Life Leisure

Having been an avid gym goer for many years, and leaving behind a family of gym buddies in Birmingham, finding a decent gym up north was very important to me. I spent a long time researching my options and seeing as it was unlikely that I could stay with my chain of club the search began for a replacement. After a bit of googleing and a quick phone call I went down to Life Leisure, Houldsworth village and after being tempted by a student friendly monthly fee I joined up.



For those that don’t know, Life Leisure is the face of Stockport Sports Trust and the facilities in Reddish seem to be very new and modern. For me there are a number of things I look for in a good gym: cleanliness, decent opening hours, good facilities and staff attitude. The last may seem a little odd but I find it really important to be in a positive, motivating environment. At Life Leisure the staff are friendly but some of the trainers and instructors seem fairly young and at the start of their fitness careers which can limit their knowledge and confidence.

The atmosphere can vary but is normally positive. A wide range of people are members and so working out is not intimidating in the slightest.  During classes there is normally a sense of team morale with members encouraging each other.



All of the facilities are cleaned to a very high standard and most of the equipment is top of the range with iPod docks and if you don’t want to listen to music you can watch one of the wall-mounted televisions. The gym itself is fairly small with limited equipment. They have everything you would expect as well as keeping up to date with the latest freestyle training trend offering ViPR and kettlebell classes; I would like to see more Freestyle equipment such as TRX or core bags but there is simply not the space. Unusually Life Leisure has two X-Dream bikes – exercise bikes that are more like videogames and take your mind off the exercise. Recently one of the indoor football pitches has been transformed into a basketball/badminton court which I am excited to try out.

If you don’t fancy hitting the gym there are a wide variety of classes to try out, although these often become very busy so booking ahead is a must. This can be very frustrating, especially when people do not turn up.

A class only membership is available, and a discounted full membership is also currently on offer at a very reasonable £17.99 per month. Pop into the club for more information and hopefully I’ll see you in there soon.

By Liz Edwards