I will be moving to Switzerland (Basel) for a new job in 8-10 weeks and I'm trying to get a sense of things before I arrive so I can settle in quickly. One thing that is important to me is a good gym. I'm looking for a gym that has a great selection of barbells and plates, with power racks, squat racks, and olympic lifting platforms. If it has gymnastics rings, boxes for box jumps, and kettle-bells, even better ! My workouts generally consist of compound lifts with barbells, and added-on extras with the aforementioned equipment, but all the gyms I can find online in the Basel area seem to be "fitness club" type gyms with rows of cardio machines and padded weight machines, spas and saunas, etc. While I'm sure that is relaxing for some people, that's not my thing at all, I really just want a no-frills gym that has a room full of weights so I can get in, workout, and get out, and that's all I need.
Searching through the forum for information on gyms in Basel was a bit disheartening as I didn't see any solid suggestions. The only recent thread with similar requirements to mine recommended fitmade.ch but looking through their images it is mostly cardio machines with some chrome dumbbells. There's got to be some hidden gem in Basel! Surely some segment of the population does powerlifting . Can anyone recommend something? Thanks a lot!
This is in Pratteln, so about 5 or 6 k from central Basel. I think it has evrything you are looking for, lots of free weights, large open training area with rings boxes and stuff...
Thanks for the replies. Get Up Training looks great, though it seems a bit far. I don't have a car and it looks like public transit takes over half an hour, and similar for cycling (I don't own a car), but I'll check it out. The Colosseum doesn't seem to have any power racks based on their gallery online, but is closer so I will check that out as well.
There's a gym near Spalentor called Medical Fitness, the brothers who run it are great lads. Fabri was my personal trainer and is a competitive body builder so the gym is stacked with free weights and he's very knowledgable, might be worth having a peep there.
did you have any luck finding a gym for powerlifting? I am interested as well as in olympics but all I've seen online looks prepared for classes like body pump and cardio but no squatting racks or anything like that...
I spent some time looking at various gyms in Basel - along with yoga, cycling, TRX, crossfit, and boot camp classes. I'm afraid its somewhat slim pickings. The closest gym to SBB is Migros. Indigo and Fitorama are also nearby. Indigo has a 3-month wait-list and Fitorama is not particularly convenient. I ended up at Migros out of default. I think the Swiss are use to a different type of workout; no one really sweats. I was told by an instructor that I had too much weight on my barbell once (it was 20 lbs or 20 kgs, so hardly heavy). Another instructor told me to take it easy in Power Yoga (and not jump to the advance moves). If you're coming from NYC, Philly, Boston, DC and have a New York Sports Club membership (or equivalent), you can use Forum Sports for much less than what the Swiss branches are charging.
Basel has a number of Crossfit gyms. Crossfit Basel specializes more than the others in powerlifting, strongman and oly. Ramon the owner has current natural raw world record in his weight category, so they know their stuff. They may offer an open gym type access if you are sufficiently experienced, more and more Crossfits are. Jackhammer CF definitely does open access, but is a bit outside of the city.