George Mason University Aquatic & Fitness Center

Ever since they fixed the wifi, this is now my favourite gym on campus! It has the best hours! (Summer hours) and I love how it’s always cleaned and maintained! The TVs all work and all in all, it’s awesome!

I like GMU swimming pool! Everything is fine there. Nothing to complain. It is not excellent though!

I’ve been swimming here for about a year.
Very clean. Very focus on safety, except for when they want to make more money. Has a 50 meters pool. The problem is if you are an individual paying member, you will get treated as a 3^rd class citizen. You will always get kick out of the pool or your swimming lane to make room for the swimming team, and paying groups. The competition pool schedule actually schedule one lane for 30 minutes, then close it off and open up another set of lanes for individual paying member.
When they have aqua aerobic in the recreation pool. They reserve three lanes for this session, and the group in the session actually only use up about ¹⁄₃ of the space. Talk about space utilization efficiency. With three lanes being taken up, individual paying members are forced to cram into the the other three lanes. At time, there can be up to four swimmers in these lanes. This can be any combination of swimmers, non swimmers, kids, and instructors. Chaos!
Safety issue: One time, I was swimming in the recreation pool. The pool was being shared with a kayaking group. One of the kayaker overreached his space and the paddle hit my arm. Thank god it wasn’t my head.
The competition pool is quite cold for being 80*. I’ll have to check the water temp one of these day to confirm.
Parking issue: During school season, expect to drive around for a while, up to half an hour at time, to find a parking spot. Evidently they don’t think everyone who payed for their parking spot deserve a spot. Parking issue is more of a problem of the University as a whole.
Moving forward, I hope they consider treating every paying entity equally. But I doubted, seem like this place only care about making money.

Full time students can use the facilities for free. Maybe that’s why I’m giving it 5 stars :). I like that I can see the group fitness schedule online and the instructors are great. Spin classes are a must for a good sweat session! There is a nice selection of cardio equipment upstairs, some class rooms that we’ve used for equestrian team meetings and the group fitness studio. The lobby is opened up with some benches by a flat screen tv, some chargers for all phone types, a few tables and snack machines. Would be a good quite place between classes or if you’re waiting for a fitness class to start. Downstairs is the weight machine room (again great selection), an open room for free weights and other various equipment, the spin studio, sauna, recreation pool, whirlpool, competition pool and locker rooms with showers. I like to use the sauna after any workout, I don’t know if it really works but I feel as if I’m less sore later when I do. It’s close to Shenandoah parking deck (great bonus for me). I can drop off my books after class and grab my gym bag enroute to my workout. I know when I go in I will leave exhausted and happy. Great de-​stresser!

I use the fitness class membership. Best deal in town for unlimited classes.
I wish there were more intense yoga classes, but otherwise I enjoy the classes.

I have been using GMU’s Aquatic & Fitness Center since 2006 when I started classes at Mason. At first, it was just a convenient gym to go to on campus. Now five years later and after going to many other gyms (apartment and major gym chains), I am finally able to go back to using the Aquatic Center. Their equipment is state-​of-​the-​art, it is kept very clean and the facility is huge. Once you find out when to avoid the peak times when most students use the gym, you’ll never have an issue looking for an open machine.
Besides the massive cardio area with stairmasters, ellipticals and treadmills, the center also has a large section with arm, leg & core machines, free weights and two pools. Fantastic gym.

The facility is very state of the art like you’d expect from a large university. It would be a really great pool except for two things. First, the water is freezing esp. in the main competition pool. They say it’s 79 – 80 but it’s really about 75 which is waaaay too cold, even for competition. Second, it gets very grungy during peak hours. They rent it out to lots of little kids swim team groups and they don’t even try to take care of the place, so you get paper and trash all over the locker rooms, wet and dirty floors, crud and old band-​aids all over the bottom of the pool, and stuff like that. I understand kids are messy but it really could be a much nicer facility if they’d simply clean it throughout the day.

This is a great facility. The cardio equipment all have TVs and I really like the spinning bike with the virtual trainer on it. The locker rooms are nice, even the showers. The only down side is that parking is sometimes hard!

4.5! I promise: I’m not biased because I graduated from GMU! I have been to other gyms (WSC, Bally’s, Gold’s) but nothing is better than the AFC. Since they reconstructed this place a few years ago I’ve loved it and actually enjoyed going there. There’s more light and space versus the smaller and not as well lit space they had before.
Two Pools! 2! And the hot tub! Zumba classes, spinning classes, belly dancing, kickboxing, HUGE cardio and weights section, almost all the cardio machines have TVs, stretching rooms, nice and helpful staff/​trainers. If you don’t have anyone to spot you when benching — they’ll be there for you gladly. Don’t know how to work a machine or need to know which machine to use? They are always happy to show you. My trainer has been awesome and is always there to motivate me and make sure my butt gets back in the gym when I’m feeling super lazy.
Membership gets you a parking pass and access to everything from the cardio classes to weights and machines. They even give orientations on how to use machines. Everything except the trainer and some classes.

I first discovered the GMU Aquatic Center through a friend who plays Underwater Hockey. Yes, Underwater Hockey. See more here:
Anyway, I personally don’t play the sport but came to the facility to watch them play and then ended up using the place myself. The pool is very well maintained, and I like the fact that they have a recreational pool for the less serious swimmers who want to do more leisurely laps. The gym has lots of cardio equipment and weight machines in great condition. The entire facility seems very new, and it’s a pleasure going there.