Left out a good one

I forgot to mention this in this morning’s post.  I was at Planet Fitness yesterday doing my leg routine as usual.  Typically when I do leg extensions and curls I do them in the “30 Minute Workout” section of the gym, the equipment in there is better than what is on the main floor.  This section is supposedly designed so a person goes from one machine to another through the entire circuit to achieve a full body workout in 30 minutes.  This feature was added probably 5 years ago and pretty much no one ever uses it as intended, people hop in there, do a couple machines they want to do and hop out.  It’s just another example of one of the fail concepts that “no lunk” Planet Fitness leans heavily on.

Just like front desk staff, this Planet Fitness location rolls through trainers like toilet paper.  In the last year I bet there have been at least five of them that have come and gone.  However the last few make me lol as they were clear examples of individuals not buying what they are selling, they were/are terribly overweight, perhaps part of PF’s brilliant no intimidation policy. The only good thing is you pay for their help what they are worth, zero.

So the current young guy that is the “trainer”, who likely has a BMI approaching 40, spends almost every minute I see him at the gym circling the floor.  It seems like he is desperately looking for someone to interact with or wanting to ask for his assistance but those requests never seem to come so he continues to circle.  Well yesterday he actually had a woman that he was “training” back in the 30 minute workout area.  They were doing the circuit per his direction, probably because it was written on the wall on how to do it. I doubt the guy has many formalized training plans in his head otherwise.

I was over on the leg curl machine when I heard the guy address another older woman who was in the area.  Like me, she had come in to use one of the machines but not do the entire circuit.  The guy scolds this woman and tells her how this area is ONLY for people doing 30 minute workouts.  She told him she was just doing one set and leaving but he said that it wasn’t true as he had seen her doing sets on other machines in there too, GASP!!!  This poor woman actually followed the fake trainers directive and left the 30 minute workout area.  Keep in mind besides the woman that this genius was training, there were only two other people in there so a total of 3 people for roughly 15 different machines.

So when this went down I had only completed my first set.  I was amazed at the stupidity of this guy and I wondered if he had the balls to come over and accost me for blatantly ignoring the circuit only sign on the wall as well.  Perhaps he read my body language, perhaps he is only comfortable reprimanding older women, but for whatever reason he said nothing to me as I completed my two additional sets on the leg curl machine before leaving the area.

I had a full diatribe prepared in my head if he dared say a word to me.  I was going to ask him if Planet Fitness was now going to actively enforce ALL of the rules they post on the walls.  Was Mr Rule Police going to apprehend all of the patrons that ignore the “Limit Cell Phone Use to the Lobby” signs aka everybody?  How about the gaggle of old men that use the exercise machines as park benches where they talk about breaded haddock and bowel movements?  Were they planning on dropping the hammer on the guys that use the Smith machines for 60 minutes at a time, disregarding the 30 minute max rule? What about the people that leave equipment covered in bodily fluids, ignoring the wipe down signs?  How about disregarding customer safety by allowing machines with frayed belts, stripped screws, and loose parts to remain in service because they are too cheap or lazy to do anything about it?  I could go on and on.

After asking the guy what training certification he currently held, I was going to top it off by letting him know I would be happy to share my thoughts with the owner, Mark, who I have known for about 15 years.  Luckily, for the fake trainer, he kept his mouth shut but if he ever tries to reprimand me in that shit hole gym I promise, I will make a scene that he is unlikely to forget anytime soon.  The reality is in a few weeks he too likely will be gone just like the rest of them.  The shelf life on most PF staff is 3-4 months.