Valencia St. Muscle

Let me tell you about Valencia St. Muscle. The carpet is threadbare and stained. The restrooms have the smell of a bus station. Almost all of the equipment is battered and bruised. There are mirrors everywhere, many with cracks. They have those god awful hexagonal shaped plates that shift about when you set them down when deadlifting.

It's rarely busy, but when it is you will find an amazing cross section of mutants. Lifting gloves are the norm. Personal trainers seem to be fond of every kind of program except those that include the basic compound lifts. Grossly out of shape men flex in front of the mirrors, clearly feeling the pump of their tri-cep pulldowns.
I love this place.

It's basically Average Joe's Gym from the movie Dodgeball.


There are three squat racks, and they are almost never occupied by anyone. I have never seen more than 10 people here at a time and they are almost always chained to the cardio equipment.

No one says anything to you or comments about what you're doing. There are no clowns running around doing Mens-Fitness-Magazine-Crossfit-Rip-Off-exercises.

Planet Granite and Mission Cliffs are both filled with douche bag climbers that feel it is their duty to inform you that squatting deep will ruin your knees and that you really should be lifting in Vibrams, one footed while standing on a Bosu ball (not kidding). The crime is that Planet Granite actually has a pretty good set up (with the notable exception of a power rack). Mission Cliffs is a pit.