Let’s be honest. Nobody in LA picks a gym for the equipment. You pick it for the people. Where you work out says more about you than your car, your zip code and your rising sign combined, and everyone at pickup already knows which one you go to because you’re still wearing the hoodie.
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Gold’s Gym Venice
This is the Mecca. Joe Gold opened it in Venice in 1965, Arnold trained here, and Pumping Iron was filmed here. A German fitness company now owns the place — it bought Gold’s out of bankruptcy in 2020 for $100 million. TripAdvisor lists the gym under “Spas & Wellness.” Do not believe this. No place has ever been less spa.
Who you’ll find there:
A guy who’s been bulking since 1994. He is not done. He will never be done.
Tourists taking photos of the squat rack.
Someone’s dad in the merch shop buying a shirt he’ll never work out in.
Everyone knows: The machines haven’t been cleaned since 1999, but if you workout here your immune system is as strong as your brachialis.
BURN, Brentwood
BURN is the hot pink room on San Vicente where the workout happens under infrared heat and medical-grade red light. The method, from founder Maria Chase, mixes weighted work with low-impact isometric holds — tiny movements, held until you shake. The signature class is BURN45: forty-five minutes of HIIT with light weights, bands, sliders, and your own body weight, in twenty-to-forty-five-second sets. ISOBURN is the same idea without the jumping. The red light is supposed to help with recovery, skin, and hormones, all of it. You’re mostly here because everyone you know suddenly goes here.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone who found it through a friend and won’t stop talking about the benefits of red light.
A former Barry’s person, now strictly low-impact.
Someone taking a selfie in the pink room before class.
Everyone knows: You don’t just show up. You plan around it, like everyone else.
Barry’s Bootcamp
Barry’s started in West Hollywood in 1998, and now it’s in 15 countries, but the original Red Room still feels like a nightclub that only plays treadmill. You will pay roughly the price of a nice lunch to be told you’re not running fast enough. And you’ll book again for tomorrow.
Who you’ll find there:
An instructor shouting “ALL OUT” at 6am.
A throng of type-A entrepreneurs, getting yelled at in red lighting.
A first-timer who thought “Red Room” was a metaphor.
Everyone knows: You can't tell who's crying, which is exactly why everyone keeps coming back.
Megaformer
It is not Pilates. The machine looks like a reformer that went to private school: springs, cables, a sliding carriage, and nowhere to hide. The class is fifty minutes, the music is loud, and the entire workout happens in slow motion. You move an inch. You hold it. You shake. The instructor, very calmly, tells you to slow down.
By minute ten your legs are burning. By minute thirty you have made peace with the fact that you will feel this getting out of the car tomorrow.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone who has done this four hundred times and is still shaking.
A first-timer whispering, “Is it supposed to hurt like this?”
Twenty-somethings drinking $9 lattes.
Everyone knows: It is just pilates, they say. Then they try it for themselves and send you flowers.
BoxUnion, Santa Monica
Places: 1755 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica
BoxUnion is the boxing studio on Ocean Avenue where the class is forty-five minutes, six punches, and a bag that doesn’t hit back. You arrive twenty minutes early to get your hands wrapped (rental gloves $2, wraps $5), learn the six punches, and then it’s boxing rounds mixed with sculpt circuits — the Signature class, plus Slasher Sculpt. The room runs loud, the coaches correct your form mid-round, and they’re in it with you, not shouting from a platform.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone getting their stress out on the bag before work.
A first-timer learning the six punches, twenty minutes early like they were told.
Someone who came for the boxing and stayed for the coaches.
Everyone knows: It’s the only place where hitting things counts as self-care.
Hume, Venice
Hume is a 13,500-square-foot wellness club in Venice with a rooftop café, a sauna, cold tubs and a membership you have to apply for. It’s rapidly becoming the place everyone goes to be seen, not necessarily to work out.
To be fair, the café is where you’re supposed to hang. Phones are banned from the ground floor studio, and tripods are not allowed. So the influencers aren’t skipping the workout. They’re following the rules. We appreciate this.
Who you’ll find there:
A founder taking a call about his seed round.
Someone explaining their cortisol to someone else’s cortisol.
Someone in a matching neutral set that has never touched a weight.
Everyone knows: You’re really there for the spa and the social hours.
Tracy Anderson Method, Brentwood
Yes. This is still a thing. The Tracy Anderson Method is twenty years old and suddenly everywhere again — Gen Z found it on TikTok, and the Brentwood studio is the room everyone is talking about. The method is dance cardio in a 95-degree room: small, repetitive movements with resistance bands, sequenced to target one muscle group at a time, with choreography that keeps changing. It’s muscular design, in Tracy’s language. Phones are banned for drop-ins; members, who reportedly pay around $900 a month, can still film. The studio just announced IDENTITY, a new online program built on a diagnostic that sorts you into one of seven physical types.
Who you’ll find there:
A Gen Z regular who found it on TikTok and now never misses.
A longtime member who has been doing this since the DVDs.
A member filming her workout. Drop-ins can’t.
Everyone knows: Twenty years old, and TikTok just discovered it.
Sweat Yoga
The room is infrared-heated, dark and has no mirrors, which is a kindness, because nobody needs to see what’s happening to their face by minute twenty. You will sweat through your mat, your towel, your soul, and the person next to you’s mat. You’ll leave looking like you fell into the ocean fully clothed and then walked home.
The reward at the end is a cool lavender towel. You will hold it to your face like it’s the last cold thing on earth.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone who owns eleven pairs of the same black leggings for exactly this reason.
A first-timer lying in child’s pose for the full hour.
A guy who did not bring a towel and is now everyone’s problem.
Everyone knows: You’ll leave looking like you fell in the ocean fully clothed.
The 9:00am Reformer Class
Places: Sweat Pilates, Speir, Mighty Pilates, Pilates Cave, Tribe Pilates, Pilates on Main, Pilates on Montana
It doesn’t matter which studio. It’s the one closest to school, and it starts exactly twelve minutes after the bell. You booked it the second the schedule dropped on Sunday night, and getting there is more cardio than you’ll do in the class.
The class is fifty minutes. The parking lot conversation afterward is forty-five, and it’s where the actual business happens: who’s applying where, which teacher everyone wants next year, whose husband is “traveling” again. Some of you aren’t even here for the reformer. You’re here for the group chat to turn into a real-life one.
Who you’ll find there:
A mom in a matching set in a color called something like “oat” or “mushroom.”
A mom with a Stanley cup, still wearing the sunglasses from carpool.
One mom who actually takes it seriously and is visibly annoyed by the rest of you.
Everyone knows: The real business happens in the parking lot afterward.
Shefa Yoga, Venice
Shefa is the Venice studio on Main Street with three rooms — one heated, one not, one for workshops — and a class list that doesn’t pick a lane: Vinyasa, Rocket, Heated 26&2, Hot Mat Pilates, Sculpt & Flow, Yin with Reiki. The name means abundance in Hebrew and healing in Arabic, and the studio leans into it: woman-owned, community-first, tea station, ice baths, yoga-and-brunch. Their instructors also run the free Saturday sessions at the Santa Monica Pier. One class is literally called Shake Your Chakras, taught with a live DJ.
Who you’ll find there:
doSelf proclaimed psychics fine tuning her skills.
Very sweaty men doing ice baths after class.
A vegan yogi silently judging the post class mimosa crew.
Everyone knows: The only place where “Shake Your Chakras” isn’t said ironically.
Muscle Beach, Venice
Gold’s Gym’s outdoor cousin. It’s been running since 1963, it calls itself the “Home of Bodybuilding,” and a day pass is $10. Ten dollars! The cheapest gym in LA is also the one where the most people will watch you. It closes when it rains, which is the most LA sentence in this entire guide.
Who you’ll find there:
Lifters in the cage on the boardwalk.
Four hundred tourists, cameras out.
A man on roller skates playing a keytar behind you.
Everyone knows: Working out here means you’re either broke or a voyeur.
The Santa Monica Stairs
Two staircases, 189 and 170 steps, running from Adelaide Drive down into Santa Monica Canyon. They’re free. They’re also on one of the most expensive streets on the Westside.
Try to keep your lunges down. (Just kidding. Grunt.)
Who you’ll find there:
Neighbors, watching.
A shirtless guy on his fourth loop
A mom wearing a baby like a weighted vest making everyone look bad.
Everyone knows: You get a little satisfaction knowing the neighbors have spent years trying to get rid of you.
CAMP, Santa Monica
CAMP is built like summer camp for adults. There’s a camp tent at check-in, different class types, yoga rooms, and a fully working tire swing by the bathrooms. The company says its mission is to create “happie, healthier adults.” (Spelled like that. On purpose, we assume, but…well.)
Who you’ll find there:
A member asking the front desk where their favorite instructor went.
The front desk, diffusing.
A man filming himself doing pull ups with exercise bands.
Everyone knows: Don’t get too attached to a teacher. They might just get fired.
Equinox
This is the gym as a second office, except the office has a eucalyptus steam room and nobody is eating lunch at their desk. The towels are cold and smell like a spa. The locker room has the good products. The floor is clean enough that you could eat off it, and someone in here probably has, after a fast.
You do your workout, you shower, you leave looking like a person who has their life together. Whether you actually do is between you and your calendar.
Who you’ll find there:
A guy taking a work call on the treadmill.
A woman in a matching set who has already done Pilates today.
A trainer with a clipboard who knows your name, your knee, and your travel schedule.
Everyone knows: You’re mostly there for the smoothie.
Orangetheory Fitness
There is no hiding here. Your name is on the board, your heart rate is up there, and the color tells everyone whether you are working or just visiting. Gray, green, orange, red. The goal is twelve splat points, which is twelve minutes in the orange and red zones combined, which is the scientific way of saying you actually got a work out that day.
You rotate through the rower, the treadmill, and the floor. The coach calls base, push, all out, and you pretend the all out was a choice.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone staring at the screen instead of the coach.
Someone who got exactly twelve splats and is screenshotting it in the parking lot.
Someone who got thirty and is trying very hard not to mention it.
Everyone knows: It's the only gym where your report card arrives before you've showered.
The Class, Santa Monica
The Class is the Santa Monica studio on Main Street where the workout is also a release. It’s music-driven and somatic: repetitive calisthenics and plyometrics — shaking, sculpting, jacking, opening, unraveling — with breathwork and cathartic sound, built to move stuck energy. People scream. That’s not a side effect; it’s the method. The room is famous as New York’s most emotional workout, with a celebrity following (Aniston, Paltrow, Keys, Stone), and the LA studio runs the same way. Sessions last an hour, with a 45-minute Express in the afternoons.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone screaming at the top of their lungs, in a good way.
Someone who found it through a friend's "you have to try this" text and feeling very uncomfortable.
Someone who cried in class and came back the next day.
Everyone knows: It’s actually just group therapy with cardio.
SoulCycle
The room is dark. There are no numbers on a screen and no leaderboard. There is a playlist, an instructor on a platform, and forty-five minutes of tap it back, push-ups on the bike, and a little arm section with weights so light you will be surprised you feel them tomorrow.
The instructor will tell you to let something go. You will, briefly, because you are too out of breath to hold on to it. Then you will go back outside and pick it right back up again, which is also fine. That is what next class is for.
Who you’ll find there:
The front row, booked a week ago, choreography memorized.
Someone crying a little during the arms song.
Someone who can’t figure out how to unclip from the bike.
Everyone knows: The playlist does more work than the bike.
Satorii Yoga + Wellness
Places: Santa Monica (Berkeley Street), West LA
Note the spelling: Satorii, with two i’s. This is the serious studio. They do teacher training here. They do Rocket, a ninety-minute Ashtanga-derived practice, lightly heated. They do sound baths, with singing bowls and gongs, not heated at all, where the whole workout is lying still and letting the noise in your head quiet down.
No sculpt class with weights. No one shouting over EDM. Just a teacher who will correct your form, in a nice way, and then correct it again.
Who you’ll find there:
A teacher-training student taking notes after class.
Someone who can do a handstand and is very quiet about it.
Someone asleep, in a good way, during the sound bath.
Everyone knows: You talk about Dharma Mittra like you met him personally and think rocket yoga is lifestyle.
Everyone Knows rating: 5/5 — For people who actually do yoga.
Venice Run Club
Venice Run Club is free, which in this guide is practically a scandal. Wednesday at 6:30pm, 4.5 miles from the parking lot on Dell Avenue. Saturday at 8:30am, six miles or ten-plus, same lot. Tuesday is track night in Culver City, sign-up required, capped at eighty runners because the track is only so big.
They have guided more than a thousand people to their first marathon.
Who you’ll find there:
Someone training for a first marathon and telling everyone about it.
Someone who came for the run and stayed for the people, which is the whole pitch.
A chatty runner and a silent runner, side by side.
Everyone knows: Fourteen hundred runners a week. For free, which is practically a scandal.
Everyone Knows rating: 5/5 — A social life that happens to involve running.
“I Don’t Work Out”
No membership. No grip socks. No 6am alarm. You have a dog, a stroller, and a tote bag full of groceries. You walk the neighborhood, you carry the kid, you call it steps, and honestly, it is.
You are not anti-gym. You are just busy, and tired, and a little bit smug about the fact that you got your ten thousand steps without paying anyone to watch you do it.
Who you’ll find there:
Yourself, outside, getting your steps without paying anyone.
Someone taking the stairs because the elevator is slow.
Everyone knows: You’re reading this guide for the tea, not the gyms.
Welp. That’s where LA sweats. Some of us are here for the gains, some for the content, some for the parking lot gossip, and some of us just want a cold lavender towel and five minutes where nobody needs a snack.
Pick your people. Then pick your class.
Did I leave out your gym? Is your instructor still employed? Email us at everybodyknowsinla@gmail.com.
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