout equipment, and it’s reasonably priced, with no hidden fees. My favorite part of the gym is the classes during lunch time. I adore Jamie’s class on Wednesdays (cardio and strength training), and the Pilates class is good as well (the new instructor could make it a little more difficult and push the class as a whole like our previous instructor did).
Here is my general beef with this gym: finding trainers to *consistently* teach the group classes seems to be a problem. I would definitely appreciate an environment that welcomes trainers, such as the Zumba instructor, Tease Studio instructor, and a plethora of Pilates instructors that have come and gone. It seems after a few weeks, the instructors bail, for whatever the reason. I will be the first to admit that this issue is not solely due to lack of effort on the ownership’s part; that being said, the ownership should be doing their best to attract good instructors that will be committed to the gym and therefore the *gym members*. There have been way to many occasions wherein my coworkers and I have gone to the gym, excited for a class, only to learn that the instructor didn’t show or was let go. It’s not only an inconvenience to us, but it is also extremely frustrating.
I will not stop going to 1290 Fitness and Wellness and I would recommend it to a friend, but I would like to see the consistency of the group classes improve.

The staff is super friendly, the membership is so cheap you’d think it’s in the suburbs, it’s clean, and never crowed. Their machines are nice and newer. I haven’t attended any classes yet since they’re all at lunch time, but one of the staff offered to create a night class to accommodate my needs. What gym does that? Stop in a get a 3 day free pass and see what I mean.