I think it’s pretty easy to draw a distinction between helping a son and “training” a friend of a friend or your cousin’s GF and taking advantage of a gym.
It’s ridiculous to me, as someone who definitely sees nothing wrong with businesses wanting to make profits.
The thing is, this activity in no way takes away revenue from the business. It’s not like the boy would have been paying a trainer at the gym, if his mom had not been “training” him. There’s no lost revenue here. The choice is selling the membership to them and having his mom help him, or having them buy a membership somewhere else. As a business, I guess they can choose to not accept the membership revenue for business reasons, but they were probably maximizing what they could get from these clients. Perhaps they don’t want other clients seeing the mom and assuming she’s a trainer and seeing this as a soft form of recruiting clients with the use of their facilities.
If no money is changing hands, there has been no violation of the rules.
For heaven’s sake, is the gym going to kick me out for giving somebody a spot, or answering honestly when they ask me why I am doing close-grip bench presses instead of normal grip?
I understand their desire to make a profit, but this is this woman’s son. It is not a business relationship.
Does this happen to you now? Has it happened to you ever? Me neither. What you’re describing happens in every gym on the planet, including that LA Fitness. Kicking everyone that shared workout tips would empty every gym there is. So what was going on with this woman that flagged the relationship as trainer/client rather than mother/son or just mismatched workout partners?
I suspect that, from LAF’s perspective, they saw an unaffiliated trainer working with a client in their facility and when they asked if she was a professional trainer, she said “nope, just working with my kid here.” Since the fitness community if rather small, someone learned she actually was a trainer, so the gym figured she had lied to cheat them out of fees and revoked her membership.
Did the gym try and verify her story? Did they contact her at all? Do they have a “1 & done” policy with regards to trainers using the gym? Do they have any actual policy or procedures in place to be sure they are applying their bannings properly?
I used to date a trainer/instructor at a Ballys, and there the policy was to kick out unaffiliated trainers. Of course, given their old contract schemes, a way to have them drop you was probably a blessing to many.
I find it easy to believe other gyms/fitness centers are similarly ruthless and draconian - everyone in that business worries about lawsuits from someone hurting themselves. The most ingenious thing about Crossfit is how they’ve turned injuries into a badge of honor rather than grounds for civil action.