What you get: There are two weight rooms.Location: Sendagaya, take the JR Chuo line and it’s right by the JR station exit.If I remember correctly, it was about 60USD for monthly membership no visa required. There’s no squat rack or barbell, so if you really want a heavy lifting session this place isn’t it. What you get: Dumbbells, weight machines, foam rollers, cardio machines.Location: Daikanyama, near the big Tsutaya area.They’re cheap, too. Not all public gyms have a weight room, but a select few have the sorts of things you need without paying out the wazoo. These are available to the public and residents of that area. ![]() Thankfully, there are city-run gyms in many parts of Japan. The other option is to have a pre-existing membership with Gold’s Gym or Anytime Fitness so that you either pay a small fee to use the chains in Japan or can access them with little issue. I had a friend who was already with Anytime Fitness prior to visiting Japan and was able to waltz into the Anytime Fitness gyms with no issues. One gym I spoke to was willing to deal with the latter method of transferring funds through my friend’s bank account, but I never went through with the deal because I found a better alternative (see below). That strategy won’t work with all employees and gyms, but it’d help your case to be very courteous and understanding. If they balk, another method is to find a close Japanese friend who trusts you enough and is willing to use his or her bank account to open the gym membership account. First, try telling them that you’ll pay in cash. Explain that you’re only in the country for however long and are willing to pay for a membership that’s in one lump sum. If you’re fluent enough with the language or can find English speakers, request to speak directly to the franchise manager. That means you’re left with paying outrageously expensive month-to-month or day visitor passes. Without either of those, I was denied gym membership at just about every place, including Gold’s Gym. A Japanese bank account or credit card which you use to pay your membership.In my experience, if you want to sign up for an actual gym membership, you need: Getting Gym Memberships As a Foreign Visitor Is Tricky Typically, daytime-only is cheaper, so if you can go during the day this would be the better deal. It’s bonkers to me as an American, but whatever. That means a general membership doesn’t necessarily give you anytime access, unless you pay for that feature. They have separate prices for daytime-only usage and full-day access, presumably because nighttime is prime time and really hits the salarymen’s demographic. Want to be able to use it at any time? Sorry, you have to pay extra for that. In Harajuku’s Gold’s Gym, I almost shit a brick when I saw the prices. Here’s the English pamphlet they had:Īlso, gyms in Japan charge memberships based on when you’d like to use the facilities. In America, I paid $30 to $40 on average per month to use the gym. This perspective is obviously based on my anchor point, the price point that I’m used to. If your main love is weight training, Gold’s Gym in Japan is a great option. Gold’s biggest benefit is that you can easily find many other locations throughout Japan.īut…gym memberships in general are really. The problem is, not every gym has a weight room. The big chain gyms include Central Sports, Konami Sports Club, Tipness, NAS, Anytime Fitness, and Gold’s Gym. Eventually though, I realized that there were actually plenty of gyms around Tokyo and other parts of Japan. When I first arrived in Tokyo, I wasn’t sure where to start looking. There are a couple of barriers to finding and accessing a gym in Japan. This came as a surprise to me because while Japan may be lightyears ahead in cool tech like trains that bring you sushi and toilets that squirt at your bum, opinions about gym culture and weightlifting are still stuck in the 60s. ![]() So one day, when I walked around Shibuya, one of the famous wards in Tokyo, I came across an Under Armour billboard that featured a Japanese woman holding a barbell (!!!!). Here’s what I know about finding and accessing a gym (with weights!).įitness and gyms aren’t what you normally associate with Japan. Lifting weights is an important part of my routine, but it took me a lot of sleuthing to figure out where all the good, affordable gyms in Japan are. I spend quite a bit of time on a visitor visa in Tokyo. Where the hell are all the gyms in Japan? ![]() But if you care about your fitness and working out in a gym, you might wonder: Most people visit Japan for the cuteness, Godzilla, crazy robot shows, ramen, sushi, and all that other super Japanese stuff.
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