Okay, so it does sometimes smell like a gym, and the ventilation is not that great. But the Ballard Health Club is a solid place to go for workouts. They have nautilus machines, as well as a large selection of dumbbells, and a not as large selection of bar bells. But they do have 3 machines where you can do squats, etc. on. They also have a wide selection of stairmasters, treadmills, bikes, and my favorite, elliptical machines. Classes such as yoga, and step come free with the membership.
I like going to workout here because the staff is very friendly, and the people are pretty low key. There are some of the semi-hard core lifters, but none that I've seen of the muscle men who like to walk around preening like they are the captains of the world. Guess where my pet peeve is. This is probably due to the lack of space for hard-core Olympic lifts--you know the cleans and jerks and such.
If you're in the area and interested, you can get 1 free day pass to check it out.
more