You set yourself up for disappointment and you’re now upset and disappointed. My advice would be to stop doing that.
What’s the deal with people weight lifting in the confines of public restroom stalls? I’m all for rules against grunting.
This is a complete non-sequiter to me and I have no idea how this relates to the thread. I realize this is the Pit but I don’t suppose you’d care to explain the reference?
Certain categories of people are so widely discriminated against that the possibility arises even on minimal evidence. For example, if a black man was booted out of a gym it wouldn’t surprise me if race was a factor. If a woman was kicked out of a weight room it wouldn’t surprise me if sexism was a factor. If someone is visibly disabled discrimination is likewise a possibility.
Between that, and the PF bimbo in the linked video making it VERY clear that only the “proper” people should be allowed in her precious gym yes, I have to wonder if it wasn’t a factor. Being an uppity disabled person makes it that much easier to manufacture an acceptable and legal excuse to get the cripple out of the gym.
I’m not some bodybuilder type, but I do make some noise when I exercise. Being an asthmatic, my breathing can get pretty noisy at times, and the linked video makes it clear that breathing too hard is considered unacceptable. In other words, PF wants you to exercise, but not too hard. I’m sure they’ll outlaw sweating next.
Do you go there to service your sex drive?
Excuse me? What the fuck does that statement have to do with this thread - or are you providing an example of sexism here?
So, no actual reason to believe it then?
Sounds like PF did you a favor, and that you’re a terrible fit for their stupid policies. After watching the Daily Show segment I’d never set foot in one of their gyms, and I’m pretty fuckin’ far from a meathead.
Sometimes you make involuntary noises during a lift or while using a machine, if you’re working to fatigue like you should. Sometimes heavy weights make a noise when you put them down. As long as you’re not grunting like a gorilla and letting the weights crash to the ground from waist level, I don’t see the problem. I don’t do it, and it’s extremely rare to see meatheads at my LA Fitness doing it, even without the benefit of a “lunk alarm.”
I married to someone who was once told flat out told he could not join a gym because he walked funny. Granted, that was years ago, when it was legal to discriminate in that manner, but anyone who thinks those attitudes have disappeared is an idiot.
Part of the reason Jamie had his altercation over the handicap spot at that one gym is the attitude among the able-bodied that reserving those spots don’t matter, and the disabled don’t go to gyms so it doesn’t matter if they park there for “just a minute”. I’m not saying his “solution” was the best possible response, but you’re being willfully blind if you don’t see that yes, there is an element of prejudice at work here.
There mere fact PF wants to bar “lunkheads” from their facilities tells me they aren’t about fitness but about something else (money extraction, social status, whatever). If you don’t fit their ideas of what is proper you’re not welcome. As soon as I hear/see they don’t want “serious” bodybuilders or fitness fanatics I have to start wondering who else they don’t want.
He was making a jokey reference about your recent pit thread. Lighten up, Frances.
Oh, and look up Punch & Judy to answer your earlier question.
If your husband—or anyone else in the history of time, for that matter—was ever told “you cannot join this gym because you walk funny,” in those exact words, I will consume the Seattle Space Needle big end first.
I questioned Broomstick’s truthfulness once.
ONCE.
Jamie - As strange as it is to say it, I’m with you on this rant. I’m no gym rat and have a membership at the Y that I never use (and you can tell, clothed or not) but everything I’ve heard and read about PF really turns me off on them as a corporation.
Of course, you may be embellishing in your OP in regards to how many times you’d been warned or in the ways you work out there - but I don’t think it’s really relevant to whether or not this is a shitty company.
Sounds like they did you a favor at least.
No one in that thread denied that the guy who parked in the handicapped spot was a jackass for doing it. However no one can read the guy’s mind to know for sure that he thought disabled people don’t use gyms or that he’s completely prejudiced against them. Of course discrimination exists, but so do oblivious douchebarges who think they can do whatever they want because rules are for other people. Again: the guy who parked in the handicapped spot was an ignorant jackass, but what flavor can’t be determined here and now.
PF’s “schtick” is to be the gym for the average marshmallow to go work out without being mocked or having the equipment hogged by the Charles Atlas set (IOW being discriminated against and mocked for not being hardbodies). And apparently the people they don’t want are the ones who break their rules, even if said rules are pretty stupid.
Someone upthread mentioned Occam’s Razor, and I agree. Ambivalid himself mentioned that others were kicked out as well in post 15, and that he’s never seen another person in a wheelchair there in post 23. A rule, even a stupid rule, applied equally across the board isn’t discriminatory.
Agreed
Now, I’m not into fitness but I HAVE seen Planet Fitnesses TV commercials and I have read AmbiValid’s post’s before.
Now, if I want a pizza I go to a place that sells pizza…I don’t go to McDonalds and whine and rant because they don’t have pizza.
Now PF is not a gym for serious fitness freaks. Their marketing consists of “If you are a serious fitness freak, go away”…really, that is the freakin’ theme of their most recognizable TV commercial.
Now, maybe your town doesn’t have any pizza restaurants or none with the pizza you like or maybe you’ve been banned from every pizza place in town.
That still doesn’t make ranting at Mcdonalds for not selling pizza a reasonable course of action.
No-one is arguing that discrimination has disappeared. The argument is that, in the absence of any evidence to suggest discrimination, and with the OP having stated that he does indeed do things in breach of PF’s rules, then the like reason is not discrimination.
Or alternatively, they are a company that operates a series of gyms trying to target a market of people who are a bit nervous about the gym, and they think that the more aggressive/hard core gym goer might be a major deterrent to their intended clientèle.
Well, I say alternative, but there is one part of your claim I’m happy to agree with. I am certain their model is based around money extraction, as you mention. Them being a company, and all.
If this thread is about Planet Fitness’s policies and philosophies, then my conclusion is that the OP is wrong. Wanting to create an atmosphere in which out-of-shape people aren’t intimidated by bodybuilders or serious athletes is a perfectly good philosophy. And I can see how “no grunting” and “no dropping weights” rules might be reasonable ways in which to support that philosophy. That alarm thing, I think that would annoy me, but I’m assuming it’s more of a p.r. thing and not used too often.
On the other hand, if this thread is about how Planet Fitness might have mistreated the OP by discriminating against him or unfairly applying its rules, then maybe there’s a case to be made. Maybe they did treat him unfairly. Based on the facts offered in the thread, I don’t know whether they did or not. But it seems odd to me that this is the aspect of the situation that the OP stresses that he doesn’t want to talk about.
http://http://blogington.com/7-failed-mcdonalds-products/ 
That was my first link posted here–it may be a failure.
The more I think about it, the more I agree that it really doesn’t make that much sense for you to be there. You posted a just thread last week defining yourself as somewhat of a bodybuilding expert. PF, while close to you, is not a place that appreciates/respects/caters to such people. I am quite athletic and highly knowledgeable about fitness, health, exercise, and weight training. Even if I lived upstairs from a Curves, I would never ever join there. I have nothing against that place, I just know it’s not for me. And honestly, I’m not for them. (It’s like, why would I take an intro class when I already have a masters degree?)
Maybe you were pushy in the parking lot, maybe you grunted. At the end of the day, why would someone who takes seriously their exercise go to a place that does not? Drive across town. Find a place where you fit in. Let the “20 minutes 3x/week for better health!” crowd have PF.
How thick are 45 lb. plates…a couple inches? So, if you removed one plate, your weights would just barely touch the floor.
Or, you could have adjusted your position ever so slightly on the bench, so that they didn’t touch while you perform the exercise.
Or, you could complete the exercise, then slide down the bench a tad and allow the weights to come to rest gently on the floor.
Why do I have this mental picture of you dropping the weights two inches, while looking out of the corner of your eye to see if anyone takes note?
The rule is ‘no dropping weights’…not ‘not dropping weights more than 4.32 inches.’
Everyone using weights should always be working to fatigue whenever they visit any gym? If grunting is unavoidable when working to fatigue, then perhaps this is a gym that doesn’t want people working to fatigue. What exactly is wrong with that?
Was it during the great high school ninja riot of 1978?