24 Hour Fitness Pools: YUCK

Started swimming at the 24hr by me.  I kept getting these boils. 

Haven't had any since I started swimming the my Community Rec-Plex.

Things that make you go...hummm

I had a 24 hr memembership until about a year ago.  They had a "salt water" pool so chemicals was not an issue.  Actually the water was quite nice and especially not too hot!  But it was only 4 lanes w/no flags so I had to wait from time to time.  The pool was out of service once every couple of months and what bothered me was the time it took to fix it.  Sometimes up to a week.

The cleanest pools have a very low "chlorine" smell. The ones that smell strongly like chlorine don't generally have more chlorine than normal. They actually are dirtier, but you smell the chloramines that are caused by body oils, grime, urine, etc when combined with the chlorine. So the more a pool smells like chlorine, the dirtier it really is. Nice huh?

http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_chlorine/science_sec.asp?CID=1270&DID=4750&CTYPEID=113

I don't belong to 24 hr fitness, but I'll quip in  - I am a member of LVAC that has about 6 or 7 locations (maybe more) throughout Vegas. I've visited most of them, and they all have pros and cons. 

One nice pool I like that is pretty much always clean, but very cold. 

Another pool that is real close to me tend to be iffy. A few weeks it will be clean and clear, then becomes yucky. Water is right temp, maybe a little cold, but not as cold as the first one.

Third pool is always very warm, a little too warm, but very salty compared to the other two above.

Fourth pool tend to be overly crowded with people who are walking the laps, and they can't be bothered to go in the jogging pool (there's two different pools...one for jogging, and one for laps).  A little too heavy on the chlorine though. 

I have never gotten sick from the pools. 

So I tend to just HTFU and get my workouts in.  You cannot expect the pool to be perfect everytime just like OWS. :-)  However, complain to the manager, and see that it gets done. Sometimes they don't KNOW until someone complains to them. If it's still very yucky/murky after a week or two, change to another 24 hr fitness if there is one (I'm lucky that Vegas has several all over the place) or change membership. 

BTW - my point is, it has nothing to do with 24 Hr Fitness themselves...it varies from location to location, especially with the person doing the pool maintenance. 

I used to be a member at 24 hour fitness when i first started training.  I hated the pool because it was always cold, only had 3 lanes (always full) and the shallow end was waaay too shallow.  I kept scraping my feet and knees on the ground when I'd turn around.  It was clean, but not very functional IMHO. (20 Meter pool too)

I had a lifetime membership there, so it was virtually a free gym but purely because of the pool I joined a real gym and love it.  Lifetime Fitness (my new gym) has incredible swimming facilities!!!

I used to be a personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness and I can tell you unlike a facility like YMCA the people that work there, in general, have no knowledge of how to take care of a pool so they dump chemicals and don't test the water often enough.

Chiming in much like CyborgQueen.  I belong to the local park district and they keep the water too warm (for the senior citizens) and seem to be incapable of vacuuming what I can only describe as "chunks of stuff" out of the pool.  The chemical levels seem to be just right, so I'm certain everything is "dead".

So, like CyborgQueen, I HTFU and think about how "clean" my OWS practices are going to be and that the floaties will be much bigger.  The difference - I won't be able to see them as clearly. 

I think though that I'm going to say something to the front desk folks.  It's a smidge disconcerting when you correct your head position and something that resembles a small jellyfish comes into view dead ahead...in a 25yd pool...with only 6 lanes...

I do a lot of my swim training at a 24hr fitness.  I have to admit the pool is pretty gross.  I don't think its ever made me sick or anything but the water is very murky.  It also tastes a bit like a pool full of sun screen or something.

I go because its way cheaper than the alternatives around and I can usually get half a lane to myself.

unlike a facility like YMCA the people that work there, in general, have no knowledge of how to take care of a pool so they dump chemicals and don't test the water often enough.

This ^^

The cleanest pools have a very low "chlorine" smell. The ones that smell strongly like chlorine don't generally have more chlorine than normal. They actually are dirtier, but you smell the chloramines that are caused by body oils, grime, urine, etc when combined with the chlorine. So the more a pool smells like chlorine, the dirtier it really is. Nice huh?

And this^^

It varies by site.

The one I am at is kind of sketchy, but not enough to make me stop.

My last one was very clean, and I routinely saw staff check levels and entering them in a log.

This thread really makes me appreciate my current pool.  Granted we'd had our share of problem i.e. the heater kept breaking over the winter but all in all the pool is mostly clean, warm, 8 lanes and 25 yards long.

But my favorite place, even though I had a panic attack swimming here alone when it was cold is the Quarry at Pure Austin in Austin Texas