Got a bad feeling…

Since moving to Florida I have been a member of four (technically 6) gyms.  Each gym was unique in some of the annoyances about them.  Gold’s Gym was well equipped but was  a social club as much as it was a gym. There was a lot of people just standing around looking pretty. There also was enough silicone, steroids and saline walking around in there that I felt like I was in a science lab.

Next was Powerhouse which was very close to work.  This was a gym that was the magical combination of a shoe string budget and an owner that didn’t give a fck about anything.  I think you could have dropped your pants and taken a shit in the middle of the gym floor and he wouldn’t have cared.  He would not have cleaned it up either. The place was absolutely cruddy with cob webs as decorations and piles of dust in every nook and cranny.

If there was anywhere the owner he would cut corners he would.  Instead of turning on the AC, many days he would just have the small front and back door open, thinking that was enough to cool off the roughly 2500 square feet of floor space.  If a machine was broken it would not be fixed for months, if at all.

To top it all off, I later found out the owner had a drug/gambling problem.  Towards the end he jettisoned the Powerhouse franchise name (another way to save money) and renamed the gym Pure Fitness.  Less than a year after that he closed up shop without notice and moved all of the equipment out of the place like a thief in the night.

Then there was World Gym, which was very close by.  I liked World Gym.  It was clean, had brand new equipment and was staffed by nice people.  Well the owner then sold to Planet Fitness, the worst gym franchise in the world and home to the infamous “Lunk Alarm”

In a few weeks they transformed the place from a nice gym into the shell of one, removing many of the machines and weights that only a “lunk” would use.  They also implemented a lengthy and ridiculous set of rules, the violation of which could result in the staff ringing the lunk alarm on you.  I HATED Planet Fitness.

That brings me to my current gym, Retro Fitness, where I have been a member for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 or 4 years.  When it first opened I was really impressed.  Again the place had all new equipment and a huge cardio theater room.  The place (I thought) was owned by a younger guy that seemed to have a real good attitude.

Things have been generally good there although there were a few warts like hot water that basically never worked, the cardio theater not being maintained and some cleanliness issues that were masked by the dark rubber floor.  If you get down to do anything on your hands like push ups you come up with two very dirty hands.  There are definitive islands of dust under the machines and weight racks too.

As time went on I discovered the young guy whom I thought was the owner, actually was not.  He was the son of the owner.  The owner was a dentist that lives in Michigan.

Well the son had some personality issues, mostly anger related.  He was not very good with his staff and not adverse to causing a scene in front of the members if he was off the hook.  He evidently did not run a very tight ship either.  At one point there were people from Retro’s main office that were there for an extended period of time to try to clean things up.

I heard there was something like $5000 in missing product like protein drinks and supplements and a number of other book keeping issues.  Part of the revamp was installing a new, multi-camera security system.  The son was actually banned from coming into the gym for a period of a month or two.

Well eventually things settled down, kind of.  The son was back and the ship seemed to be moving along however there were various tweaks being done.  They smashed all of the cardio equipment in the theater room into half the space so they could offer fitness classes in the evening.

Then they set up a small caged area for some weird dude to try to pitch his fitness supplements.  That lasted all of 6 weeks until the guy and his cage disappeared.  I never saw anyone buy a single thing.

These moves concerned me as it was a pattern I saw repeated at Powerhouse.  The owner was always trying to make side deals to make some extra money.  None of them worked out either.

The other danger sign was the revolving door of staff.  When the gym first opened they had a solid crew of 5 or 6 people you saw consistently.  In the last year I bet no less than 15 different faces have been behind the counter.  Sure, working the counter at the gym can’t be a job many would select as a career path but the high turnover was a clear indication of problems.

So that brings us to this week.  All of a sudden there is a new guy behind the counter.  He is a little nerdy looking guy wearing a sport coat.  He sort of looked like he would have been a character in the old school Leisure Suit Larry games.  I never saw the guy before but he was giving the girl working the counter orders like he was running things.  The son has been nowhere to be found and the trainers seem to have pulled all of their stuff out of their former location as well.

I have heard rumblings that this creepy little guy was the new owner but I have not confirmed it 100% yet with any of the remaining staff. Based on my past history with gyms, a change in ownership is rarely a good thing.  I am already starting to scope out my alternatives if things go south quickly as I expect them to.

There is absolutely no way I would consider going back to Planet Fitness.  Hell if I have no other viable options I may just keep equipment in my truck to do outdoor calisthenic style work outs.