Healthworks at Codman

I gave Healthworks a five star rating based on the friendly, dedicated, and supportive staff that works at there. This gym is close to my home. I enjoy coming to workout after a long day at work. I am always greeted with a smile when I enter and my questions are always answered. Yes, this center was opened to offer an urban community a place to exercise, but they also employed a great staff. I do wish the hours were longer on Friday and that the center was open for a bit on Sunday. However, overall you get what you pay for!

Awesome, awesome club! I joined this gym in November and had never felt better about joining a gym. Now, I am not a gym person and am just coming into my own with going to the gym. There are a lot of machines to use where you clean up after yourself. The staff is super friendly as are the people who go to the gym. It’s really great to be able to go to a space where you won’t be judged and your fellow gym goers recognize you and encourage you! I felt so welcomed and so great! I feel wonderufl that I am taking back my health and feeling good about it at the same time.
They have awesome drives and really try and save people money. I don’t recieve any type of government assistance and they still were really great and tried to save my some money (I still paid the full fee of $ 30 a month– oh no!). So I go only to the classes and really love it. The instructors are great and I get my workout and can even go use the machines if I want afterwards :) Love it!
Also, if you have children, they offer childcare!

Thank you wealthy White folks who subsidize my Healthworks membership.
Or at least that’s the vibe I got when I spoke to the new manager of this place recently.
I will preface this by saying: being located in a low-​income neighborhood does not give one the right to make assumptions about the people who live in the area, about what they do when they are not in said location, or anything like that. You don’t know them, and you def don’t know me.
So, Healthworks changed management. The new manager, a young White woman fresh off the Peace Corps, or TFA, or whatever save-​the-​world mission it was that I cannot remember right now, explained that I was the «exception» to the club’s membership. (I asked if there were some more intense classes; the ones I’d taken were low-​level intensity). Most of the members couldn’t afford gym clothes or shoes (she explained that the nice folks there «gave them» clothes) and that the classes were geared towards teaching people how to exercise. All of this was accompanied by her exuding a feeling of her own goodness and missionary zeal.
Save it.
Again, there are plenty of folks in that gym, low-​income and not, that enjoy working out for different reasons. What would benefit people most would be the following:
1. Offer classes for a range of abilities; so, when one looks at the class offerings, there’s something there that will elevate your heart rate
2. Don’t assume people who come to your gym know nothing about fitness; it demeans everyone’s intelligence
3. Be creative in your offerings; really think about how people might be engaged in their neighborhood (um, how about a walk around the ‘hood, into those lovely little streets that surround the place rather than thinking it’s dangerous?)
4. Stop with the missionary pity: yes, you’re an under-​resourced place; yes, Healthworks subsidizes your costs; however, that does not mean Codman Square needs to be saved by Healthworks. What would be better is if you made me feel like I was actually getting some of the quality Healthworks expertise: instructors, classes, etc., thereby making me feel like more than an unwanted stepchild (because if you look closely on all the HW advertising, you won’t see any mention of the Codman Square location). Oh, and the fact that I have to pay extra to go to the REAL Healthworks (any of them) doesn’t make things any better.
5. Honor the no cell phone policy: how are the members supposed to follow the rules when the staff is in the locker room on its cell phone ²⁴⁄₇?
Go to this gym if you like to do things on your own: treadmill, elliptical, weights. Take the classes if you’re new to fitness, or recovering from an injury, or looking for some low-​impact stuff.
Skip it, or upgrade to another gym if you want classes that kick your ass, management that cares about your health rather than how much money you make, or any combination thereof.
P. S. The music changed. It comes through a CD player on the floor that people play as they want; miraculously, the religious CDs have disappeared… but I know NOTHING about that.

I joined this gym recently. So far so good. I have not attended many of the classes, but they offer African dance, yoga, kickboxing, tai chi, etc. I took the beginner African dance class and it was exceptional. They had live drummers, it was fun and a great work out. The gym is for woman and children only. It is not huge, but serves its purpose. It is clean and has a decent size locker room.
They offer two types of memberships. A regular membership that is $ 30 per month and a sliding scale membership based on your income (students need apply).

A nice fitness facility has opened up in our community, been open since October 2008. Brand-​spanking new. They have pilates, yoga, cardio kick boxing, etc. There is a kitchen for cooking classes planned as well.