Gyms in Banff – Sally Borden Fitness and Recreation
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Box 1020, Stn. 27, Banff, Alberta, T1L 1H5
Website
Opening Times: Mon-Fri: 6:00-22:00, Sat and Sun and state holidays: 7:00 – 22:00.
Cost: $15 for a day pass. (Swimming is only $5.50 though!)
Although a one week free trial is offered, it is clear from the website that this is only offered to local residents.
Location
Sally Borden Fitness is located about 15-20 minutes walk south of Banff town centre. Finding a gym in Banff centre proved tricky!
Facilities
The club has a medium-sized gym, located within a sports centre, which has other facilities including a 25m pool and climbing walls.
When I attended on a Saturday afternoon at 1630, the gym was not busy (3-10 people at different times) and it was easy to get on equipment. However, being a not very large gym, it does lack duplicates of equipment. I couldn’t find many resistance machines, the main ones being the leg extension, leg curl and a couple of leg press machines. There is also a lat pull down and (my favourite!) an assisted chin ups machine, in addition to regular pull-up bars.
When I attended on a Monday at 5pm the gym was only a little busier than on a Saturday, and I struggled only to get on the lat pull down due it being in demand.
Weights
The gym also has an excellent range of free weights, and despite being smaller than the big chains I’ve visited, impressively offers the same range of barbells. These range from 15-110lbs, and dumbbells from 5-100lbs. You’ll also find discs and medicine balls. There is an additional set of dumbbells in the lightweight range too.
For leg work, the gym has two squat stations, a Smith machine and hack squat machine. There are also several benches for use with free weights, including one set up for bench presses.
Cardio
The gym offers a good range of cardio equipment. These consist of five treadmills, four ellipticals, three bikes plus three spinning bikes, one Arc trainer and one rowing machine.
Functional Training
Everything is well spaced out, and there’s even a (very small) room just outside the gym overlooking the pool with a Swiss ball and a mat for floor work. However this room is not air-conditioned – it’s effectively in the pool area. But you will find sufficient space in the gym where you can do floor work and several mats are available.
Summary ~ Gyms in Banff – Sally Borden Fitness
Whilst perhaps a little expensive for the price, Banff is a touristy area and from what I can see, there is little competition in gyms. Other than a crossfit gym and a personal training gym, I couldn’t find another gym in Banff. Bear in mind though, at Sally Borden Fitness your $15 is a day pass for the whole club, not just the gym. The steam room was a welcome finish to my workout, especially as it was a very cold day and I’d spent four hours of it hiking prior to coming here to weight-train! There is also a jacuzzi which was sadly out of order when I attended.
Definitely worth going to this gym in Banff if you want to weight train and don’t rely on resistance machines. But I’d recommend avoiding peak times if you don’t want to risk waiting for equipment.
Alternatively, go hiking. I recommend Lake Louise and (separately) the Sulphur Mountain trail.
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