Think outside the big box

You might have noticed that I don’t have a very high opinion of those McGyms that litter the suburbs alongside the huge furniture stores, etc. I’ve worked as a personal trainer at four different gyms, including a practicum I did in college. Three of them I left voluntarily; I was fired from another one.

I probably could have stayed at the locally-owned franchise gym where I did my practicum, but I decided to be a stay-at-home dad to my (newborn at the time) son.  A couple years later I was hired by a small gym about 20 miles from my home. My job was to conduct “orientations” for new members, then try to convince them to hire me as their trainer. I was not paid for doing the orientations. I quit after about five weeks of schlepping clear across town and volunteering to show the gym’s paying customers how to use the machinery.

Some time later I was hired by an enormous chain gym. I told the manager that I wasn’t a sales person; he assured me that the sales staff would take care of that for me. The day I showed up for my first shift I was told to go out on the weight room floor and try to drum up some clients for myself. Aside from the fact that the gym manager lied to me, I really dislike interrupting people while they’re trying to work out (unless they’re doing something dangerous or stupid). Why? Because I hate it when I’m trying to work out and some ass-clown in a polo shirt comes up and tries to hustle me into buying a service I don’t want. After four frustrating weeks, and not a single referral from the so-called sales staff, I was let go.

Eventually I found myself at another GloboGym. This time, the management was at least honest with me. I would be given referrals for orientations AND clients who had bought personal training packages. The bad news: I was paid about 25% of what they charged their clients for the training sessions. That, and the revolving-door sales staff, made for an unprofitable year and a half there. I decided to focus on my evening job as a taekwondo instructor instead.

As I said earlier, I don’t like being pestered while I’m exercising. I’ve never met anyone who does. Here’s a hint: if you go to EnormoGym, bring your MP3 player and never take off your headphones. Not only does it keep the trainers and sales parasites away, but it drowns out whatever brainless crap is blasting over the club’s PA (usually thumping dance music with a few ads for the gym’s pro shop mixed in for bad measure). There’s got to be a better way for these places to market their services, but that’s their problem, not yours (or mine anymore).

There are other reasons to stay out of the big-box gyms. Did you ever stop to wonder why you are sitting down so much to exercise? Because the machines are entertaining and it’s relatively hard to injure yourself using them. Do you really need to watch TV while you’re plodding away on that recumbent bike or elliptical machine? No, but they can keep you distracted from the fact that you aren’t getting your heart rate high enough for any real benefit.

To be fair, some of the chain gyms do have nice amenities such as lap pools, and most of them have one or two group exercise classes that don’t suck (spinning, yoga, etc.). If the gym offers a class you like, and they don’t charge extra for it, then go for it. By and large, though, those huge corporations don’t give a damn whether you show up or not as long as they can keep sucking money out of your checking account via automatic funds transfer. That’s why McGym came to your city and bought up all the privately owned gyms and racquet clubs. They weren’t buying the gyms, they were buying their membership rosters.

Here in the Portland (Oregon) area there are a couple of old-school bodybuilding gyms and a dozen small fitness facilities with various specialties. In addition, there are lots of coaches like myself in small garage gyms. Talk to us. I know for sure we can cut your trial-and-error time down considerably from how much time you would spend trying to figure it out on your own, and I’m sure we can save you some money too. Plus, we’re fun AND productive!