Best Gym near Evanston, Illinois

I workout at YMCA most days of the week and enjoy the friendly staff and family oriented programs offer here. My kids love to go to the Basketball court and the little one enjoys kids center while I workout. Gym, where I moistly spend my time, is nice clean and very well equipped. Men's locker room is very clean and large and offer Sauna and Steam room with more than enough showers. I highly recommend MCGaw YMCA.

I’ve been a member at the McGaw YMCA for a few years now, and I’m grateful I made the decision to join. I enjoy the yoga classes, and the warm, quiet, laid back atmosphere of the fitness center is a welcome contrast to some of the facilities I have visited. I also love how friendly and welcoming the front desk staff are.

I recently joined the McGaw YMCA and was impressed with how caring the front desk workers were. They gave me a tour, showed me what I needed to know and even answered my questions about the building’s history (fascinating!). I love what a vibrant communal space the Y has, with a lot of diversity and good energy. And the facilities are great too.

I’ve been very happy with our experience at McGaw YMCA. The facilities are always clean, and the staff is incredibly friendly and welcoming. My child has had a great time participating in the various programs offered, and I personally enjoy using the pool. The only thing that would make it even better is if the pool hours could be extended later into the evening. Sometimes by the time I finish work and take care of things at home, the pool is already closed. Overall, though, it’s a great place for the whole family!

McGaw YMCA staff are friendly & over the years I have made many friends with other members, as well. The challenges of an older facility are many, certainly. Mr. Gray cleans the locker room with vigor & greets everyone warmly!

I’m actually appalled. I signed up for this place to swim over the summer. I signed up for a one month membership, get a second month free. I went TWICE, thinking that the pool would be available for swimming after work. Not the case. They have swimming lessons that clog the lanes and I was booted from the lap lanes both times I was there. Hands down the worst experience I have had at a gym. Thank goodness I don’t live there anymore and have better options.

Nice little gym! I really only joined to swim, so I can say with confidence that the pool and the women's locker room are well-maintained and comfortable, but I can't comment on much else. I'll agree with the general consensus that the folks working there can be weirdly grouchy and don't seem super interested in providing good customer service. Maybe it's a terrible place to work, who knows? My biggest issue is that they have those great-looking climbing walls completely closed off, and won't even say why. Are they dangerous and in need of repair? Do they just like the discount they get on insurance for not offering climbing? No matter what, if it's not coming back, you should remove them and stop claiming the walls as a facility on the website.

This gym is excellent – it's well-equipped, meticulously maintained, and has a dedicated staff member who regularly checks the equipment to ensure everything is in top condition. Some of the front desk folks are a delight. The only downside is the behavior of some members who occupy machines for long periods, glued to their phones instead of using the equipment. It is frustrating when you're planning to use some of those equipments. Additionally, there's a noticeable lack of consideration from some individuals who leave machine attachments, weights, and plates scattered around the floor. It wouldn't take much to return them to their proper places, yet they’re often left lying around, creating unnecessary clutter.

Tl;dr good gym with sketchy practices regarding cancellation. Okay, I’ve been waiting a while to make this review. For reference, I’ve been attending this gym for over a year and I’m an NU student. I chose to go here over SPAC because it is significantly closer and I was told the gym is significantly less crowded. Pros: I think the weight room is great and had everything I needed as someone who works out mostly for health reasons. I like that everyone minds their own business here. I think they have a great variety on their machines and weights in general. You can do pretty much everything. I even did some PT exercises there! It’s also cool that they offer a wide range of classes and the locker rooms are very nice and convenient. As a student, you can get an off-peak deal for significantly cheaper than the usual membership and since I like to workout in the morning, it worked great for me. Cons: This is not the gym’s fault, but be ready to be around people who have very poor etiquette. There are times when it’s fine, but other times some people do everything that it is considered rude to do at the gym. Also, I wish they had a better mechanism to prevent the gym from smelling foul… it’s been an issue a couple times. Now, here is the reason why I removed one star and I’m not sure I can recommend it over SPAC. This was originally going to be a five star review until last week. Even with the discount, it is still on the pricy side considering we can have SPAC for free and there are other cheaper options in the area. I was okay with the price just for having a peaceful workout session, however last week I had an interaction that really pissed me off. Here’s the deal: I got a year membership for my senior year. After graduation, I stayed in Evanston for two months and moved out. The yearly membership happened to end around graduation, so I emailed to ask about cancellation in advance. They told me that after the year, it became a monthly membership and it will renew month to month until I cancel. That worked perfectly! So, three weeks before renewal of my third month after the yearly membership ended, I ask them to cancel my membership. They tell me my service will end a few days after I move out, which is great. However, then I receive an email saying that I needed to give a 30 day notice (???) if not I will get charged for the next month. Well, I thought that was insane because: 1. My access to the gym was going to be terminated 2. I literally asked about this two months ago and NO ONE told me about this policy. So, I went to the front desk and the lady working there is basically like: “It was in your contract, you will get charged”. Well, yeah of course it was in the fineprint, why did you hide it when I explicitly asked two months ago? She rolled her eyes and basically told me that I should have read my contract and to deal with it and she was so rude. Then, she called the membership people telling me it wouldn’t be helpful. Well, the membership guy was nice and told me I wouldn’t be charged because the grace period was until ten days before renewal. Honestly, that’s the only reason this is getting four stars instead of one because; again, NO ONE told me about the grace period when I explicitly asked, and also the front desk employer was just so rude. Don’t you guys realize how scammy this is? Regular membership is like 90 dollars a month and do you really feel the need to try overcharge your customers with sketchy cancellations policies, esp people who have been going there for over a year?? Absolutely not. You need to be more clear about this. I signed my contract over a year ago, I don’t remember the fineprint! Also, was it that hard to include in the email when I asked TWO months ago “cancel 10 days before renewal please”?? Honestly, that just completely ruined the vibe for me. It’s just weird behaviour.

I can see why the reviews here are so poor. I tried booking personal training. Bought a package. And then they couldn’t find trainers to support hours. I asked for money back for package and they denied my request. I then asked to cancel my membership and they IGNORED my email for weeks.

Kacie K. is one of the nicest, best-energy people I have ever met. Her good energy DOES encourage you to go to the gym and also brightens your day as well! I was like no wonder she is actually the manager when I found out, but I was almost surprised because sometimes managers can be not as warm while Kacie definitely is. Thanks, Kacie!

I enjoy my time here at the Evanston Planet Fitness. The staff is friendly, the facility is clean, the music volume and selection is perfect, in the event there is a machine out of order it doesn’t stay out of commission for too long, hours of operation are sufficient, showers have hot water. Always a solid experience.

The layout is very awkward. This gym has more machine facing eachother which makes for a lot of awkward staring moments. The space is very small so machines are very cramped next to eachother

Oh man, this place is rough. I went in to ask about a membership and while waiting to learn more the two guys at the front desk started mocking a larger woman about her weight after she left the gym. I walked right out and will never patronize a gym that shames someone who is trying to improve their health. For the same price, the Blink just up the street is cleaner, larger, and (most importantly) has very nice staff who don’t bro shame customers.

I have been going to this location for years because it was always comfortable and there were always nice employees. For over a year, my fitness plan has included me going to this location from around 3:30am to 4:50am on weekdays because I live in Skokie and have to commute to Chicago and be at work around 7am. I would work out from Tuesday to Friday and Saturday at 7am. I would see my fellow regular attendees almost every day of the week. There would be people in every area exercising. The cardio machines, the weight machines, the free weights, the smith machines, the stretching area. I have been able to accomplish so much at this location, because they have promised us (on their website) that they will work on our schedule... because they are a company that is for the members. I am told days before the change that the hours will be changed on weekdays from being 24/5 to opening at 5am... I don't blame the employees that work there. I blame the management and their management for not keeping their word. When I was told, the employees there told me, not the management. We did not hear one word from the management or even the company that this was going to happen. The ones responsible for this decision are just going to say that this is because not many people come at this time, even though the beginning of this story mentions the contrary. More and more people would attend this club as my time there would pass by. It wasn't empty. There were always people there. The management has no remorse for how this has affected the lives of those who would attend before 5 am. The club still has signs that say it is a 24/5 club. Because I like getting there early enough to be the first one in, I have seen members these past two days get there before 5am, try to open the door, display anger of this change, and leave because they are not able to get a workout in. I have to now fit the workout that used to take an hour into 40 min, because of their schedule change. The management would probably say that they are "sorry" for my inconvenience and that they could help me switch my home club to another club that is open 24/5. This does not solve my problem... - Why would I not know how to change home club? -Why would I switch to another club that is miles farther from my home that would also affect my timing? -Another club that is still open 24/5 will be congested by those of us that have switched out of this club and by those who already have been attending that club. It's as if they want the Planet Fitness clubs to be overfilled at all times to the point where we are not able to have a good workout. They seem to want us to be uncomfortable. We would go to this location because although there were people there, all the machines would not be occupied. They don't seem to care. ***Additionally, they owe me 2 custom t-shirts for completing their 2023 Spring Fitness Challenge (it is currently 2024). The goal was to attend 33+ times in a time period, and I was able to. I have contacted management twice. The second time, which was around 3-4 months ago, management said they will be here "next week." I don't know what she meant by next week, but it definitely wasn't 7 days from when she told me. Management thinks their problems will just go away, but this is one example of their lack of customer service and follow-up.

This gym is clean, the staff is friendly… but after talking with some other women in the gym, I’ve asked a few staff members about 35 lb. barbells for those of us with smaller hands… despite them agreeing they’d be useful, the manager said “people will just get upset if we have those here. Everyone will get confused about which bar is which.” That seems like a very strange reason to not have a few extra bars on a clearly marked rack for those who need them, especially since Blink has about 500 signs posted all over the place about gym equipment and etiquette… they’re also majorly underestimating the intelligence and mental flexibility of their customers, as if people will start a riot over one more set of barbells. 😂 But, overall a good gym.

Blink has great atmosphere, friendly staff and decent equipments. One flaw I noticed after coming about a year or so is that their cardio machines are not regularly maintained (especially their stairmasters which is all broken). My previous gym hires a company to regularly maintain the machines which kept them updated and running smoothly. Please commit to maintaining the equipments. Otherwise, amazing gym with a good environment.

Clean gym, attentive staff, nominal prices, no hidden charges and best of all, not crowded. They could improve timings for weekends (hope they open till 8pm on weekends) but pretty good so far!

Stopped in from out of town and very much enjoyed this gym. It was pleasantly and surprisingly well equipped, clean, and the employees were very kind and professional. Also a plus was the number of disinfectant stations.

Had my first workout there today, loved it. Huge, clean, friendly staff.