VIDA - Ballston

Reviews

• ED

  Eric Ditrich

  Nov 6, 2025
  2.0
  I cancelled my membership at the Ballston location after three months. It's a clean facility that's rarely crowded, but the management there seems to have a fundamental lack of respect for customers. The high monthly fees are simply not worth paying when the customer service is so poor. Look elsewhere if you expect basic professionalism from your gym staff. Update since I can’t reply: Thank you for your response, but your summary of the situation is inaccurate and fundamentally misses the point of my feedback. I need to reiterate again: No one was providing personal training to anyone else. We were two friends working out together, which is a common and reasonable activity in a gym setting. Your assertion that this was about "ensuring safety, consistency, and a high-quality experience" for personal training is a complete misrepresentation of what occurred. When we spoke in person, the reason provided for confronting us was to "protect your trainers." Now, in writing, you've shifted the reasoning to "safety, consistency, and a high-quality experience." This inconsistency suggests you are doubling down on a stance without acknowledging the core issue. The issue is not your policy on external trainers; the issue is that my friend and I were watched, profiled, and confronted based on a false assumption. This kind of suspicion and lack of basic respect from management is precisely why I wrote the review and cancelled my membership. Your fundamental lack of respect for paying customers makes your high fees unjustifiable. I am sorry that this is still not clear to you.
• VP

  vanessa moreno pérez

  Nov 4, 2025
  1.0
  I did a site tour. I specifically asked if could cancel after 4 month because I was only to be able to go to the gym during the summer. I was told it was only a click. Two weeks ago I tried to cancel my subscription, it's impossible. What was going to be a summer treat it's going to become a $1,800 lost. I emailed the team, they are not let me out. This is a tone of money I can't afford.
• LH

  Lucas Heilman

  Nov 2, 2025
  3.0
  I’ve been a member of Vida Fitness since 2018, and I’ve regularly used the facilities at Ballston since April 2025, previously patronizing Vida Navy Yard, Vida U St, and Vida LC/Metropole most frequently. I also joined Golds Gym in Ballston in summer 2025. In Ballston, I would recommend Golds over Vida for several reasons. Despite really stellar efforts by a vast majority of the Vida Ballston Staff, there is one staff member who makes me uncomfortable ever since she aggressively poked me in the back and implied that I was holding her and her client up because I had been using a piece of gym equipment that they wanted to use. At this point, I will reiterate that I’ve been a paying member of Vida since 2018, and I never paused my membership (which was an option during the pandemic) because I have always been aggressively supportive of Vida’s staff. In fact, I told Vida managers at LC and Navy Yard that they were not supportive enough of class instructors who needed help with things. Anyway, un-consented touching is never okay and I tried to “shake it off”, but the culpable party is now being featured on Vida’s internal advertising screens, and I just can’t tolerate it anymore. I canceled my membership this weekend. Golds also has far better equipment. Vida - at times - will have one stairclimber that works, while Golds has more than enough for anyone who needs one. Golds also has two Jacob’s Ladders for people like me with chronic lower back issues. Also, nobody has ever harassed me at Golds for using gym equipment that I need in order to deal with my chronic back pain (in contrast to Vida). Vida has superior lighting and spa vibes, but I actually have realized that I need realistic lighting and top quality equipment, so the gym for me is Golds. Since I’ve had overlapping memberships at both Vida and Golds for a few months, I’ve noticed that several other individuals seem to have memberships at both as well. At least one of those individuals agrees with me that the Golds equipment is better (but the shower situation is inferior to Vida’s). Golds also has an enormous free parking lot. Golds will get crowded at times, but people are generally courteous (though I’ve encountered entitled people at both gyms). I typically never leave a review if I would give less than 5 stars, but I’m making an exception here because health is essential, and I know I’m not the only person who goes to the gym to ameliorate stress, which has become an impossible task at Vida Ballston.
• SB

  Sara Bell

  Oct 7, 2025
  5.0
  Best gym in the DMV
• KL

  Korbyn Lloyd

  Sep 2, 2025
  1.0
  My husband and I joined this gym with high hopes, and for the first six months, we genuinely enjoyed the facilities and the environment. Unfortunately, we ultimately decided to cancel our memberships due to a deeply upsetting and unprofessional incident involving a sales team member and management. While working out with our friend, who is a frequent workout partner and has joined us at other gyms without any issues, a sales team member named Josh and later the manager on duty accused, not questioned, our friend of being a personal trainer and training my husband. This was an entirely baseless and unproven accusation, as they were simply two friends working out together, as many others do at this gym without incident. Not to mention gym rules around personal training at gyms are very common and not something we’ve ever done before. We’ve watched others spot each other, discuss form, and point out machines on nearly every occasion we’ve been to Vida. The situation was handled terribly. The manager's confrontational approach included saying, "As far as I'm concerned he should never come to this gym again." After this interaction, we were promised that management would review camera footage and contact us. We were shocked to hear from management who, without an apology, stated our friend "looks, and fits the build of someone who would be a personal trainer." A quick Google search of our friend would disprove this narrative…… Would you believe they then offered a free personal training session as a solution. This was not only unprofessional but also highlighted a deeply concerning issue. It gave us the strong impression that assumptions were made and our friend, who is a Black male, was profiled based on his appearance while working out with my white husband. That these two individuals couldn’t just be friends. My heart was honestly broken over the interaction, my husband said he felt harassed and had never experienced anything like that before. It's truly unfortunate that profiling like this still occurs, and while the gym itself is nice, I cannot in good conscience recommend this location.

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