T Nation

Planet Fitness: What The Hell?!

Off Topic
#1

I work out on a pretty shitty piece of equipment (bench, dumbbells, and barbell) in my garage at home. My wife suggested that we join this gym that’s new in town and asked that I “check it out”. I’m speaking about Planet Fitness.

So I go to their website. First, they have a policy that is totally descriminatory against weightlifters. Period. You grunt, you are out. No deadlifts allowed. You will be banned. Dumbbells are limited to 80lbs. Seriously!? I was shocked. This supposed to be a gym, right?! RIGHT?!

Then…I found THIS gem on the "About Us pages:

Fun Facts!
We give away 35000 free t-shirts every month!

Have you seen PF’s famous candy jars filled with purple and traditional Tootsie Rolls?? We go through over 750,000 each month!

On Pizza Nights (the first Monday of every month) we go through 3000 pizzas. That’s 24000 slices per year!

The second Tuesday of every month we serve up free bagels to our club members! Come on by and get your own!

Only at PF!

More like Planet Fatass…

I just had to share.

#2

One of the most discriminating places I’ve ever been to, AND hypocritical.

#3

hahaha well for the price of 10 bucks a month, you can’t beat that price. For a college student that needs to lift during breaks, it’s a great deal.

Our PF lets us dead lift, and they are pretty lenient about the rules. The 80lb dumb bell max is annoying though, but there are always other exercises.

#4

Heh.

#5

Do they really have “pizza night” and jars of fucking candy at the desk?

I heard about that grunting bullshit, but fucking pizza night and candy?

I mean, how ridiculous is that?

Holy shit, that’s whacked.

#6

http://planetfitness.com/testimonials.asp?s=1009

uhhh…

and he wasnt kidding about the pizza…

http://planetfitness.com/fun.asp?s=1009

#7

[quote]SWR-1240 wrote:
One of the most discriminating places I’ve ever been to, AND hypocritical.

[/quote]

Are you crazy, that’s one the best marketing ploy ever! Keeps the client happy and contended while limiting results, thus creating lifelong commitment to their services, since they treat their people so well.

Deviously clever in Machiavelli kinda way. Brings to mind dentists giving candy to kids after their dental treatment.

#8

[quote]biglift88 wrote:
http://planetfitness.com/testimonials.asp?s=1009

uhhh…

and he wasnt kidding about the pizza…

http://planetfitness.com/fun.asp?s=1009 [/quote]

Yeah, and their commercials certainly are not free of judgments. What hypocritical assholes.

I wanna pay ten bucks just to go in during pizza night and grunt my ass off while shoving some Papa John’s pizza in my mouth.

#9

Franchised gyms suck. The best gyms are the whole’s in the wall that are dark, dank, smelly, and completely covered in chalk. You’ll know you’ve found one of these gyms when you walk through the front door and don’t hear Britney Spears or Kelly Clarkson on the fucking sound system…

Unfortunately, I lift at a NY Health and Racquet club, which I’m sure is just as bad as a Planet Fitness. I’m telling you, franchised gyms man, stay away from them…

#10

Just the pizza is worth the price.

#11

It’s the people in the gym that drive me nuts. In my way, talking, doing curls in front of the weights so no one else can get to the weights, yesterday some teenager walks under the cable while my wife was doing cable cross overs. Ridiculous!

You don’t see many people that are not serious in the whole in the wall places with rusty bars. Those types of places tend to have people that are serious and know what they are doing.

#12

My mom’s financing equipment for a new one in New Jersey. She explained that they basically fill the place with cardio equipment, a fuckton of people sign up because it’s so cheap, and only a small percentage of them actually attend.

#13

When I lived in LA, I was introduced to a gym that boasted these amenitites (no bullshit!):

A)A bar…a fucking bar! On the third floor of this paradox of a business was a full bar, which always happened to be full.

B)A cafe. Doesn’t sound all that bad, until you see what they served…ALL southern dishes, pizza, pop(sorry, down there it’s coke…‘can I have a coke please?’…‘sure, what kind of coke do ya want?’…'uh, a coke, coke please), doughnuts and candy!

C)A free weights section the size of my living room…in a three story building! This included dumbbells to only 60lbs and a small section for all of the olympic lifts (go figure)…only the plates that they had were all the lowest weights, so if you really wanted to load the bar up, you’d be forced to put 6+ plates on each side just to START grunting.

D)No swiss balls…no med balls…no kettlebells…but I’ll be good Goddamned if they didn’t have every machine EVER made! Hell, I think they even had one that works your perineum.

#14

HEY!!!

What’s wrong with Kelly?!???

She’s sorta’ hot (in a chunky/freaky kinda’ way…!)

Nothin’ like doin’ Deads and hearing “…SINCE U BEEN GONE…!!!” blaring through the speakers!

YEAH, baby!

(By the way…seems like “PF” has a way of keeping Lifelong Clients: a) Keep 'em fat and b) make sure that no one gets “too” in shape).

American Capitalism at it’s best!

Mufasa

#15

Oh…I forgot…this is “T-Nation”…

“I’d seriously give consideration to Hittin’ It…!”

Mufasa

#16

“I love the fact that it is not a muscle gym and all types of people/fitness levels can work out together”
? Brenda A.

NOT A MUSCLE GYM. What the hell are you there for?!? Toning, err…right.

“You truly are the Judgment Free Zone. I never hear the body builders grunting and groaning, or weights slamming around… It’s also great to see people in wheel chairs or with disabilities getting in on the machines just as easily as everyone else. Everyone is equal!”
? Samantha M.

Judgement Free as long as you don’t DL, Squat, or Oly-Lift. I was never much of a “grunter” my father had some choice words about grunting when working. Mostly along the lines of ‘Save it for when you need it’ then he’d box my ears. And slamming…I prefer lowering the weight in controlled manner, but hell if you miss the lift or you’re grip slips you gotta get out from under it quick. Can’t be helped.

Though Pizza Nite is tempting…

#17

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
“I’d seriously give consideration to Hittin’ It…!”[/quote]

I guess that’s fine if you’re into thick slabs of average-lookingness.

#18

Wow. That’s all I can say.

#19

My 5 year old likes to watch SpongeBob. On one episode, there’s a place called 'Weenie Hut Jrs.". I swear, after looking at the Planet Fitness website, it reminded me of the show.

#20

I suppose they are just giving the general population what they want; although I don’t know how anyone could make serious muscular gains in a place like this.