Planet Fitness

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Has anyone here ever gone or heard of anyone else going? I'm trying to figure out if it's worth getting a membership or not. I am constantly seeing how much pro fitness people dislike it, and it's kind of making me weary of joining. I am not by any means a pro--looking for a place to workout prior to having free access in university.

Thanks.

Planet Fitness sucks. Most of these gyms do not let you lift heavy, and I've personally never seen any visibly fit person train there.

I know about their bizarre pizza and bagel thing--still don't get that. I just don't know an alternative around here that's inexpensive for people who want a good workout other than outdoor activities.

Honestly, I would just skip Planet Fitness and do cardio outside, or save money up and buy an exercise bike. They mainly just have cardio equipment. If you go there, you'll have a harder time finding a good trainer. There are free lance trainers that you'll see in Planet Fitness, but I would be weary of the ones that work for the actual gym.

There isn't a Curves, or Bally's?

Since you'll be quitting the gym to go to your uni's, I think it'd best not to get a membership and deal with the contract hassles. A lot of gyms, including Planet Fitness, will have outrageously priced <1 yr memberships and will be very unforgiving if you don't renew or decided to leave early.

For cardio, running or cycling would be a good idea ('Couch to 5k' if you're a beginner) and for weighted exercises, you can do bodyweight exercises (there's a few programs floating around the internet. Reddit also a good subreddit on it).

Thanks for the input, everyone. I wouldn't call myself a beginner, as I've been active and working out for years now. I moved recently, and was using my previous university's gym. It was a bit frustrating being unable to go to an actual gym, so I'd decided to go this route out of impatience.

As for PF, it's about $120 for a year, which doesn't include taxes or any fees they may add onto that, so it does worry me.

Curves or Bally's, I'm not sure, nor can I afford more than $100 per year. It's really stressing me out in general. I can't find any parks with outdoor cardio equipment, so I'm left with biking, running, jogging, and walking.

Try High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT). Monitor you diet also. You need to do both.

Will do. I'll look into that now. The diet I've got under control--not worried about that at all.

A lot of those gyms also require automatic billing - they will deduct your monthly membership fees from your account whether you attend or not. Even worse, they will automatically renew your membership. You can't just let it lapse and stop paying, because it's in the contract!.

At one gym we were visiting, a family came in and wanted to cancel their membership, and the owner wouldn't let them! He said that the contract clearly states that a the contract can only be broken by a registered letter sent to a specific address, and not to the gym itself. When the family asked why the letter wasn't forwarded, the owner said that he was not the Post Office. When they asked for the letter back, he said that he'd thrown it away. Then he told the family to go home, re-read the contract, and call if they had any questions.

I went over to where my wife was still talking to the salesperson, told her we were leaving, explained why, and we left.

You can get the bank to block the billing. That'll get them to revoke the membership.

^ I second that, LA fitness tried to pull some shenanigans with me when I cancelled, I cut them off at the source and haven't heard from them since.

Was it a one year contract, or did they not cancel the contract even after the year was up? I'm not against paying for a year.

I toured a Planet Fitness once but it was too overwhelming for me. I hope it works for you.

I was past the year mark with them, even paid first and last month. Not that I'd stick it out a year if I didn't want to. What gives them the right to tell me how long I should subscribe? That practice is plain unfair.

Seems many gyms are and don't allow you to simply pay for one-time sessions instead of signing up and locking you into bloody contracts.