Northville Michigan Planet Fitness USED to be a nice gym
Written: Jul 21 '07 (Updated Jul 21 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cheap.
New equipment.
Generally clean.
Cons: Clientele.
Tiny weight room.
Not welcoming to people who are serious about their fitness.
The Bottom Line: If you want to use machines, do cardio and don't mind annoying people, sign up. It's cheap. But if your serious about fitness, I'd try another gym.
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| fitboy's Full Review: Planet Fitness |
I'm a member at the Northville, Michigan Planet Fitness. Until last fall, this was an upscale gym called "Water Wheel Health Club" that had a diverse clientele that included a broad range of people with different fitness and health goals ... housewives, retirees, young professional and yes, even a few body builders and pretty serious fitness types thrown in for good measure. We all got along in harmony. I personally never dropped a weight, grunted, wore clown pants or a do-rag or used profanity. It was already a judgment-free zone without the patronizing "Lunk Alarms" and free artery-clogging pizza and bagels twice a month.
And then last August, the owner decided that what he really needed was a franchise ... and not just in this location, but several others. Enter "Planet Fitness."
I was told that this would be a state-of-the-art facility and that I would be much happier with the new format. I kept an open mind and gave it a chance. Nine months later, I'm here writing my review. It's not going to be complimentary.
I won't go into all of the details about how they attempt to discourage bodybuilders and people with serious fitness goals from joining -- just read the reviews below. But I can tell you that their strategy hasn't really worked.
Despite the fact that they keep adding more and more essentially identical machines, they refuse to expand any of the square-footage in the free weight room. Now I suppose that would be fine if no one wanted to use the free weights, but apparently everyone does. Some nights you have to wait in line to get on one of the two benches they have. When machines break, they fix them within 24 hours -- when their arm slings for hanging knee raises broke (a favorite exercise among the more fit crowd), they refused to replace them. Something about the expense. They cost $45. I guess they need the extra coin for that other location they are opening up.
The actual free weight room is so small that one has to question the safety of having so many people in such close quarters slinging iron around. I nearly dropped a 45 pound plate on a teenager’s foot one night because he was crowded in next to me with his buddy while I did squats. People are running into each other, benches cluster up and sometimes it's difficult to even navigate from a bench to the drinking fountain. Their solution to this was to hand out a flyer showing you the times of the day when less people were using the gym. Of course, those times are when most people are at work.
Oh, and then there are the high school students. I'm glad that teenagers are trying to get healthy, but they travel in packs of two to four and loiter around while their buddies do sets. This wouldn't bother me one bit if the weight room was larger. But it's not.
This takes me to my final complaint about Northville Planet Fitness: the lack of etiquette.
I spend ALOT of time in the gym and consider myself to be pretty serious about my training. I do a lot of supersets and move very quickly from exercise to exercise. You could say I’m ultra-focused. I strive to always be polite and considerate. If I'm between sets, I let people work-in. No problem. But I do expect the same courtesy from the other gym members. Unfortunately, since opening the flood gates last fall with their $10 dollar a month membership, they've attracted some of the most clueless, inconsiderate blockheads in the metro-Detroit area. Despite signs posted all over the place, people jabber away on their cell phones, take naps on the equipment, get upset if you ask if you can work in while they stare off into space, and leave weights on the barbells and leg presses. I actually watched this guy on Saturday use four pieces of equipment in a row and leave all of his plates on them for the next person. I confronted him and he whined “They’re only 45s.” Right, not a problem for me, but for the 110 pound girl who’s trying to tone up on the bench, that’s considerable weight. Plus it’s freaking rude. Let’s just say he went back and stripped off the weight. But why do I need to be the one playing enforcer in this gym? Who was sounding the lunk alarm that day?
My advice to management is to stop worrying about the "lunks" and start requiring all new members to take a "Gym Etiquette 101" course before being allowed to even hit to floor. That includes explaining that other people have a right to the equipment you are on when you are not actively using it. It also means leaving that cell phone in your purse or jacket and focusing on your workout instead of yammering away with your BFF about how your pap smear came back negative (yes, I actually heard this one in the cardio room.)
Bottom line is this used to be a GREAT gym. Right now the only reason I'm still a member is because the distance is so convenient, and even that's beginning to lose it's luster. Case in point, I came in today to find that they had replaced the Squat rack with a SECOND Smith Machine. The gym didn't need another Smith machine -- especially if it meant losing one of the most fundamental and versatile pieces of equipment in any gym. Apparently doing squats is being a lunk. Go figure.
I'd gladly pay $50 a month again if I could go back to the way this place used to be. Somehow, I don't think that's happening.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
fitboy
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 1 member
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