This article is from 2014. PF gives away a lot of free bagels and pizza every year. They’re successful with their strategy and they’re a public company now. Good for them.
If it’s not difficult enough to maintain a good diet, PF enables its members with piles of processed food a couple times per month. A healthy diet is a life long endeavour. And it’s hard enough without enabling its customers with free bagels and pizza. Might as well give them candy while you’re at it. They may do that already anyway.
Also, they literally ban any “heavy weights.”
Puh-leeze. You’re supposed to “exert” yourself. As I mentioned earlier, PF is not a for the serious exerciser. PF is for those where some exercise is better than no exercise. It’s cheap! And that’s fine.
I don’t step into fast food restaurants and I won’t step into a PF.
Speaking of Planet Fitness and candy. I forgot about this incident, which made the news in 2018. Due to ToS, I can’t post the link, but if you Google the phrase(s) “Planet Fitness” and “Tootsie Roll,” you’ll get the link to the YouTube video.
I don’t belong but know many who do - if you are going on a regular basis and spending your time on machines, working up a sweat and getting your heart rate up (don’t need a trainer or weights to do that) then I applaud you and say keep it up!
Pizza and bagels are not the worst thing in the world and at once a month - if you even happen to be there - well, you’ll have plenty of other temptations over the course of a month to say yes or no to. So I think harping on that “perk” at PF is sort of petty.
My point was not directed at one person - but the criticism of the bagels and pizza in general. I work in health care and yet our lunchrooms can be filled with plenty of unhealthy treats from time to time!
Discipline - whether to get to the gym to work out or to pass on food you don’t need or even deciding you can have 1/2 bagel instead of a whole one is one of the foundations of making fitness and wellness part of your routine.
Our PF definitely has serious exercisers. I watch several of them and am impressed with how toned and muscled they are. I’ve never seen or heard the lunk alarm go off.
We’ve belonged to 3 previous gyms that all closed without warning, creating difficulties canceling the memberships. As long as this one stays open, I’ll be happy.
My husband has been a member of LA Fitness for 30 years, so that is where he exercises daily when in town, or if there is a membering gym. He joined PF as one of the cities he travels to twice a month has a location close to where he works. While he has the $10/one location membership, he has enter other locations without anyone saying anything. He though maybe it wasn’t just a one gym membership until he got stopped at a third city he traveled too.
PF allows him to exercise daily even when he travels and has been very happy.
I’ve been a member of PF for a few months now (DD24 is also a member). I go at 5:30 am where the crowd is mainly senior citizens and middle aged people. I joined because I didn’t want to workout in an environment where I had to listen to people stand around and talk about their protein regimen and how many reps they did each day. I can hear that in the office (and believe me I do). They do have some interesting rules at PF though, my dd’s friend supposedly got kicked out of one location for having a water bottle that was too big (he is an amateur body builder though so I am guessing there was more to the story).
It’s easy to avoid the bagels and pizza. I have never been there when the pizza is out (see 5:30 am note above) and have walked by the bagel table numerous times with no regrets. IMO, it’s no different than when I drive by the Dunkin Donuts next door without stopping in for a snack. I have enough sense to not undo the pain I have just inflicted on myself with a crappy bagel. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and if you take a bagel it is on you. I do allow myself 5 Tootsie Rolls every Wednesday (and only on Wednesday).
I’d just add a comment — I’ve never been to PF, but I recently activated my Silver Sneakers membership at the local 24 Hour Fitness. No pizza & bagels, but there is a well-stocked section with various packaged food items for sale, like protein bars. I didn’t think that was at all unusual – I’d expect the gym would sell those items. But I already know-- without looking – that a lot of protein bars are full of sugar. Just because the label has a word like “power” or “strength” in it doesn’t mean that the candy bar inside is healthy. (Nutella, anyone?).
I just checked online for nutritional info on one of the brands they sell (Clif’s Builder’s Protein Bar) and compared it with nutritional info for a slice of pizza. Calories, saturated fat, and carbs are roughly equivalent. The protein bar has about 50% more protein – and 3 times the sugar content. (22 grams of sugar for the protein bar compared to about 6 grams of sugar in a slice of pizza).
So yes, I generally do avoid pizza, bagels, donuts, etc. But I also steer clear of candy bars with added protein. (I do eat protein bars, but I have figured out the brands with fewer calories and less sugar, and they aren’t sold at the gym). So my only point is that there is plenty of unhealthy stuff to eat at other gyms as well, much of which is wrapped in packages designed to make us think that they are good for us.
I would just add that I have never gone to a gym before now — and I really do need to work on my fitness – and the option to work with a personal trainer is really worth the investment. (They do charge more money for that). I think that if you know what you want and what you are doing at the gym, then it sounds like PF would give you low-cost access to all the exercise machines. But if you are new to gyms & and a regular exercise routine, then it does help to have someone guiding you and teaching how to use the equipment. I am on equipment that I would not have thought of as being “for me” (like the rowing machine) – and my trainer told me to stay away from equipment that I probably would have started on without guidance. (The treadmills – they seem to get heavy use, but my trainer said I’m much better off doing actual real-world walking) Working with a personal trainer is not cheap, there is a lot of flexibility as to how training sessions are scheduled - it doesn’t have to be all at once.
@calmom, PF does have a schedule of small classes offered M-F.
Many personal trainers bring their clients there, although it’s against the rules.
Two times I used a personal trainer for a few sessions–once when I started and had absolutely no idea what I was doing since my last gym experience was in college circa 1968, and then a year later when I found an amazing woman who did 5 or 6 sessions at PF and at my house so I can do stuff at home too, using the weights my daughter left behind in the house when she went away to college, plus the purchase of a set of exercise bands
Congratulations on getting started! The best thing I learned from the second trainer at PF was the elliptical. You can do a lot more in a short period of time–intervals!.
The PT I am working with works at the gym. In fact I was given a free session with her to start, as part of the free membership I have with Silver Sneakers. But I pay for additional sessions. I don’t plan to do that continually, just to start as I get familiar with the equipment and developmental a routine that works for me.
In any case, I don’t live near a PF, and I’m not going to go regularly to a gym that is more than 5 to 10 minutes away, so my own choice is based mostly on proximity. If the gym is too far away, then travel time starts to get in the way of exercise time. If the gym is nearby, then I don’t have any excuse not to go.
@calmom, I totally get that! My PF is half a block from my subway stop and around the corner from a laundromat I can use. Wash in, PF, wash to dryer, PF, fold, home!
@oldmom4896 I am also on WW and Tootsie Rolls (even the 11 calorie ones) are more points than I am willing to spare. If I didn’t regulate myself I’d be walking out with huge handfuls on the daily. I do a 5K before work 3 times a week so if I meet my time goals on Wednesday I give myself that treat.
Considering I was a non-runner a few months ago I consider my PF membership money well spent.
I know lots of people who belong to PF and like it. The price is right. Just read the cancellation policy carefully and, as was mentioned, get it in writing. I think it sounds like it would suit you just fine. You get out of it what you put into it. I know people who make use of our gym at our corporate office and work hard and DO manage to stay fit and lose weight- and it isn’t as big as PF by any means. The poster who is negative about it is a very extreme fitness person with a particular slant to his workouts.
Planet Fitness does serve a segment of the fitness industry demographic. With its low prices and (ham handed) approach to marketing to those who might feel intimidated by gyms, it does have its appeal. Conceptually, I’m ok with that. And even though its resistance training is all machine based, you can build strength and muscle. However, the lack of free weights is very limiting for a variety of reasons relating to functional movement and strength, compound movement patterns involving more than one joint, planes of motion and muscle groups. Where I really part ways with Planet Fitness, though, is that the staff is generally wholly unqualified to work on a fitness floor supervising customers, providing safety critical guidance, or suggesting how to structure workouts. The staff are basically salespersons. I’ve seen Planet Fitness facilities where cardio is on a second floor and strength on the ground floor where the staff desk/counter is and someone could drop dead doing cardio and the staff wouldn’t have a clue because they are all downstairs trying to make sales. All of that being said, PF is not a bad place for those who know their way around machines and are satisfied with doing machine based workouts on their own.
@oldmom4896 , that’s interesting. The ones around me don’t have any barbells, squat racks, lifting cages or platforms. You would think with branding and all that, there would be uniformity from facility to facility.
@ohiopublic , don’t even get me started about CrossFit’s licensing model. While there are no doubt Cross Fit facilities owned and managed by qualified fitness professionals, there are also many run by owners who have no more education and training as a professional than just taking a one or two day Cross Fit “certification”. And that can be a disaster waiting to happen.
(I do eat protein bars, but I have figured out the brands with fewer calories and less sugar, and they aren’t sold at the gym). So my only point is that there is plenty of unhealthy stuff to eat at other gyms as well, much of which is wrapped in packages designed to make us think that they are good for us.