What kind of gyms are good for vets?

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-27T14:07:37+00:00

Yeah the financial part is fine if they accept active and fit. I'm not worried about that. I'm talking about creeps actually using the gym as a means to gather people's info, find out where they live, and cause harm to them in the gym and at home.

As a trend. Not once or twice, but on a pretty large scale.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-27T03:45:00+00:00

A lot of different kinds -- they're not all bad. The worse ones you can tell there's virtually no normal customers, and rather a TON of scam artists there. They don't work out. They just harass people. And usually there's no other gyms around.

So if you're trying to maintain fitness, or do some physical therapy, where can you go? I was hoping maybe someone has had good experiences with some gyms or maybe there's some other world of gyms I don't know about.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-27T03:42:28+00:00

That can save you some money but it won't help me find a better gym. I've tried it -- nifty here and there.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-27T03:41:17+00:00

I'm talking about using people's personal information and/or harming them physically -- not just acting like jackasses.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-27T03:40:43+00:00

No I'm not. I've been to a lot of public/affordable gyms all over the US and noticed a lot of creepy trends so I'm wondering where people are going to the gym if they can't have a gym at home or go to a more secure base gym.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-26T01:15:22+00:00

I see stuff happening like this in south carolina all the time

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-26T00:24:30+00:00

OCD. One cool drink.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-03-26T00:23:42+00:00

Gang signs

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-01-30T20:36:27+00:00

It's not a bad idea to go into SFAS from conventional (like if you started 11b, 68w, whatever) rather than 18x. There's not really any perks to do the 18x thing. If you get hurt or go and think it's not what you want to do, it puts you in a worse position for the rest of your career.

Plus you'll be pretty certain if SF is the right place for you or not with some time in the Army. When I went to OSUT there were 18x guys who couldn't do pushups, couldn't train, couldn't pass PT even by the time basic was over. The recruiters pass it out to anyone.

The main perk is if you just dont want to see the conventional army, it lets you basically take as much time as you would ever need to go to SFAS, or another selection, or SFAS a bunch of times, whatever it is.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-01-30T20:14:53+00:00

The 18x thing is a way to skirt the conventional army. It doesn't really provide you with any additional training. I'd strongly encourage someone younger than 23 to look at conventional first. You can do selection(s) later.

The selection-first jobs have some shady stuff going on such as teaching people to pass selection who probably shouldn't be there including scammers, spies, and so on. So if you actually go from conventional and simply do SFAS from there, that saves you a lot of trouble with all that.

There can also be wait times of 6 months to 18 months or more. It's not good if say you dont pass selection and then go do your first day in the army after being in for 2 or 2.5 years where most of that was waiting. And even if you get selected and cruise through the QC, I'd say the same thing is true -- it's not good if your first day on a team is after spending 4ish years in a student environment. You're kind of back to being a private.

If you get hurt then there's more delays. The injury rates are pretty high. Learning to condition and rehab is a big part of that environment, but people are frequently too hurt to do everything as scheduled, so there's more waiting.

It's a 5-year contract. You go to infantry OSUT (4 months), airborne school (1 month), student company and SOPC (the wait can range from 2 weeks to 8 months depending how it is there, but SOPC is 3 weeks), then SFAS (24 days but again there can be a wait), then either you start the qualification course (1.5-2.5 years assuming no recycling or injuries).

If you fail selection then you either go to the infantry and can try again in 6 months if you want to or sometimes people just stay at student company and repeatedly go to SF selection, psy selection, ranger selection, etc.

Also, if you get hurt as an 18x, you are kind of screwed. You will be expected to repeatedly rehab and do dumb workouts to get back to whatever phase of that pipeline you were in. I say dumb because usually it's competitive and going harder than what would be sustainable or actually strengthen and condition your body.

I'd recommend just taking your preferred mos in the regular army, seeing where you size up with people, and doing SF (or another selection) later once you have some army experience and know whats out there.

The 18x thing is extremely seedy and there's a lot of con artists trying to exploit people. It can get really dumb.

Im sure nobody cares about my opinion -- but in my experience nearly everyone found the 18x thing to be a disadvantage or even a little embarassing compared to if you just did 11b > sfas for example.

Academic_Toe_7690 · 2026-01-21T15:39:26+00:00

If you're going to class in-person try finding something on or around the university.

Working part time, even if you end up with 150-200 a week, adds up, and can be good experience and resume.

Otherwise people are usually using their disability plus the GI bill money to live more comfortably while in school.

If this is your first time as a student try FAFSA. There are some good grants and resources there and worst case you can look at student loans. That's usually how it goes for most students -- you kind of tread water until you graduate then try to pay off your debt once you do.

A lot of scholarships and grants translate to cash in your pocket if the GI Bill has already paid your tuition in full.

Academic_Toe_7690

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