Hey San Antonio,
A couple of years ago, I read an article with that title, and decided to elaborate on each item in my own words. This was originally posted on my other San Antonio Personal Trainer blog, and I wanted to post it here for more people to read.
Let me provide some background information before I delve much further into this topic. If this is your first visit to the San Antonio Personal Trainer Blog, there is no way you know this, but I really do not like the commercial gym environment. I’ve never had any serious run-ins with commercial health clubs, but I know how they work and I know what is by far the most important thing to them, and it isn’t their members’ abs, self-esteem or success – it’s getting as much money out of you, the member, as humanly possible. I nearly become offended when they refer to their employees as personal trainers, when in reality, they’re not much more than glorified salespeople (my 2009 addition: “The Ambercrombie Club”).
That may sound flat-out vicious, but I hope that you take the time to at least read my point-of-view. My personal training business has thrived in San Antonio for several years now, so this isn’t, in any way, a plot to bring me more business. I simply realize that this blog has quite a large number of people that are reading it daily, and I’m fortunate enough to be able to use it as a tool to educate the people of San Antonio about corporate health clubs and gyms, such as Gold’s, Bally’s, Lifetime Fitness, and the other big chain facilities in and around San Antonio.
Many of these items tie-in together, and you’ll probably find their relationships obvious. These ten things were initially released in an article by Reshama Kapadia, but the commentary on each item is my own.
1. “If you’re still here in April, it’ll be a miracle.”
-January is the health club equivalent of the day after Thanksgiving for retail stores – it’s when they come out of the red and they make enough money to run a barely profitable company for the next 11 months. It’s the time when good-intentioned individuals plan on sticking to their New Year’s Resolutions. Don’t think you’re going to get any support from your health club. In fact, they totally expect you to not show up. Oh, make no mistake about it, as you’ll read later, they’re going to get their money out of you no matter what. The best part about it for the health club is that they’re going to do so without you occupying their space or using their facilities! The gyms factor in a 20-30% drop-out rate (by April 1) of clients that sign up in January.
What are some of the main causes of January “drop-outs”? In my opinion, it can be narrowed down to 2 simple reasons: First, the crowds during the first 6 weeks of the year are absolutely insane. Long lines at the treadmills? Check. Hearing the lines “Can I work in with you” or “How many sets do you have left” repeatedly during each and every workout? Check.
I think the biggest reason for lack of success in January sign ups is simple knowledge. The average person doesn’t know what type of results to expect, they don’t know if their doing the right thing to make progress – the health clubs do not provide proper (if any) guidance! I know, I know, you’re thinking “wait a minute, my club has personal trainers.” Well, if you want to call commercial health club “rep-counters” personal trainers, then I stand corrected. However, please reserve judgement until you read item number 4!
2. “Don’t touch anything, this place is crawling with bacteria.”
-About 80% of all infectious disease is transmitted by both direct and indirect contact, says Phillip Tierno, director of clinical microbiology at New York University Medical Center and the author of “The Secret Life of Germs”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that gyms and health clubs are breeding ground for everything from athlete’s foot to the flu and worse. Of course, most gyms have the spray bottles for wiping down equipment, but be realistic: does everyone use them? Do people wipe down the bars, grips, and medicine balls after they use them? The Swiss Balls? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone at a commercial gym wipe off a Swiss Ball. There are plenty of opportunities for disgusting bacterias. One major San Antonio health club has over 110,000 square foot and I’d guess that it has well over 100,000 members already (maybe many more). Don’t be fooled into believing that they’re equipped to keep it totally sanitized. The environment may look nice and it might be in a nice part of town, but what you cannot see CAN hurt you!
3. “We’re not equipped to handle health emergencies.”
-Here’s an interesting stat: more than one-third of cardiac arrests that happen outside the home and hospitals occur at fitness clubs and sports facilities, says Mary Fran Hazinski, a registered nurse and senior science editor at the American Heart Association.
While effective CPR can buy time, it simply does not reset the heart after cardiac arrest. Chances in revival drop by as much as 10% each minute that passes without proper CPR and defibrilation. Not only do most health clubs not have the proper equipment, their staff isn’t qualified or trained in actually applying simple CPR.
You never know when someone is going to need CPR/AED when they are partaking in an intense exercise program. I’ve been in facilities before when someone stopped breathing and had to perform CPR on that individual (and no, the person was not a client of mine). I personally keep my CPR up-to-date and take hands-on training regularly, and also require my employees to do the same. I’d never want to find out that either I or one of my employees was unprepared in the time of an emergency after the situation occurred. So, find out if your club has the right equipment and also make sure that they have individuals that are qualified to use it.
4. “Our trainers don’t know what they’re doing.”
-Ok, I’ll admit that I wanted to start with this one, but I patiently waited and wrote the previous three items out. You can browse through my blog and find many instances of my discussions about commercial health club personal trainers.
Let me see if I can touch on a few of the problems I have with the commercial health club personal trainers. First, experience and education are not the first things that health clubs look for when they’re hiring their trainers. They want people that can sell retail, nutritional supplements, more personal training packages and larger memberships. The margin of profit that clubs get from a good salesperson is absolutely insane. If a commercial health club personal trainer decided that they weren’t going to badger their clients with selling and just “shut up and train them” they would be FIRED for not meeting their quotas! A good personal trainer has one job: to teach. Their ultimate job is not only to get you in shape, but to teach you enough that over time, you can exercise on your own without dependence on them, NOT to drag you along for as many training sessions as possible. At no time should a trainer view a client as a quota or a sale. Scan through my blog and find my article about commercial gym horror stories. I can’t begin to tell you how many emails and in-person comments I received about that article where people told me they had either experienced or witnessed the same thing. That article was only the tip of the iceberg. I had more reports of negligence by inexperienced commercial gym personal trainers severely injuring their clients.
(I’d be glad to provide any of you with at least 3 former health club employees if you’d like to validate my information…)
Bottom line: interview your trainer, request references, and do your research. Don’t waste your time and money with someone that isn’t a true professional.
5. “We Won’t Let You Quit.”
-At first thought, this may sound like a pretty good deal. In a way, I suppose it could be used as an accountability mechanism. Let’s clarify something right now: when health clubs lock you in to a long term contract OR give you an extensive amount of things that have to be accomplished to terminate the contract, they aren’t doing it to help you stick with your fitness goals. They’re doing it to extract as much money from you as possible.
You have a better chance of getting out of a speeding ticket in Castle Hills or Shavano Park (inside joke for those who live in the local area, they tagged me for a 37 in a 35) before you’ll get out of your Gold’s Gym membership. I know plenty of people that have been told “the check will be mailed to you in 7-10 business days” only to find out months later that they’re still on the hook for membership dues and that the gym has taken the liberties to absolutely destroy their credit rating and turn the “defaulted membership payments” over to a collection agency. If you’re terminating your gym membership, create a paper trail with proof of cancelation. If there is a dispute, notify credit agencies immediately.
6. “Be sure to read the fine print on our contract.”
-Contracts are ugly, period. When you consider that most of us aren’t experts in contract law, the advantage definitely shifts in favor of the health club. Sometimes, you end up with a sales rep that offer you a deal you can’t refuse and you sign up then and there. “Sometimes you end up with a salesperson trying to make quoats that engage in pressure,” says Helen Durkin, head of public policy at International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), and this can lead to “glossing over of details”. One Bally’s 30 day “free” membership offers had a clause where the member had to visit the club at least 12 times over the 30 day period, and they could cancel without penalty. If they didn’t, they were locked into one of Bally’s infamous multi-year contracts with a hefty early termination fee.
My advice: don’t sign anything you don’t understand. Take your time, and read it thoroughly. Take the contract home and highlight any area that you may have a question on.
7. “Our equipment can be downright dangerous.”
-Did you know that fitness clubs DO NOT need a license to operate (aside from city permits such as Certificates of Occupancies and sales permits). And although that there are organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine that publish industry guidelines, they do not have the teeth of the law – they can only remove that particular club from their membership list.
Health, exercise and fitness-related nutrition is a multi-billion dollar industry with little regulation. Just now has the FDA started cracking down on bogus claims by fat loss supplements, and many of these ridiculous testimonials have been recycled for longer than 10 years. Since so many machines have various different uses, there’s no standardization with most equipment. Take the average health club client that may not have a clue on how to do a glute-ham raise or a hack squat, and the combination could be quite dangerous.
Also, there are no regulations for cleaning and properly maintaining equipment. I’m not going to attempt to tell you that a club would intentionally neglect maintaining their equipment because I’d hope they wouldn’t. But remember that some of these clubs have thousands of members using hundreds of different machines, and to the untrained eye or body, the individual may not even realize that the piece of equipment isn’t functioning properly and could end up with a serious injury. Harold Leon Bostwick is the perfect example: a stack of weights crashed down on the law student while he was doing squats on a machine, severing his spinal cord.
Ask to see maintenance and cleaning logs – all good clubs should have them. If the machine doesn’t move smoothly, sticks, hinges or jerks, avoid it like the plague.
8. “Everything is Negotiable.”
-I realize that not everyone joins their health club during January. The slow times (during the holidays and at the start of summer) are excellent times to take advantage of the best rates and promotions. Keep up with their promotions and write them down. When it comes time to renew your membership, more often than not, they’ll be willing to honor your request if you ask for an offer that they were running months prior. Of course, they’re going to play hardball with you and tell you that the offer is no longer valid. Remember, they want your money – if you walk out the door, they’ll get in touch with you.
One piece of advice that I’ll give you about personal training is this: it’s always cheaper to train with a partner. While I’d strongly advise against training at a commercial facility, you’ll definitely get a better per person/per session rate by bringing a friend, spouse, or other family member. It’s also a great way to stay motivated and accountable!
9. “If your wallet is stolen, it’s not our problem.”
-To most people, a health club is very community-like. Members are very comfortable there, chatting with people that they’ve come to know during the tenure of their membership, relaxing and enjoying their exercise session. Unfortunately, just like any neighborhood, there are people that prey on that feeling of safety and browse the locker rooms for unsecured wallets, gym bags and lockers.
Unfortunately, I’ve known individuals that have returned to their lockers after working out to find their locks cut and valuables missing. While the IHRSA recommends using a lock with a key (as opposed to a combo lock), I recommend not taking valuables (jewelry, purses, credit cards, cash, etc) into the gym with you. Leave it at home or secured in your car.
10. “Go ahead and sue, you’ll NEVER win.”
-Some things are definite: death, taxes, and you’re not going to win a lawsuit against a health club. As a matter of fact, you’re not going to be able to walk in the door of any health club in the city of San Antonio without signing a release of liability that completely absolves the club of any harm, EVEN IF IT IS DUE TO THEIR NEGLIGENCE OR MISINSTRUCTION BY THEIR STAFF MEMBERS.
There are numerous accounts of health clubs being responsible for injury, yet escaping the burden in the court of law. In the case of Michael Stokes (Washington), a judge found that there was a definite defect in the floor of a basketball court that led to severe tendon damage in Stokes’ knee and shoulder, and although the judge ruled that Stokes didn’t realize he was even signing such a release, a subsequent court of appeals upheld the waiver and dismissed the case. In cases of gross negligence, the club will more than likely hold some liability, but understand that the bar has been set high.
In basic English, know that you are responsible for your own health when you’re in a health club or fitness center, and make safety priority one.
I hope that you’ve found this information interesting and you now understand what the corporate gyms aren’t telling you. Believe it or not, I don’t even consider those clubs the competition to Personal Fitness Revolution. We realize that we can count on their mistreatment of members, and how impressed they are when they come to visit us.
Questions, comments or feedback? Let me know!
Boyd Myers
San Antonio Personal Trainer
