[quote]RWElder0 wrote:
For what it is worth if you looked up Planet Fitness Sucks in Google you would see any number of these stories - but I digress.
A fitness club is just that - a club. Any club with paying members agree to follow the rules set forth in the membership agreement they sign on day one. No flip flop sandals, no chatting on mobile phones, no gratuitous swearing, no attention whore grunting, etc. You agree when you sign on the dotted line. You break the rules, you’re outta there.
Talking on a mobile phone is different than talking to someone next to you because you don’t have to talk louder to hear the person on the other end of the phone when you’re right next to them and they don’t have to call your phone which is amazingly always set to the loudest ring volume, etc etc.
ugh - I think there is a microphone inside of the handset. People who feel the need to shout in the phone baffle me. Not to mention those who talk on phones at the gym but that is another story.
We don’t alienate people in our operation.
You stated that you kick people out of your gym. Is that not a form of alienation?
My gym’s capacity is 1000 members are we ride that line day in, day out.
1000 members? How many “total members” do you have? If you follow the 80/20 rule of business I would say you have done your job as a gym owner very well. After all it is a club’s job to sell memberships. Getting people in shape is something else - that we do charge for BTW.
You don’t have to appeal to every single person in the world, just enough people in your target market. We have astounding customer service!
I am sure you do. 1000 people a day is nothing to shake a stick at. All those people and not one call that is amazing.
I cannot tell you how many members have commended us for kicking out members who constantly refuse to abide by the club’s policies. They love it!
And so would anyone else who needs to really give a hoot about the social asspects of the club. Anything that interferes with that is uncomfortable and not to be tolerated. Why not escort people out who do curls in the power rack, or stand 2 feet in front of the dumb bells restricting access to the other members? Are these not an affront to other people’s experience?
As a bodybuilder, you don’t go to Curves (in his defence, he didn’t go to curves) seeking deadlift platforms, so why expect anything different at PF?
And as a customer of a fitness facility you do expect some latitude to use the equipment in a fashion that you believe is appropriate. If you kicked people out of your club that didn’t lift correctly you wouldn’t very many members left to applaud as you escorted the phone guy out the door.
The next thing I can’t wait to see is someone claiming bodybuilder discrimination and is looking for “pain and suffering” damages. (please laugh but people are so absurd this could happen)
We need to get tougher (stop bitching) and more tolerant of others. Too many people walking around this planet thinking they are special.
(This is a rant - I am the unhappy looking guy who wears his headphones and keeps his head down in the gym. You want a club go to the Palladium. You want to train go to the gym.)[/quote]
Wow, this is going to be fun.
Googling Planet Fitness Sucks has no value whatsoever. I could equally Google Gold’s Gym Sucks, 24 Hour Fitness Sucks, or Equinox Sucks and find any number of unhappy posts. Just because someone doesn’t like a place doesn’t mean it sucks. It just meant that person or those persons didn’t like what they offered. Like I said before, fitness clubs (or any business for that matter) don’t aim to please 100% of the general population. They have a target market. People outside that market who try to bend the club into what they are really looking for doesn’t constitute making the club suck because it’s not what they wanted. Actually, it makes the member look foolish for not doing his homework before joining said club. Don’t pawn your lack of knowledge about clubs off on the club because they don’t offer what you want.
I didn’t invent the mobile phone nor do I control those who use them. I have no control over people thinking it’s necessary to yell into their phones. It just seems to be the way people use them, especially in a gym with plenty of background noise that makes it even harder to hear the person on the other end.
Like I said previously, we do not alienate our members. We hold our members to our policies. When you have a disruptive member who ruins the environment for the rest of the members, the offender is going to lose. Those who join the club know the rules going into it. If they can’t take our warnings seriously, then they are let go so that the rest of the members can enjoy what they paid for. Your take then is that it must be wrong to alienate criminals from society. You make no sense. Perhaps we shouldn’t have alienated Saddam Hussein either?
I never said I kicked people out of the club for lifting “incorrectly” or anything related to that. If they injure themselves that’s their fault. Just like skiing, working out in a gym is a skill sport. People lifting in whatever way they want aren’t affecting the other members. We have 1000 total members and daily attendance around 200. Everyone knows our policies and, no, we do not have issues with people always making phone calls in the gym. They know it simply isn’t allowed. They go outside and make their calls. Of course, there is that one member who will do it, but like I said, we ask them to discontinue and after two warnings they’re out.
Not every fitness club is going to offer every type of weight equipment for everyone. That’s a given. You can’t walk into PF and just expect that you’re allowed to deadlift at will. Hell, the Gold’s I used to train at even stopped allowing deadlifting. To be honest, there aren’t a ton of bodybuilding gyms left these days. The fitness industry realizes that about 84% of the American population has never stepped foot in a gym. That’s a huge market. What’s happening now is the migration toward a general fitness club with a low intimidation factor to get average joe’s in the door.
My gym appeals to the general public, even though due to my personal tastes I do have 3 power racks for guys who like that type of thing. About 30-40% of my membership base has never joined a gym before. They say they feel comfortable here, unlike “regular gyms”.
Anyway, moral of story is: don’t bitch about a gym that doesn’t have what you want, go find one that does. You and the other gym members will thank you for it. Cheers!