Wawan Fitness Club
Jalan Kubu Anyar, Kuta, 80361, Bali.
Opening Hours: Mon – Sat: 7:00 – 20:00, Sun: 7:00 – 13:00
Cost: 30k per day, or 100k per week, or 150k for 2 weeks.
Location
I stumbled across Wawan Fitness after staying close to Denpasar Airport on my first night in Bali. I’d deliberately booked accommodation as close to the airport as possible so I wouldn’t have to walk far upon arrival, or pay the taxi prices here. As always, my next thought (after food!) was where I could work out. This gym is the closest I could find to the airport and it’s correctly located on Google. You’ll see a sign to it on the street – easy.
Facilities
It won’t take you long to realise Wawan Fitness is not a top of the range gym. At 30k a go it’s budget-friendly at least and this medium sized gym’s big positive for me is the large floor space area. It’s also well equipped with weights, but don’t expect them to be remotely tidy though – I only saw one pair of dumbbells on the entire rack, probably for the novelty value! The rest could be pretty much anywhere on the gym floor.
Decor is so-so and equipment is pretty old. But there were a fair number of locals training when I turned up. In fact, I think it was only locals – reception didn’t speak English either, though they’ll understand you want to use the gym and show you the price list.
Note there is no aircon here and I didn’t see any fans either. So be sure to take plenty of water and a towel to mop yourself up with.
TRX Training – A Superb All-Round Body Workout
Weights
You’ll find a good number of dumbbells here though I’m unsure what weight they went up to for two reasons:
1. They were composed of discs and weren’t labelled.
2. They were in such disarray scattered all over the gym, it would have taken a while to locate the heaviest weight. Good luck.
If I had to guess I’d say the dumbbells went up to 35kg. You’ll also find a few adjustable barbells in different shapes.
I was pleased to see a good range of equipment here though, and despite the fact that much of it is ageing, people seemed to be using it successfully. I found cable crossovers, a lat pulldown, tricep pulldown and preacher curl station for the upper body.
You’ll also see several bench press stations – inclined, declined and flat. There’s an additional bench press station which doubles up with the Smith machine too. In fact you’re spoilt for Smith machines, I found two here, unusually!
For the lower body you’ll find a squat rack, loadable inclined leg press, hanging leg raise and a combined leg extension / leg curl and a calf raise machine.
Other resistance equipment includes a pec dec, row, and an additional lat pulldown.
You’ll also find a hip extension bench, declined abs benches and a rotary abs station.
Functional Training
Well it’s an interesting one, this. One the one hand, you’ll be excited the see that Wawan Fitness opens out into a large empty room at the back. It’s clean, it’s spacious, and when I went there was no-one in it. Yay, floorspace! But wait… there are no mats! And before you think you’ll just lie down and deal with it, it’s worth knowing the floor is composed of hard tiles. Ouch. And although I looked for mats I didn’t see any around. The gym floor is a bit softer, but it’s far from inviting to lie on.
I looked around for gym toys but disappointingly, didn’t find anything. I thought it was a real shame they are not maximising the use of this great area.
Summary
Not a bad gym for the price. There’s a good amount of free weights and resistance machines here, although the messy way they are chucked around the gym is not very appealing, nor the fact they are unlabelled.
Th price tag will appeal to budget travellers and its proximity to the airport makes its location great for anyone staying nearby before or after flying. Train during cooler times of day so you don’t overheat!
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