Kayla Young
Have you chosen to join Anytime Fitness for strength training? They have a great selection of gym equipment that can help you improve your strength. That’s why even beginners who want to lift weights consider membership at Anytime Fitness.
With many different gym equipment types available, you can’t help but ask “Does Anytime Fitness have free weights?” The great news is that Anytime Fitness has a solid selection of free weights.
Anytime Fitness has a free weight area where you can do various exercises. What type of exercises can you do with the free weights? What are the best ones for beginners?
We’ll answer all that below.
Contents
Why Does Anytime Fitness Have Free Weights?
There are lots of big chain gyms like Planet Fitness, OrangeTheory, Equinox, and Crossfit in the US. Anytime Fitness is another large chain that lands in the middle of all of those.
Not the cheapest, not the most expensive. Good equipment and culture, and you’re not joining a cult. Open 24 hours, has amenities. What’s not to like?
AF offers lots of cardio equipment as well as strength training equipment and classes.
Anytime Fitness actually has a specific free weight area. In this area, you will find dumbbells, Olympic bars, Olympic plates, as well as preloaded barbells.
The area is really well organized and you could also find other equipment like adjustable benches so you can perform various exercises with free weights. Many locations even have a deadlift platform for deadlifts.
No matter what level of strength or fitness you are, you can certainly find the weight that suits you the most in there.
Reasons To Work Out With Free Weights
In order to further strengthen your muscles and burn more calories, you can incorporate free weights into your workout routine.
Compared to machines, many prefer to work out with free weights when it comes to strength and resistance training. Here’s why:
For Functionality
The best exercises are those that help you improve your performance even if outside the gym, Most of the functional exercises use free weights.
Free weights let you move your body like you would in normal life. On the contrary, machines will usually have you move in a single plane. Useful, but limited.
Free Weight Exercises Are Efficient
Have you ever wobbled while exercising with free weights? That is actually a good thing because the other muscles of your body, especially the larger ones and the core, all work to make sure you don’t fall even if you wobble.
That means you aren’t only limited to strengthening a specific muscle — you work out other areas too. With machines, many claim they are safer because they follow a set path or is limited to one direction only.
With that, the motion is stabilized for you. This is a missed opportunity for your other muscles to work too.
Improve Balance
Apart from working various muscles, working out with free weights also helps improve your balance and coordination.
Burn Lots Of Calories
Working out with free weights also help you burn more calories. You will build muscle, improve your overall metabolism, and achieve better health.
Improve Your Strength
Weights are great for strength training. Although resistance machines can also help you build strength, more muscles of the core and legs are used with free weights rather than resistance machines.
How Heavy Should The Weights Be?
If you decide to work with free weights, one of the first questions you’ll have in your head is how much weight should you use. Well, that would really depends on your fitness level.
There are several factors to consider such as your level of fitness, the exercise you are doing, and your training history.
If you still are not sure whether the weights are enough, ask yourself if you can feel the weight? Is it really enough? Or does it feel like the weight isn’t really making a difference?
To avoid choosing something that’s too heavy, you also need to ask yourself if you can really perform the exercise in the correct form and in the correct number of sets with that certain weight.
How many reps and sets could you go through with the right form? If you can only go through one, then it may not be the best weight for that exercise.
Remember that you don’t have to immediately jump to heavier weights. You should gradually increase the weight as your strength improves.
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