Podium Gym, Koh Pha-Ngan
116/27 Moo 1, Koh Pha-Ngan
Opening Hours: 7:00 – 22:00, 7 days a week
Cost: 200 baht per day or 1000 per week, or 1000 for 7 passes.
NB: The website says a day pass is 300 baht per day, but I was told 200 upon arrival at reception. 🙂
Location and Entry
Welcome to Koh Pha-Ngan! You won’t need to venture far from the pier to find this place; Podium Gym is located in the centre of Thong Sala, in an area called Coco-Garden. It’s about 1.5km east of the pier and easy to find.
You’ll find it on the main road and if you’re heading there from the pier, you’ll need to turn left into the side street to find the entrance. It’s clearly labelled in huge font on the wall – simple! The friendly staff greeted me at reception.
Facilities
This attractive medium to large gym is dived into three parts. The resistance equipment (incl cables and pull up bars etc) are in one room, with free weights, benches and mats in another room, both on the ground floor. There is also a small cardio room upstairs with a drink refill station and a small matted area.
This colourful gym is very modern, clean and in great condition. Best of all it’s comfortably air-conditioned.
Cardio
The cardio equipment consists of three treadmills, two bikes and two crosstrainers. Downstairs there is also a stairclimber. Equipment is modern and in good condition, in a comfortable, well-airconditioned room. You’ll also find a small matted area up here for fairly private floorwork, and a much bigger area for this downstairs.
Weights and Functional Training
The gym has a spacious free weights area where you’ll find dumbbells up to 50kg. There are some duplicates in the lower range, which came in handy when I needed to use those much-sought-after 10kg dumbbells! Although there are no fixed-weight barbells, there are several adjustable ones. You’ll also find a hammer curl station, Swiss balls, stepboards, a hip extension bench and a bench press station in this area. Plenty of benches too!
There’s several good quality mats, tidily stored in a large bucket, and plenty of floorspace in which to use them.
Resistance Machines
The other weights area on the same floor consists of a leg press, leg extension, leg curl, ab/ adductor machine, a shoulder press and a combined pec deck / delts machine.
You’ll also find a squat rack, a couple of sets of pull up bars, cable crossovers, a lat pull down, Smith machine and rowing station as standard in any good gym. The Smith machine comes with an adjustable bench.
Summary
Podium Gym is a lovely modern gym, well air-conditioned and a comfortable workout temperature. The price is a little expensive for casual use if you’re on a budget, but a typical Thai island gym price. The atmosphere was friendly and staff were welcoming.
Koh Pha-Ngan is a fairly large island (well, compared to Koh Tao, where I came from!), so whilst there are other gyms here, this is the only one I found in Thong Sala. The others are all in other parts of the island, several kilometres away.
Enjoyed this?
Check out my Five Top Tips For Keeping Fit Around the World and
How to Look Ripped on Your Travel Adventure – For Free!
Need Travel Insurance?
Check out my feature on Travel Insurance for Adventurers!
