We Tried the Best Gyms in the USA

In partnership with

It’s the start of the year and pretty much every gym in the world is offering some sort of incentive to get you to sign up. We’ll talk about some of these, then we’ll dig into Smith Machine deadlifts, and we’ll share a talk with the founder of a popular AI training program. Please let us know what you want to see next. We’ve got a survey below. Be as vague or specific as you want. And happy new year!

This Week’s Resources

• We Tried the Best Gyms in the USA (YouTube)

• The Best “Big Name” Gyms for Powerlifters

• How to Do the Smith Machine Sumo Deadlift

• Free Month with 3-Month Paid Training Package (Google Forms)

• Is an Anytime Fitness Membership Worth It?

• How to Decide on Home Gym vs. Gym Membership

• On-Demand Powerlifting Video Courses

• 20 Minutes with Chad Wesley Smith: How to Use AI Powerlifting

The Best Big-Name Gyms for Powerlifting

Look, we likely didn’t visit the 5-person club in the closet of your office building where Jason from Accounting benches 325 at lunch. We would, but nobody could hear us knocking over the thrum of music inside. Instead, we asked a bunch of contributors to visit big-name gyms for beginners. They reviewed the best options with an eye for our specific needs.

Here are some quick takeaways. We’ve got more in-depth reviews for each if you’re considering any of them.

Planet Fitness

If you’re looking for the best budget option for gyms, you can’t do much better than Planet Fitness. It’s not a powerlifting gym. Instead, it’s an asset if you’ve got your own squat rack and deadlift platform and you want a place to vary your strength training. They brand themselves around inclusivity and they don’t like when you grunt while you lift. But they’re inexpensive, clean, and located in so many places.

Gold’s Gym

Our review of Gold’s Gym is pretty in-depth. The quick takeaway? It’s best for bodybuilders and good for powerlifters. They’ve got squat racks, deadlift platforms, barbells and plates, and everything else you need to focus on the big three lifts.

Anytime Fitness

Here’s the short version of our full Anytime Fitness review: A membership is worth it for non-competitive powerlifters, CrossFitters, or recreational gym-goers. The facilities are clean, there’s a good mix of strength and cardio equipment, and the gym is convenient since you can use your membership at any location, and they’re open 24/7.

Of course, the best (and sometimes the most cost-effective) option is to build your own gym. Lots of lifters get a squat rack or an all-in-one setup to focus on squat, deadlift, and bench. We’ve got an article that breaks down how to choose between a home gym vs. gym membership.

Partner Message

The Daily Newsletter for Intellectually Curious Readers

If you're frustrated by one-sided reporting, our 5-minute newsletter is the missing piece. We sift through 100+ sources to bring you comprehensive, unbiased news—free from political agendas. Stay informed with factual coverage on the topics that matter.

Join for free today!

Free Month with 3-Month Training Package

If you’re looking for an online coach, now’s a good time to set up a consultation. We have several powerlifting coaches we work with. And Joseph Lucero (who you might recognize from our YouTube channel) is offering a free month to anyone who books a three-month paid training package.

This is only open to the first ten people to sign up. Here’s the registration form if you’re interested!

The Smith Machine Sumo Deadlift

A sumo deadlift has a wider stance than the conventional deadlift, isolating the quads more. Overall, it's a compound movement that strengthens the entire posterior chain with only one movement.

The Smith machine is a great tool for sumo deadlifts, especially for beginner lifters who need some form of assistance or are apprehensive about doing a conventional deadlift with a barbell. We have a full guide to the Smith Machine Sumo Deadlift that shows how to do it, common mistakes, and how to add them to your workout.

One common mistake? Most beginner and novice lifters will let their hips rise too fast while their chest falls forward during the first pull off the floor. This positional fault will make the lift much more difficult to complete because the moment arm acting on the lower back is now increased in length (fun physics stuff here 🙂).

Basically, when the hips rise too fast, you will be using your weaker and injury-prone lower back muscles to do the lift instead of the stronger lower body muscles.

For more back exercises with a Smith machine, check out the full post.

Chad Wesley Smith Interview: Founder & Creator of Juggernaut AI

Chad Wesley Smith created one of the best powerlifting programs, and you’ve probably heard of it: The Juggernaut Method. But he was frustrated with cookie-cutter training programs, so he took his approach to the next level and developed a personalized training program using AI.

Juggernaut AI is one of the first strength training apps that uses artificial intelligence to take your real-time feedback and recalibrate your workout as you train.

If you're a lifter who wants to try one of the top programs and can't afford to have a top-level in-person coach, then Juggernaut is a great option. Chad Wesley Smith also has an inspiring personal story, from breaking records to overcoming debilitating injuries, so there are many nuggets of wisdom to unpack.

Want to read a transcript instead? We’ve got it on the site.