We found more places for you to hide

This weekend, the park blocks belong to the Portland Criterium — closed streets, riders flying around a tight loop, and thousands of people packed in to cheer them on. If that sounds like a fantastic Saturday, go, because it's genuinely one of the more thrilling things happening in the city right now. But if the phrase "thousands of people packed in" made you tense up a little, don't worry, because we wrote this one for you.

A while back we published The Introvert's Guide To Our Gym, and judging by the response, a lot of you share a very specific dream: getting a full workout in without a single soul noticing you exist. Part One covered the off-peak hours and the recovery center, so consider this the expanded map.

The group fitness room, when it isn't being a group

Start with the studio where the group classes happen, because for most of the day, it isn't hosting one. Between sessions it just sits there — a big mirrored room with no machines beeping, nobody hovering near your bench waiting to work in and all kinds of fun accessories to try out. You can walk right in, pop in your headphones and have the entire space to yourself, which is the closest a lot of us are going to get to owning real estate in this economy 😌

And here's a little workout hack: you can take a class, pick up the workout and then come back a few days later to run the whole thing yourself in that same empty room, at your own pace, with nobody watching. You get the expertise of the class and the solitude of a private session, which is a remarkable deal for the price of paying attention once. I spent the last week and a half doing exactly this – busting out HIIT circuits in the group room and out in the yard — and can confirm it's a great way to crank out a quick 60 minute workout without having to bob and weave through people on equipment 😅

(The outdoor space in the evening is your own little solo slice of heaven)

The outdoor yard

The outdoor training area is another good escape, and if you haven't been out there before this last winter, it got an upgrade. Some of our extra equipment from the remodel made its way out there joining the likes of monkey bars, a climbing rope, giant tires, and walls built for scrambling over. Out there, the nearest person usually has a fence between you and them, and the loudest sound is a passing breeze, which is its own quiet luxury. It also happens to be the perfect place to run one of those stolen workouts and feel like Miles Morales. The outdoor gym and cage come included with most memberships, and if yours doesn't have them, a day pass runs just $4.

The stretching room

Then there's the stretching room, which exists for the noble purpose of lying on the floor and reassembling yourself into a functional human being, and it's usually wide open. Nobody in there is going to ask how many sets you have left, because there are no sets — there's just you, a foam roller, and a rare and beautiful pocket of quiet.

The upstairs

And don't forget the upstairs, which everyone somehow does. People pile onto the main floor and wait patiently for a treadmill while the identical machines sit open one flight up, longing to be discovered. Climbing those stairs buys you clear sightlines, available equipment, and a free little warmup.

A fair word for the group class

In fairness, we should say it plainly: working out with other people is genuinely good for you, and we're not just being nice. One study followed a group of stressed-out medical students for twelve weeks and found that the ones taking a weekly group fitness class came out with lower stress and better quality of life than the ones training alone, even though the solo group actually logged more hours. There's something about a roomful of people pushing toward the same thing that pays off well beyond the workout itself, and if that sounds like exactly what you need, we've got a full schedule waiting for you.

And if it doesn't — if some days you just want to be left alone with your headphones and your own thoughts — that's completely allowed too. Both of these things can be true at the same time, and we'd never make you pick a side 🙂‍↔️

Why this is actually the smart move

There's real science holding all of this up. The anxiety of feeling watched or judged while you exercise is a well-documented barrier, one that's genuinely linked to skipping workouts altogether, and it tends to land hardest on beginners and anyone still building their confidence. When you train somewhere you feel unobserved, you're more likely to show up and more likely to push yourself, because all the energy that used to go toward feeling self-conscious finally gets pointed at the work instead.

So choosing the empty room isn't hiding from your goals — it's clearing away the one thing most likely to stand between you and them.

Giving you permission to ghost us after you scan in, 👻
Your West Coast Fitness Family

PS: A quick correction from our sauna newsletter: our saunas actually run at 220°F, not the 180°F we quoted, but all of the same health benefits still track 🥵

PPS: Sorry for the feature on the steam room while the men's steam room is temporarily closed. You can re-read last week's article when it's back up and running again 😉