Years ago, I joined Planet Fitness, a.k.a, the Purple Gym. My husband joined as well, even though he's a gym snob. When we went down to check it out and sign up, its biggest attraction was that it was cheap for a gym, and it was close to the house. We signed up, and after just the first visit, my husband was skeptical. "It has no squat machines... " "the dumbbells only go up to..." (whatever he said, you can see it was irrelevant to me at the time). Still, I thought, 'eh, what do I care? I'm not a gym rat, I just need to go and work out for a bit and go home... and it's cheap. You can't beat the cheapness.' I knew this would not be a gym for hardcore gym rats, but I thought the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks.
Now I'm not so sure.
I am no gym rat, but I HAVE been to other gyms. One weird thing about this place is... Candy on the front desk. CANDY. It's a gym. I mean, you're trying to be healthy, maybe more healthy than you are now, so why the candy? You can work out for an hour or so and then grab a handful of candy on your way out and cancel out any caloric gains you may have made. Awesome. I hear there are also pizza parties every once in a while. I've never been to one of them, but this just astounds me. How about a grilled chicken and salad party? Now THAT might inspire me.
Another thing that annoys me about the Purple Gym is, for a place that calls itself "a Judgement Free Zone," It sure is full of judgements.
This is the classic Planet Fitness sign. I believe it used to be featured in their TV ads - you know, you behave incorrectly and the Lunk Alarm goes off. I had thought this was BS until one day I was there and the damn thing actually went off! A guy was standing too close to the mirror, and he misjudged his barbell distance, smacked his weight into one of the mirrors and broke it. As if the crash wasn't bad enough, the damn Lunk Alarm went off, too! The thing I find most funny about this sign is that, apparently, drinking a lot of water makes you a lunk... And the poor guys named Ricky get a bad rap!
But how about this one:
It's my favorite. Or shall I say, my ANTI favorite. What I can't stand about the gym are people who hog certain areas and won't move, even if they're not doing anything, but I couldn't give a single shit about what they're wearing. Are there people out there who are intimidated by boots? So you can't wear boots, but you can wear, for example, sandals, and maybe get your toes squished? Are there people who go into the gym and actually get intimidated by people wearing jeans? and those intimidated people would then NOT be intimidated by those SAME people if they were wearing SWEATPANTS? I'm not buying it.
Not to mention - what happens when someone is using the equipment incorrectly? Let's say their form totally SUCKS and they're going to hurt themselves. Someone should be walking around, monitoring people to help them, no? Although, I don't remember that happening much at REAL gyms either, but still. The improper form thing happens much MORE at the Purple Gym. I've seen a few things myself that made me think, WTF?
You can't wear certain things, you can make certain noises, you can't even drink out of certain containers. The most JUDGEMENT going on here is by the Purple Gym itself. LOL. Talk about irony!
Lately I've been wondering if maybe I can't drag myself to the gym more often because it's just too cheap. I hate to say that, but I think there's something to it. When I was going to karate, it was nice to see and talk to people and become part of a community, but it was also more expensive, which definitely makes you take it more seriously. Even the Black Card Membership is only 20 dollars a month, so you think to yourself, "Even if I only go once a week, that's still only 5 dollars a visit." If you're paying 40 dollars a month, that's 10 dollars a visit - you have to go twice a week to get that same bargain. See where my convoluted thinking is going with this?
So now I have to wonder if the Purple Gym is really a bargain after all... I'm content to slug through my workouts and not take them very seriously. Maybe because I'm not Gymtimidated. Maybe I NEED to be a little bit GYMTIMIDATED to be properly motivated.
