Barbell Club in Vauxhall: £35 Drop-In at Mem's Weightlifting

A coached drop-in at Mem's Weightlifting Club costs £35 and buys you a full Olympic weightlifting session under a coach who once snatched 152.5kg for Bulgaria. The club trains in two railway arches, Arch 22 & 25 at 73 Bondway, London SW8 1SQ, inside the Handel Business Centre in Vauxhall. If you only want a platform and a bar, open gym is £20. Everything is booked online through the club's TeamUp page, so nobody simply turns up and lifts.

Bondway is the short road that tucks in beside Vauxhall station, and the Handel Business Centre occupies the arches under the tracks. Mem's uses two of them. In the booking system, Arch 25 is described as a weightlifting facility where each person gets an allocated lifting platform and equipment, which is the detail that matters most: you are not queueing for a shared rack. Trains rumble overhead now and then, and the brick vaults keep the room cool even in summer.

The neighbouring brand London Weightlifting runs from the same arches and now sends its trial button to Mem's booking page, with matching membership prices. Its equipment list for the space names Eleiko barbells and plates from 0.5kg to 25kg, dumbbells from 1kg to 50kg, an eight-bay rig, a belt squat, two sled tracks and showers with a towel service across roughly 5,000 square feet. Treat that as the shared building rather than a promise about every platform.

Mehmed Fikretov, known to everyone as Mem, founded the club and still runs it as head coach. His own page lists twenty Bulgarian national titles, a British and English championship in 2013, European and World Championship appearances, and lifetime bests of a 152.5kg snatch and a 195kg clean and jerk at 72kg bodyweight. He holds a Level 2 weightlifting coaching qualification and Level 3 first aid. Silvia Szabo leads the beginner Weightlifting Foundations class on the booking system.

The results show up beyond the arches. At British Weight Lifting's 2024 achievement awards, Mem's Weightlifting Club was named Eleiko Club of the Year and Fikretov won Eleiko Coach of the Year. The South London Press once called the club the go-to destination for future GB Olympians. The club also runs training camps abroad: a spring camp in Antalya ran from 18 to 25 May 2026, and a summer camp in Varna was pencilled in for August.

The website timetable sets out coached Olympic weightlifting slots by day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday run 1pm to 3pm, 5pm to 7pm and 7pm to 9pm. Thursday adds a 10am to 12pm slot before the same three. Saturday runs 10am to 12pm, 12pm to 2pm and 2pm to 4pm. Sunday has 10am to 12pm and 12pm to 2pm, followed by a technical session from 2pm to 3pm. Open gym is listed as all day, every day.

The live booking calendar is the final word on any given week, and it shows extra classes the website table leaves out, including a 60-minute Olympic Weightlifting class at 7am on weekdays. Coached drop-in places are tight: the booking system caps the specialist drop-in at two visitors per session, and the beginner Foundations class at eight. Registration opens about a week ahead, so book the moment your week is fixed rather than on the morning.

The services page lists the core prices. A coached drop-in is £35 and the website describes it as two hours long. Open gym drop-in is £20. A pack of five specialist sessions is £150, valid for six weeks, and ten sessions cost £300, valid for twelve. Personal training with Mem is £100 for a single session, £475 for five and £900 for ten. Remote coaching runs from £100 to £130 every four weeks depending on weekly sessions.

Memberships suit Londoners rather than visitors: nine sessions a month cost £189, thirteen cost £208 and unlimited is £237, with Open Gym membership at £169 a month on the website. The booking page also sells an off-peak open gym plan at £90 a month, a student off-peak plan at £49, and Kids and Youth training for lifters up to 17 at £95 a month. Main memberships need 31 days' notice before the next billing date to cancel.

Here is the honest advice. If you have never caught a clean, skip the £35 specialist drop-in on your first visit. Book Weightlifting Foundations instead, a 60-minute class that the club describes as the starting point for Olympic weightlifting, focusing on key positions with no experience needed. Better still, the two-week trial at £49 includes one specialist session and unlimited access to the other classes, which is far better value than two separate drop-ins.

The people around you will be a mix. Expect national-level lifters grinding through snatch complexes, office workers from Nine Elms on the 7pm slot, and teenagers from the youth programme at weekends. The unwritten rule in a room like this is simple: stay on your allocated platform, keep your bar away from the next lifter's line, and ask a coach before you drop anything heavy. If the evening slots are full, the Saturday morning block is the most reliable alternative.

Two easy cool-down stops sit close by. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a public park run by Lambeth on the site of the famous Georgian pleasure gardens, is a short walk east of the arches. Next to it, Vauxhall City Farm keeps animals on one and a half acres, with free entry, a suggested £4 donation and a café called The Old Dairy. If you prefer the river, Albert Embankment runs roughly a mile north towards Westminster Bridge.

Address: Mem's Weightlifting Club, Arch 22 & 25, 73 Bondway, London SW8 1SQ. Phone: 07720 828635. Email: info@memsweightlifting.com, though the club says Instagram messages are its preferred contact. Prices: coached drop-in £35, open gym drop-in £20, two-week trial £49, personal training with Mem £100. All sessions are booked through the club's TeamUp page in advance. For more lifting clubs south of the river, ask Karpo in the Karpo APP.