In Rockbridge County High School, gym culture has taken a significant rise, this comes from the availability of strength training classes and the encouragement of working out amongst peers. There are numerous gyms in Rockbridge County, including, Fit Time Fitness, Washington and Lee’s gym, YMCA, Rockbridge Barbell, and two Focus Fitness establishments in Lexington and Buena Vista.

One gym in Rockbridge County is Fit Time Fitness, which is located in Buena Vista. The original name of this gym was called Flex fitness. This gym is open 24/7, making it a reliable for people who have varying schedules or normally workout at night where most gyms aren’t open. This gym contains a cardio area with treadmills, indoor bikes, rowing machines, and more. This gym also contains plenty of machines, benches, squat racks, dumbbells, and even an indoor basketball court. A monthly single membership for Fit Time Fitness would cost $45.

Another gym, which is popular in Rockbridge County is the YMCA. The main reason this gym is popular in Rockbridge County is the close proximity of the YMCA to the High School. This gym contains the basics needed to workout, like cardio machines, treadmills, a free weight room with machines. The One-Time joining fee for people 15-19 years old is $25 and the Monthly bank draft is $39. There is a group of students who go to the YMCA after school, and junior Chase Reynolds is one of these students.

“This gym is pretty average compared to other gyms in Rockbridge County, I picked this gym because of the close proximity to the school,” Reynolds said.

Another gym, which is also popular in Rockbridge County, is the Washington and Lee (W&L) gym. The W&L gym is available for college students of W&L, and people who have parents or close family who work at W&L. W&L’s gym has a team lifting room, in the main room of the gym, there’s a good amount of treadmills and free weights, there’s another room with machines. A group of seniors go to the W&L gym mornings before school, and two of those seniors are Ayron Wu and John Brooke.

“The YMCA gym doesn’t have as nice of equipment as the W&L gym. There’s a lot more variety in the W&L gymwhile there’s a smaller variety for the YMCA gym,” said Brooke.

Ayron Wu is another senior that goes to the W&L gym mornings before school.

“Being around college students at the W&L gym makes me feel more grown up in a sense,” Wu said.

Another gym in Rockbridge County is Rockbridge Barbell. This gym offers open gym, which costs $50 a month, $225 a month for group sessions, and $100 per 50 minute session with coach Red Dowdell.

While this is pricey, owner Red Dowdell has experience working with Major Baseball League (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), and National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) D1 athletes. This gym contains a couple of squat racks, a dumbbell rack, bikes, treadmills, a kaiser machine, and more equipment. Jane Leonard, a previous co-owner of Rockbridge Barbell and current attendee, shares benefits of Rockbridge Barbell.

“I picked this gym over others because Red Dowdell, the owner, has history with pro sport athletes and has sport specific strength training, and as a previous and current athlete, it’s important to me to have a strength coach that can support me. It’s also unique that in group sessions, there’s a variety of people, from high school athletes to 70 year olds, it adds a sense of community,” Leonard said.

There are two Focus Fitness Labs in Rockbridge County. Both of these gyms have completely private training that lasts 30 minutes to an hour, and they also offer personal training, and it’s cheap, costing $5 dollars a person for an hour session. There’s one in Lexington and there’s one in Buena Vista. They both have, dumbbells, medicine balls, an indoor bike, a treadmill, and more.

There are plenty of gyms in Rockbridge County and they’re all different and unique in their own ways. They all have different atmospheres with different benefits to them.