Looking for Major Health Club Horror Stories!!!

[kserajuddin]

One of the readers of my blog thought it would be a good idea to write a post on some what goes on in the "training" departments at health clubs -

You know, things like getting exploited, crappy hours, crappy pay, crappy bosses, selling - everything that everyone's bitching about on the forum!

Sounds like a real good idea and I could use some help -

I used to work at Bally's, so I've got them covered - and my reader filled me in on LA Fitness -

But I'm looking for some war stories from the other places - like 24 Hour Fitness, Equinox, Sports Club LA, NYSC, .... everywhere -

If someone already mentioned your place, still tell me about it - if you want, I'll even mention you in the post - but if you still work there it might get you fired so watch out - but depending on how you feel, that might be the best thing to happen to you!

If you've got a positive story, we'd love to hear that too - I don't know how many of those we'll get though ...

[EMISGOD]

I don't suppose that mentioning that almost all of the trainers I've seen at Gold's (half were not even remotely in good shape) and 24 Hour (only the management is fat there) are practicing varying levels of incompetence, with 24 Hour being somewhat higher overall than Gold's, would be what you're looking for?

[kserajuddin]

Yup exactly -
But Gold's is a franchise so what happens there is really up to the ownership from what I understand -
I'm looking for more from the failed system at the corporate health clubs -
You got any details on 24 hour fitness?

[EMISGOD]

Originally Posted by kserajuddin

Yup exactly -
But Gold's is a franchise so what happens there is really up to the ownership from what I understand -
I'm looking for more from the failed system at the corporate health clubs -
You got any details on 24 hour fitness?

That's where I go now, actually. If I remember, I'll ask some of them...24 Hour makes a big deal out of their trainers, so I'm guessing there is some standardization...there certainly appears to be from watching them "train" others and themselves...

[BC02]

24 hour fitness seems to have an exercise of the week type thing. Id see the master trainer doing some unusual exercise with someone and then Id see all the others having their clients do the same unusual exercise for about a week.

[EMISGOD]

Originally Posted by BC02

24 hour fitness seems to have an exercise of the week type thing. Id see the master trainer doing some unusual exercise with someone and then Id see all the others having their clients do the same unusual exercise for about a week.

I personally feel they indulge in a lot of silliness with their insistence that everyone stand on globular objects before performing nearly any exercise or one guy that I saw trying to teach people how to do Glute-Ham Raises with the Lat Tower pads (he stole this from me, by the way, as I had not seen him do it the entire time he was there, ever, until he was watching me one Leg Day) by hooking his knees under the pad and dropping his upper section down to a padded bench, then shoving himself back up with the force of his Arms. Since I was doing a Leg Day at the time, I switched over to do the exact same exercise just a couple machines down from him and demonstrated, by example, the proper way to do them, without a bench of any kind to catch myself on and while holding weights the entire time.

I really like their foolish training habit of training everyone who is doing Calves by having them do raises up and down the stairs to the Cardio section, one Leg at a time, unweighted of course. One day, there were about 4 trainers trying to take people to the stairs, which clotted up the staircase nicely. It was kind of funny watching them have to interrupt their workouts to wait for other people to get out of the way and every time someone wanted to go up to use the Cardio machines or come down from a workout...

[kserajuddin]

Originally Posted by EMISGOD

I saw trying to teach people how to do Glute-Ham Raises with the Lat Tower pads (he stole this from me, by the way, as I had not seen him do it the entire time he was there, ever, until he was watching me one Leg Day) by hooking his knees under the pad and dropping his upper section down to a padded bench, then shoving himself back up with the force of his Arms. Since I was doing a Leg Day at the time, I switched over to do the exact same exercise just a couple machines down from him and demonstrated, by example, the proper way to do them, without a bench of any kind to catch myself on and while holding weights the entire time.

He was doing that with new clients? Ridiculous -
Yeah that's one thing you see at these places - real flavor of the month type stuff - whatever might be more marketable for them - I think smarter potential clients look at that stuff and are turned away because they don't want to look so stupid when they're working out -

But let's stop trashing the trainers - I want to hear what some of you actually experienced while working in one of these places -

How was the experience?

[DieHollywoodDie]

subscribe.

[BC02]

ha ha. body of change and good company dont belong in the same sentence. The mnggmnt steels your commissions. If the computers are down(WHICH IS A LOT) and you have to use what they call the "exception logs" for your sessions you can pretty much count on not getting paid for them

[db2012]

Originally Posted by kserajuddin

One of the readers of my blog thought it would be a good idea to write a post on some what goes on in the "training" departments at health clubs -

You know, things like getting exploited, crappy hours, crappy pay, crappy bosses, selling - everything that everyone's bitching about on the forum!

Sounds like a real good idea and I could use some help -

I used to work at Bally's, so I've got them covered - and my reader filled me in on LA Fitness -

But I'm looking for some war stories from the other places - like 24 Hour Fitness, Equinox, Sports Club LA, NYSC, .... everywhere -

If someone already mentioned your place, still tell me about it - if you want, I'll even mention you in the post - but if you still work there it might get you fired so watch out - but depending on how you feel, that might be the best thing to happen to you!

If you've got a positive story, we'd love to hear that too - I don't know how many of those we'll get though ...

about 7 years ago I worked in a gym called "Fitness USA". Trainers there were a joke I soon found out. The training they put us though was so ridiculous. They told stories of "success" saying they would not allow the person to leave the room until they signed up or physically got up and left. It was the worst High pressure environment I have ever seen. They would call potential members fat and out of shape, One guy I worked with signed up a guy who was retarded who didn't have a job just go get a sign up. I quit very soon after I realized how unethical the place was.

[gischer]

I currently work for 24 hour fitness as a trainer. I will say they are rediculous in that they will hire trainers with no prior certification and stick them through a 3 day workshop which teaches how to sell their products and a couple of silly ballance exercises, and then call us certified. This results in plenty of very unknowledgeable trainers, but they don't really "tell" us how to train other than that. At least in my club everything is pretty hands off, and they just let us do our own thing.

I guess on one hand maybe they are too "hands-off"... we deffinetly do have trainers who never fail to mention "the core" in every single exercise, and will do anything and everything on a bosu ball short of jumping jacks.

I can't wait until the whole "core" fad goes away...

[kserajuddin]

These were some tight answers - real horror stories - I love it -

[Dark Phoenix]

I worked at Goodlife (A Canadian Gym)

I was to use the goodlife hand shake, which was a normal handshake, only with the other arm I was to grab you by the elbow.

I was told that if a client starts crying, great, now they trust you and you can sign them up.

If a person was to say "I need to think about this" - this being a contract worth 3000 dollars or more, I was to say "You said this was important to you, why wait, lets get started now."

I quit soon after this.

[PrisonerDilemma]

Subscribed

[dasixthsun]

how bout doing a 100 training sessions in a two week period and only get paid 500 dollars.

[kserajuddin]

*bump*


here's the post - thanks to everyone who contributed - and if you've got a comment I'd love to hear it:

http://super-trainer.com/welcome-to-...orror-stories/

[MVP]

All commercial gyms are the same. It's all about the money, and they can care less about the clients / members

There are no trainers. They hire you as one, but forget to tell you that you are a car salesman, and not really a trainer. Being a so called trainer is just a front, because deep down inside, you are pressured into selling! You have to scam everyone, and if you close, you have to train them. That's gotta suck!

[nickmanzoni]

I have a franchise I work at, let's call it' "old's gym"

It's because we are basically getting raped by the senior citizen crowd due to silver "slippers" as they like to call it.

Well, this place is so horribly ran. The management doesn't want to cater to the "meathead" crowd and is contemplating removing the 125 lb dumbells in an attempt to clear them out. NO t-bar rows, and memos are taped to machines telling them where they can/can't rack their weights.... the "silver slippers" people want to use the 2.5 lb plate, but can't reach around the 45 to get it.

Failing that, they have basically me as their head trainer, a PT director who was a business manager for 20 years, and is only been a personal trainer for 6 months...


Sounds like a recipe for success, yes?


p.s. silver slippers is the silver sneakers program.

[billy]

The PT director at the gym I work at told a member to just take the fitness classes and don't lift weights if she didn't enjoy it. She ask me for a second opinion and I explained to her all the benefits of weight training especially for someone her age (in her 60's). She trained with me for a couple weeks and needless to say, her strength and energy level has gone way up.

I understand that it can be hard to do something if you don't enjoy it, but my understanding is that you join a health club because you're looking for some kind of results. Yet, many women still only attend the fitness classes while avoiding weight training. They look the same as they did a ago, but refuse to do other types of exercises because they don't enjoy it.

One of these days, I'm going to tell them that if they're all about having fun then go to Disneyland.