We’ve seen a few unexpected sights at beach clubs as we’ve been building this website and many of them have been very pleasant surprises. However, there was one thing that we hadn’t been planning on and that was finding a beach club dedicated to the pursuit of health and fitness.
Would our team’s usual diet of hedonism and sunshine come to a crashing halt at Muscle Beach Club in Ungasan? Well, they were reluctantly prepared to risk it and so, they headed down to the Bukit Peninsula to fund out if this was the beach club they needed rather than wanted.
This is what our team learned during their brief (and slightly traumatic) visit to Muscle Beach Club.
Introduction – Getting To Muscle Beach Club
Muscle Beach Club is Ungasan which means it’s right down on the Southern tip of the Bukit Peninsula in South Bali.
That’s a fairly substantial drive, thanks to the traffic on the island, unless you’re already staying in Ungasan or coming from nearby Uluwatu/Pecatu or possibly from Nusa Dua.
You’d expect to spend a couple of hours in traffic, each way, if you’re coming from Canggu/Kuta/Legian/Seminyak or Jimbaran and maybe a bit longer from Ubud or Sanur.
As this beach club is not directly on the beach, you will find that unlike most beach clubs in Ungasan that there is parking at the Muscle Beach Club.
Once you arrive, you can walk right into the club and talk to the people at reception about a day pass or longer. One nice thing is that your first day pass is completely free, so you can try this place out before you decide to commit financially.
Where Is Muscle Beach Club? 54GR+4FW, Uluwatu St No.20A, Ungasan, South Kuta, Badung Regency, Bali 80361
Website: Muscle
Opening Hours: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, except Nyepi
What’s Inside Muscle Beach Club?
This is not your typical beach club and that means there are no day beds or while there are dining facilities, they’re less “restaurant and bar” and more “Fitbar and Protein” rooms. They also have saunas, jacuzzis, a swimming pool area (including a few daybeds), a pole dancing studio, fully equipped gym and a boxing room.
Exercise facilities are both indoors and outdoors here and you can, for a small fee, also get personal training services.
Our Review Breakdown For Muscle Beach Club
We have made a commitment to review all beach clubs in the same fashion on this site, this is fair to both the beach club owners and to our readers who can rely on the same format of review to make comparisons.
We acknowledge that in the event of a special case like Muscle Beach Club that final scores may not be representative of the experience you get, so we encourage you to read the review itself carefully.
However, the process is simple, everyone on the team is sent to visit the beach club. They don’t all visit at the same time or even on the same day. When they visit, each of them scores the beach club from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) against the criteria given below.
After their visit, the team meets up to discuss their experiences and to vote on a final grade in each of the categories.
Finally, one member of the team is assigned the task of writing up the review and ensuring that it reflects the final grades and the discussions.
Once a beach club review goes live, it stays up for a period of, at least, one year before we revisit the beach club and amend the scores as necessary.
Pre-Club Advertising
We stumbled across Muscle Beach Club while we were putting together this site and that means we’ve never seen any advertising for this place either on or offline.
However, while this means they don’t score very highly in this category – we have to note that we wouldn’t expect to see any adverts for what is basically a gym in Ungasan in Canggu where most of us are based.
It’s not going to be practical for them to advertise over large areas and to be fair, people tend to go to gyms that are as close to them, with the equipment they need, as possible.
Location
Ungasan is not a great location for a beach club. It’s hard to get to as it’s a long drive from much of the island thanks to the Bali traffic.
It’s also an expensive area of the island for some reason, though we can’t quite work out why it seems to command such a price premium.
However, it’s a smart place to put in a gym as the majority of businesses in this area are in the F&B sector or cater to surfers. So, there’s a gap in the market, at least.
Booking Process & Seating Options
Given that this isn’t really a beach club, there are no seats available for you to book. If you’re using the facility, you can use the daybeds by their pool on a first-come, first-served basis or grab a seat in the Fitbar and Protein centre of your choice.
However, it’s not a place where you’re meant to install yourself all day unless you’re using the exercise facilities.
So, don’t expect lots of seating options and there is absolutely no need to reserve a seat in advance.
Entry Fee
They do charge an entrance fee at Muscle Beach Club which is a bad thing for beach clubs but an absolute standard for gyms on the island.
We would note that this gym provides your first every day pass for free, though, so you can go along and try out their facilities without committing to spending anything.
We like that and if we were in the market for a gym membership in Ungasan, we would look favourably upon Muscle Beach Club for it.
Minimum Spend
The only thing you have to spend at Muscle Beach Club is the cost of getting in the door and then all the facilities are available to you with a couple of exceptions.
You will need to pay for any food or drink that you consume at the Fitbar and Protein Centre and you will need to pay for any personal training services that you engage.
However, you don’t have to use either of these services and there is nothing in the way of a minimum spend to commit to, beyond the standard gym membership.
Welcome And Security
There’s a decent reception desk in the Muscle Beach Club where you will receive a very warm welcome and can seek out any assistance that you might need, as well as pay your membership fees as needed.
There’s no security team there, though, and while we’re not aware of any major incidents taking place in gyms in Bali, we’d still like to see bag checks conducted at any place with large gatherings of people.
Inclusions
The entrance fee may be a bit steeper than in most beach clubs but it does include access to all the various equipment throughout the gym and for an unlimited amount of time.
This includes the gym, sauna, boxing room (though lessons do cost more), pole dancing room, swimming pool, ice bath, etc.
They also provide a secure locker and towels as part of the service, so the only things not included are training services and food and drink.
Service
We found our interactions with the gym staff here to be pleasant and professional. They seemed to be able to answer any questions that we had with confidence (though we confess, we have no idea if they were right or not, we’re not gym goers).
Overall, we thought the staff were a credit to Muscle Beach Club even though they’re not strictly comparable to beach club hospitality staff.
Entertainment
This is a gym and as such, there’s nothing in the way of entertainment on offer at Muscle Beach Club, most people here have their heads down and are trying to focus on beating their personal best.
We might have enjoyed some dancing and singing to make us feel less awful about our fitness while we used the treadmills, but we were clearly in a minority.
Pool Quality
The pool is very good and there’s plenty of room for swimming. We should note that the area is clean and well-maintained and gave us no concerns about using it.
There’s not much in the way of poolside seating though, you’re meant to get in, swim and then go and do something else. But there are a couple of daybeds, you can use to get a few minutes’ rest if you need it.
Menu/Drinks Pricing
The food and drink on the menu have been tailored to the fitness and exercise crowd. There’s no alcohol and the choices tend to focus on common fad diets.
We thought that the prices were a little high when compared to Bali as a whole, but this is Ungasan and everything comes at a premium here.
Food And Drink Quality
We just can’t get overly enthusiastic about smoothies with 12 types of vegetable in them. We’re sure that they’re very good but they’re not our cup of tea (ideally, Long Island Ice Tea).
What we tried was acceptable, but we’ve not much enthusiasm to do this again. If you’re in a health and wellness mood, your mileage may be different.
Sunset View
There’s no great sunset view in Ungasan anyway but as the Muscle Beach Club doesn’t face the beach and there’s a big fence around the pool area, we’d have to say that there’s definitely no sunset view here of any kind.
Music And Ambiance
There is a bit of background music, but it’s a gym, so we took our own music and some waterproof earbuds. It’s always better to listen to what you want to hear when you workout.
Payment Options
You can pay by cash or card at reception and in the Fitbar and Protein Centre. We didn’t see any signs advertising QRIS, though.
Exit Process
You leave this gym the way that you came in and when you do, the reception team will wave you off with a cheery farewell.
Transportation
Assuming you drove, you can pick your scooter up from the car park here easily enough. If you need a Grab or Gojek, you may have to wait a few minutes for one to turn up, possibly more than a few minutes if it’s peak hours.
Fortunately, there are no taxi mafia around the gym to annoy you while you wait for your ride.
Social Media Presence
There is an Instagram feed and even a very basic website, but they don’t update either very regularly and while you get some feel for their business from these sources, we’d like a lot more information from a gym than they provide.
However, given their location in Ungasan, there aren’t a whole lot of options for gyms in the area, so they’re probably relying on walk-ins coming to see what they’ve got available.
Other/General Comments
To be fair, we only included Muscle Beach Club in our reviews to ensure that we’d reviewed every beach club in Bali as we promised when we started.
This isn’t a beach club, it’s a gym and as long as you visit with that in mind, it’s going to be an enjoyable experience (assuming you like gyms – our team is very much undecided on that matter and most of us don’t go regularly).
It’s a professional, well-equipped place with only one downside, the location which is going to make it hard to get high volumes of regular users, which most gyms need to survive.
Our Overall Opinion Of Muscle Beach Club
Let’s be fair about this, Muscle Beach Club simply isn’t a beach club. And that’s OK, though we don’t really understand why they picked “beach club” and didn’t call themselves a “gym”, instead.
But it’s a free world and if you have free time in Ungasan and feel like you need a workout, this is as good a place as any to do it.
We liked the free day’s trial so that you can decide whether Muscle Beach Club is for you or not and the equipment (in our admittedly untrained opinion) seemed to be good quality in good working order.
However, don’t visit Muscle Beach Club in the hopes of a day of great food, cold drinks, partying or chilling out. It’s definitely not set up to deliver that kind of beach club experience.
FAQs
Can You Swim At Muscle Beach Club?
Yes, you can swim at Muscle Beach Club. In fact, they have a fairly spacious pool area which is designed for swimming more than for chilling out it.
There are also ice bath and jacuzzi facilities available if you want a different soothing experience after a workout.
However, this beach club offers no access to the beach and you can’t go swimming in the ocean here. If you want to do that, you will need to leave the beach club and make your own way to the beach.
What Can You Do At Muscle Beach Club?
Muscle Beach Club is an upmarket gym facility and you can spend your time working out in a variety of different ways.
They have boxing, gym equipment, a pole dancing studio, a pool and personal trainers available to their clients.
There’s also a Fitbar and Protein cafe where you can get healthy eating (and drinking) options to complement your workout.
There is a place to chill out by the pool for a bit, but really this isn’t a place to spend a day relaxing or partying, it’s where you go for a workout.
Is Muscle Beach Club A Family-Friendly Venue?
While there is nothing stopping you from taking your kids to workout at this gym, it’s not really set up for children and you would need to supervise them carefully yourself to ensure that they didn’t hurt themselves while using equipment, etc.
You would also be expected to ensure that your children didn’t annoy or pester any of the other guests. So, unless they really do want to workout, it’s probably best to let them stay at home.
Who Owns Muscle Beach Club?
The ownership of Muscle Beach Club in Bali isn’t in the public domain. We could hazard a guess that they are locally owned based on our experiences at this gym, but we can’t give a definite answer.
Final Thoughts On Muscle Beach Club
Muscle Beach Club is a very decent gym and if we were based in Ungasan and more inclined to go to the gym than we are, we might well frequent it.
But in the context of this website, it’s not really a beach club and we can’t recommend that you travel very far to visit it. It’s a good gym but Bali has dozens of good gyms and unless you’re in Ungasan, it has a good gym much closer to you than Muscle Beach Club.
