Studio 54 meets Hee Haw--in HELL.
Written: Jul 02 '00 (Updated Aug 05 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sporty water-bottle free with membership!
Cons: Vodka not included.
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| cowboydj's Full Review: L.A. Fitness |
Best friends since high school, Tera had stuck by me through thick and thicker, party to the many hair-brained schemes I dreamed up to hasten my dramatic metamorphosis from fat adolescent nerd into thin adolescent adult.
Well, ok...thin-ner.
"You know, there's a perky little anorexic inside of you just dying to come out," she disparaged, eyeing my gym membership card with disdain.
"Problem is," I growled, getting up to leave, "he has four fat roommates."
"You're becoming all the things I hate in people," she returned with a kiss on the cheek. "I have no use for friends that don't eat fried foods--this is one fitness fetish you can count me out of, Trixie."
She was not to be moved, and I was on my own this time around. Off to the gym I went, stopping ever so briefly for a cocktail and a smoke to calm my nerves. Word to the wise: visiting the gym can be hazardous to your health--your mental health. My first experiences proved only slightly less humiliating than a public flogging and about as useful to the reconstruction of my already embattled self-esteem as having mother along to shop for underwear.
I walked into the local installment of L.A. Fitness dressed in an outfit I wouldn't have been caught dead in just weeks before and wondered if aliens had abducted my brain--surely this could not be me doing this. I recalled with an ironic smile the comment I made to a Phys Ed teacher in junior high years before. Needing his signature to ditch the dreaded requirement in favor of an academic elective, I proceeded to demonstrate that having me out of this class would be far less stressful than having me in it.
"Moreover," I continued, after a lengthy lecture on the intellectual decay of America resulting from an obsession with big hair and televised sporting events, "why would any sane person intentionally choose to perspire?"
My how things change, I thought, taking my place in line behind two other members, moist with masochism, waiting for their turn at the treadmill.
Hey! What the...I'm paying someone to wait in line for a treadmill? Has it really come to this??
I had been so preoccupied with keeping my sweat pants from wrinkling I hadn't really taken a good look around the place. Let me tell ya--ignorance is bliss; and at L.A. Fitness, it is also pandemic. I hadn't seen a crowd like this since the Bay City Roller's farewell concert tour. A cavernous warehouse packed to the rafters with grunting, horny cattle awash in neon and 80 brands of "sport" cologne: it was Studio 54 meets Hee-Haw--in Hell.
A 45-minute work-out took me nearly twice that long between waiting in line for machines and the rest periods needed to recover from massive doses of perspiration, pick-up lines, and lip-gloss. Additionally, the whole place wreaked of bleach and baloney, making me wonder whose idea it was to carpet a room almost constantly filled with steam.
As if planting one's behind on the freshly moistened seat of a Life-Cycle were not enough of a personal thrill, I would have to say that the highlight of my visits to "Germ World" was the obvious and onerous pecking order imposed upon its members by the "regulars." It's not often one can be visually emasculated, socially marginalized, and physically nauseated all in one day--let alone an hour--a feature you will not find mentioned in their promotional materials.
To be completely fair, the facilities were beautifully designed and the exercise equipment of top quality. Everything the budding brawny could ever want was there: free weights, machines, racquetball, heated pool (or pond, as the case may be)...though considering that they had sold memberships to a population just this size of China, traffic jams were more common here than on the Hollywood Freeway at rush hour.
Moreover, even with a staff (staph?) larger than the make-up and hair team for nSync they couldn't have kept the place anything close to sanitary...another detail not mentioned in advertisements. This place was definitely not for the squeamish.
After switching to Bally's and then 24-Hour Fitness, I have since made it a point to eschew these Hormone Depots in favor of smaller, independent gyms. This change of environs had a tremendous impact on the quality of my workouts, since these places are normally populated by people more focused on their own bodies than those of their gym-mates, at least during the course of their workouts. They are also the choice of serious body-builders, whom in my experience far from being indifferent and intimidating are often genuinely interested in offering us less genetically gifted types advice and assistance.
...and whose gonna argue with a 56-inch chest?
Big, flashy facilities and exotic equipment cannot make up for the faults of L.A. Fitness, or any of the current crop of fast-fitness chains. Successful workouts require only a few basic tools and commitment to your goals; anything else is little more than a distraction, reducing the benefits of your work-out while increasing your time and wardrobe expenditures.
If you even think about how you look before heading off to your gym--think about going somewhere else.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
cowboydj
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Member: T Morgan
Location: Nashville, TN
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 271 members
About Me:
I laughed, I cried, I ate a cannoli.
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