Maybe there are some gyms somewhere like that. But at various times I have been a member of World Gym, Golds Gym, LA Fitness and now Retro Fitness. And various Army gyms over the world. I have never run into a Look at the fat people and laugh culture. I have also run into a few lifters that grunted loudly with every rep and dropped the weights so you knew how much they were lifting. In the 20 years I have been going to gyms those people have been few and far between and looked on with derision by everyone else. Certainly not a big enough problem that you have to build an entire francise around. Looks like PF has a good business model though, play up to people’s insecurities about going to the gym and make it cheap.
Is anyone else swooning at Shodan’s overt manliness, or is it just me?
Yeah, I wanna see Jaime answer this one… seriously, you blocked in and hollered at someone in ANOTHER gym? Seriously?
Hell, I got pregnant just reading his post.
This incident was more than a year ago, so is apparently unrelated to his membership issues with Planet Fitness.
To be honest, while i think there are better ways of dealing with this, i actually don’t have too much of a problem with his crusade regarding parking spots. It’s federal law, and it’s also a complete asshole move for a non-disabled person to use those spots.
The “just for a few minutes” excuse is completely irrelevant, because if a disabled person happens to drive by during those few minutes, all they see is an occupied parking space. They have no way of knowing that the driver will be gone “just for a few minutes,” so they have to keep looking elsewhere for a spot.
While I agree with the overall sentiment (PF preys on the Average Joe’s insecurity and fears while perpetuating and encouraging other stereotypes and there are serious gyms that would be just as welcoming), I gotta say I found the bolded sections hilarious!
[sub]“I’M A PEOPLE PERSON, DAMMIT! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”[/sub]
Oh, I agree with you. My dad’s got one leg and he just about had an apoplexy when we went to one of our favorite restaurants and there was a FedEx truck parked in the handicapped spot. He was making a delivery next door.
However, my dad wasn’t a freak about it. He took the guy’s license number and his truck number down. He asked the guy when he returned to the truck if he was aware he was in a handicapped spot and why he thought he was entitled to do that (the guy gave the usual “only there for a second” mutter and kept walking) and then dad called FedEx and reported him.
You don’t have to become physically confrontational to do that 
When I say I “dropped” the weights, I was speaking technically. Like I said, I dropped the dumbbells only for one particular exercise (incline dumbbell rows) and it was only from about an inch or so above the carpeted floor that they were dropped. If anyone ever wants to experiment with that and see how much noise it makes or how much movement the dumbbells make upon “landing”; it’s little to none on both scores. And I had been performing this exercise for over a year at this facility with no mention of any sort of problem from anyone on the staff; if anyone on the staff wanted me to change my M.O., I would have been happy to oblige. But no, I was simply kicked out.
I have encountered this, at a university-operated gym. I was probably about 30-40 pounds overweight when I started going there, so I wasn’t some kind of spectacular whale or anything, but I got looks and laughs. On one occasion, two frat-boy types came over to where I was jogging/walking on a treadmill, got my attention, and asked me “so how much *do *you weigh, anyways?”
Now, this was obviously stupid kids and not really adults, and I wasn’t so traumatized that I stopped going or anything, and I go to a perfectly nice gym now with no issues. But I can see how remembering gym experiences from high school or college might be enough to turn some people off of going to the gym entirely. I do think Planet Fitness sounds kind of extreme (although everything I know about them I’ve learned in this thread), but I can see who they’re going after. I probably wouldn’t go there, don’t think there’s anything wrong with catering to a specific market of people.
I have people skills!
Go soak your head. I don’t find sexual harassment at work to be funny at any time, much less when dragged into someone else’s thread where it is completely irrelevant.
Actually, it was more along the lines of “Go away gimp, we don’t want cripples here.” I wasn’t present, I heard about it second hand from friends of the spouse.
I’m trying to wonder just how you plan to go about eating the Space Needle. Do you start at the top or the bottom?
On a more positive note - the last couple times we looked into gym membership they didn’t have an issue with the spouse trying any of the equipment, and there was the one staff guy at the climbing wall who worked for two hours with the spouse to try to find a way for him to manage it (unfortunately, no, it is not within his ability to use the climbing wall but at least he was encouraged to try). Attitudes are improving.
I find most people at gyms to be very supportive of each other. I can understand why someone obese might be embarrassed or uncertain about it but most adults (and even a lot of kids) understand that you have to start somewhere.
Personally, I’d rather put up with some grunting, screaming, and the occasional dropped weight rather than that stupid-ass Lunk Alarm and a bunch of prissy, insecure dipshits.
And yet, they’re perfectly OK with the deliberately annoying and loud air-raid-siren-like Lunk Alarm…
I think it’s more common that people who are overweight or out of shape are the ones with the issues here. Very often, being overweight comes with a lot of shame and that makes a lot of people who would benefit from attending a gym reluctant to do so. Just as there are many women who don’t like working out in the presence of men (see Curves, Lady Golds, etc.), there are many fat people who don’t like working out in the presence of fit people. It might not at all be because of actual abusive behavior on the part of adult bodybuilders or athletes in the gym, but a combination of childhood trauma, insecurity, self-loathing, and other internal issues. In those circumstances, I can readily see how Planet Fitness’s marketing strategy might be effective and maybe even beneficial for some people.
I watched it and I’m still not getting the hate. Some businessmen saw a market niche and are catering to it. Free market and all, more power to them. If you don’t like their policies - don’t join. Problem solved.
I’ve belonged to many gyms. I’ve worked at gyms. I wouldn’t go to PF if it was free. If Ambi checked out the gym beforehand (like he should have) he should has saw this coming. He’s a bodybuilder for heaven’s sake.
I did check out the gym beforehand and I was aware of their policies. I always thought such policies were silly but since my workout habits didn’t tend to violate the policies anyway, I joined nonetheless. The whole reason I joined PF was because I had nowhere else to work out and I was just looking for the closest, cheapest place I could find while I searched for a more permanent, higher-quality center that met all (or at least more) of my workout needs. When I did ultimately find that gym, I decided to keep my PF membership to do my back workouts, since their lat-pulldown equipment worked much better for me than my new gym.
I’ve read the thread, I get that. But their rules are clearly workarounds for keeping serious lifters out. As a former gym employee, I know the crowd they are catering to. Regardless of how much you protest the letter of the incident. As a serious bodybuilder (I’ve seen your pics), you do intimidate that crowd. And I think you know that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of this had to do with the jury-rigging of machines to create new workouts. Raising machines on stacks of weights sounds like the kind of thing that any competent legal department would tell its gyms never, ever to allow.
Now, of course, it seems that tey didn’t actually say anything about it, so, really, who knows? I still thing that the more interesting aspct of this thread is not Planet Fitness’s “philosophy” but the apparently mysterious cancellation of membership.
Sorry, do you feel that you proved him wrong here? He clearly said he was wondering if they told your husband ‘you cannot join this gym because you walk funny’ in those exact words. Which they didn’t. He’s not wrong to point this out - even here you’re presenting this in the worst possible light to maximize the shock potential. I’m quite sure they also didn’t say “go away gimp, we don’t want cripples here” in those exact words. Both you and the OP have a tendency to do this, it doesn’t do anything for the believability of your stories.
And he clearly said he’d go big end first.
I was a bit surprised, to tell you the truth, that they never objected to this set-up. The only time they did speak to me about it was after the first time I did it; the manager came up to me and reminded me that I would need to put everything back after I was finished. Since this included multiple stacks of 45lb plate weights and a bench, it wasn’t an easy task. But that was the extent of management interaction with me involving that exercise. If I had ever been asked to change anything, I would have obliged.
I am not quite sure why I had my membership cancelled like that. I’m really not. That is some of what I have been discussing throughout this thread: some likely/reasonable possibilities as to why.
A friend of a friend said it happened, it must be true!
This gym sounds like it has great potential to be hilarious. I’m picturing something like theAnnoy-a-tron, but such that it random plays a “HRRRYNGG Thud!” sound. It could have a variety of grunts.