Well sorry to offend you, I just remembered you describing that gym catering to the disabled in one of the threads about you getting kicked out of that gym, I obviously didn’t remember all the details of what you said. Looking at that thread, you did say:
You did later qualify it by saying that they only paid lip service to that idea, but can you really blame me for thinking that disabled people in your city might frequent a gym that catered to the disabled?
Incidentally, rereading that thread, I had forgotten what I said about Planet Fitness’s reaction to your parking lot vigilantism:
You know, even if it was on their radar, I doubt that any active defense would be required - the attack is its own defense.
For my part, whenever Planet Fitness’s policies are discussed, it doesn’t matter whether someone is griping or gushing - it makes me wish they were operating up here.
For me, the most annoying thing about going to the gym is the goddamned meatheads. (Yclept “lunks” stateside, I guess.") Find a way to keep the meatheads out and I’m going to stick around a lot longer.
The majority of the grunting and weight-throwing seems far from involuntary; it’s all coming from the special class of carbon-copy douchebags that make going to the gym so damned annoying. I get that the “Lunk Alarm” might be momentarily annoying, but that’s tolerable in the service of reducing the impact if meatheads on the environment - whether it’s training meatheads to reign in their meathead behaviour, or just annoying them to the point that they pick another gym to stink up.
In my experience, no amount of posted signs, polite reminders from attendants, or dirty looks from other patrons is sufficient to penetrate the dense skull of the typical meathead. The “Lunk Alarm” presents a safety hazard? Please. It’s the best option we have, because for some obscure reason tasers are right out.
For every person who reads complaints like these and thinks, “Geez, what a crappy franchise,” there’s got to be three who are thinking, “Yeah, I’ll have that.”
Larry, out of curiosity, do you belong to a gym? How often do you go and for how long? If not what is your fitness program?
Somehow I suspect that you are exactly their target demographic. Intimidated by the fact that someone else works out hard and has muscles to show for it, thrilled to have an unfitness club to join, and unlikely to go the gym very often or for very long.
The issue is not the habitual loud grunting or dropping, let alone throwing, of weights; no one disputes rules against such behaviors, uniformly enforced, are valid. The mocking (here and in that Daily Show clip) is aimed at the attitude you express: keep the goddamned meatheads (those with muscles) where I don’t need to see them, they make me feel bad about myself.
Yes there are plenty who feel that way, and want that. That does not make it any less deserving of being made fun of, even if it is a successful business model.
How about a polite reminder, then a warning, then your membership is cancelled? Granted, it’s not as passive-aggressive and cutesy-poo and distracting/dangerous to other members as the beloved Lunk Alarm, but I think it might actually work…
Larry, I’m used to being the “lightweight” at a gym (and on the soccer field, and at work, and at the poker table…) you might have a better gym experience if you concentrate on your own stuff and not pay attention to what other people are doing…
HEY!
I just came up with the solution to more than half my problems! Whoa, watch for me on talk shows, hawking my new book (and program and camp and web community): "Worry about your own shit, not other people’s"
I am somewhat amused that the PF schtick is real, and not some over-the-top SNL skit.
I’ve been to dozens of gyms in my life, and rarely have a problem. I just stick my headphones on and tune out the rest of the world while I try to keep my lungs from expelling themselves on the ground.
Gosh, I wonder what PF would do if THAT happened at their gym?
I am now 44. I have been going to various gyms since I was 18. I have run into that type of person maybe 5 or 6 times in my life. And they are looked at by even the most serious lifters as total jokes. Most gyms already have mechanisms for dealing with doucebags. No need to throw out all serious gym goers for that reason.
Intimidation has nothing to do with it, it’s annoyance. I think it has a lot to do with your concept of “fitness.” Fit for what? Me, I want to be toned and trim, and in shape to exert myself when called upon without being winded or hurting myself. I want to look decent naked.
You are correct in that I don’t go to the gym as much as I would like to - I haven’t been as satisfied with my level of fitness since we moved into an apartment and I had to let my weight bench go.
Since then I have had a membership at a community center at at a gym in my neighborhood, but have not kept up with either because they both have very high meathead levels.
You can chalk it down to intimidation or envy if that makes you feel better, but really I’d just like to be able to do my thing without having to listen to some moron making labour sounds constantly and then finishing by throwing his weight at the ground. I have zero objection to someone working three times the weight I can, so long as they aren’t being unnecessarily dramatic about it.
I don’t go to the second run theatre near me anymore because it’s disproportionately full of noisy teenagers all the time. It ain’t because I’m intimidated by their wit and beauty, it’s because they make the environment to annoying to stick with. Same deal.
I would be overjoyed if Planet Fitness opened up near me, because I* am* their demographic. As it stands, I probably won’t get back to the shape I was in before I got married until I have the space to accommodate a better work out routine at home.
Chanange 42 to 40, and this is still not my experience. I think hardcore lifters with annoying habits are way more common than you two suggest. Don’t even start me on bastards who don’t wipe the bench, or leave their weights on the floor when they’re finished.
You might be right. That’s why i was specifically noting that it was my experience. But i’ve been a member at gyms in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the United States at various times over the past 20+ years, and i’ve only ever seen a few individuals who yell and scream at an annoying level, or who crash weights to the floor.
I’ve seen plenty of that, and it annoys the fuck out of me.
A guy got pissy with me at my current gym (a YMCA) a while back when i asked him if he could possibly not leave his bar with 4 x 45lb plates on it sitting in the middle of the floor where everyone would trip over it.
Why is it “the best option”? Do you really think it’s going to work better than actually going up to the guy and saying “Please quit dropping the weights” and then kicking him out if doesn’t? The meathead is going to hear the alarm , screech in fear and run out the door?
Careful readers will note that this phrase was followed by a clause beginning with “because”, and the most sensitive and astute of those may further perceive, when considering the sentence holistically, an intended joke.
But to answer earnestly, I don’t think you can hope to significantly reduce the impact that meatheads have on a gym on a case-by-case basis. If your intention is to provide a meathead-free club, it has to be clearer and less labour intensive then that, or you fail at the start.
I’m not suggesting. I’m telling. As a 150 lbs 19 year old I was a member of World Gym. At the time Rich Gaspari worked out there. This was when he was coming in 2nd in Mr Olympia. There were a few hardcore lifters with anoying habits. But even there, in a gym that catered to the hardcore, it was rare. Anyone screaming would have been laughed at to their face. It was also the most sctrict gym I have been to about wiping down the equipment and putting your weights away. Not putting the weights away is not a bodybuilder trait. I have seen it more in gyms that cater to casual members.
Most gyms do not cater to hardcore bodybuilders. If you see a lot of machines and and a room for Zumba classes, it is not catering to bodybuilders.
Most gyms I have been to have a very wide demographic range. They certainly don’t want to have the women anyone else leave. Between my last two gyms, LA Fitness and Retro I can say that there was only one guy I would put in the lunk category as defined here. But he would only make noises when deadlifting a ton of weight. He certainly didn’t do it everyday. And it wasn’t nearly as annoying as the horrible music LA Fitness played. But I guess there were some people that would intimidate others because that actually put in effort and looked fit. Some are actually gasp muscular.
How about we start a gym with a dud alarm? It can go off everytime someone comes in to workout in business casual. Everytime someone takes up a treadmill by slowly walking and talking on their cellphone. Everytime someone performs and exercise with such bad form that it should rip their arms out of their shoulders but it doesn’t because they are only lifting 10 lbs. Maybe we could clear out all these duds who never break a sweat or raise their heartrates. They would be better off staying at home and everyone else would have more room to workout.
I went back to PF just in order to get a full explanation as to why I had my membership cancelled, as I never did have my supposed ‘multiple warnings’ on my account verified to me in person, email or by phone. I initiated the meeting by saying that I wasn’t contesting my ban or trying to change anything that had taken place-I simply wanted to understand why I had been kicked out.
The employee who kicked me out wasn’t there, it was the usual regular employees. These employees were always very friendly and helpful with me and I had good relationships with all of them. I asked the working manager (who wasn’t working the day I was kicked out) if there had indeed been warnings on my account about dropping weights, as I definitely had never been spoken to prior to the incident which led to my banning.
What he told me was very interesting. And perplexing. Evidently, the sounding of the Lunk Alarm does serve as a member’s “warning” regarding rules violations. I asked them how a member was supposed to know that the alarm was directed at them specifically if an employee didn’t also speak to that member and the manager told me that they usually do speak to the offender. Usually. But since I presented “mitigating circumstances”, given the fact that my disability-at times-prevented me from being able to completely and totally set a weight down without dropping it a little, they cut me some slack. The alarm would sound, they would realize it was me and say “Oh, that’s just Jamie” and not speak to me about the “rules violation”.
But the day that my banning took place, the regional manager happened to be in the gym. This was the employee who ultimately kicked me out. And he, evidently, takes a zero-tolerance approach to the rules at PF. When I was working out and I violated the rules by letting go of a dumbbell an inch or so above the ground, this caught the attention of this regional manager. He spoke with another employee before approaching me to find out that yes, this violation was not an uncommon occurence for me. However, he wasn’t informed-or he didn’t care-that they considered me a “mitigating circumstance” and had never actually spoken to me about my violations. So my first warning about the rules at PF served as my last warning as well.
I thanked the manager on duty and told them none of this was any of their (the current staff’s) fault and that they had been great with me the entire time I had been there. I didn’t want to be back in such an environment anyway, I just wanted to make sense out of what happened.
I got the email address of this regional manager if I wanted to speak to him directly. I don’t see much sense in that. He was a total douche to me and I dont expect anything to change.
Out of curiosity, was this manager a bald white guy with biceps big as the “lunks” they advertise excluding? Cause I got booted by a regional manager, wonder if it was the same asshat…
No, he was a younger white guy, around my age (late 20s-early 30s) who looked like he just stepped out of an Ambercrombie & Fitch commercial. Lots of gel and carefully groomed features.
I would spend a satisfying half hour imagining all the worst, most embarrassing and most annoying things on the Web that I could subscribe that address to and then toss it and move on.
Hope you find the other gym a better fit for your requirements.