After last week's road trip to devour the best Australian pies in town, Steven Yuen takes us on a complete U-turn to discover another place he's passionate about - the gym. If you're a fitness nut and you're thinking of hooking up with a gym (or switching gyms), this insider guide will help cure indecisiveness.

If you missed the first entry of Steven's Citroën travel journal, read it here.

Last week my travel blog was on pies, and I managed to stuff one down for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This week I decided to do a 180, and compensate for last weekend’s food binge. Hence, I will be blogging about the gym. There are 2 major gyms in Singapore, California Fitness (CF) and Fitness First (FF) so I will do a comparison on three major areas;

1)      Amenities and facilities

2)      Free-weights

3)      Cardiovascular

Amenities and facilities: One thing really cool about FF is that they provide a free drinks machine like Subway or Carl’s Junior (see below). It’s ironic though that they serve coke and ice lemon tea as refreshments to a gym workout (kind of counterproductive). However, they do provide you with the calorie count and to be honest, it is nice having a flavoured drink rather than boring old water.

The showers and locker room are also nicer at FF. Unfortunately I didn’t dare bring in my SLR camera into the male change room and shower, so you will just have to take my word for it! One thing I don’t want… is a rep as “the weird guy who takes pics in the male shower room.”

Free-weights:  Now most men consider size to be significant and it’s important to do an inch by inch comparison.  Now unfortunately I don’t have a ruler big enough to measure the size, but just by looking, I would guess that California is about three times the size of Fitness First. Here are some pictures for you to compare…

If you notice, the weights at Fitness First are colourful and pretty (it’s like you’re in play school). However for those of you who are into fine details, you will notice the California weights - although black and dull - have a handle going through them. It might be insignificant to most, but this is extremely useful for loading and unloading weights, and also enables you to do a range of exercises such as shrugs. I should mention I almost dropped that 25KG red plate on my toe the other day at FF… missed by only a few inches. Overall the free weights are miles better at California and there is simply no comparison. However that said, the standard bench press, shoulder press, and cables are all available at Fitness First so you shouldn’t have any issues in bulking up there either.

Cardiovascular: To be honest I’m not much of a cardio user. However both gyms provide a very adequate cardio workout. There are always available bikes, rowers, treadmills at each. And to keep you entertained there are TVs in both.

Overall Verdict: For me CF is the winner… I enjoy the larger variety of weights, and it just feels more like a hardcore gym and I’m not really sold by the nicer shower room and drinks machine. For me the gym is a place of hardwork and the equipment there will allow you to do a serious workout. Pricing wise, each gym has its own plan and package but you will generally find CF to be significantly cheaper, which is another plus point for me.