5 gyms, part 1
Aug. 12th, 2013 23:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piranhaso today i went to have a look at that one gym i had picked from the several this town has to offer.
it was a good reminder that website impressions don't necessarily translate into the equivalent real-life impressions. the gym that had seemed the friendliest turned out to feel like the least friendly. 20 years ago i would have given up. today i went to another 4 gyms to check them out instead. yay for perseverance.
what went wrong at the "nanaimo athletic club", which was the only one that features a "safe harbour" pro-diversity and tolerance badge on their website? the receptionist went wrong. i don't think she read the website or the mission statement. she wasn't unfriendly per se, but she had apparently no clue about new customer service. she shoved some price lists under my nose, and a schedule, and i had to explicitly ask whether i could take a tour. she became patronizing and acted like i was stupid when i asked newbie questions -- and that after i had told her at the start that i knew nothing of gyms and had never been a member at one. her tour of the facilities was so quick i hardly had time to look at anything, and she sucked at presentation. like, she literally went "ellipticals, garbage can, drinking fountain, our first circuit..." -- ok, lady, i think i can identify those two in the middle on my own. and i kid you not, when i asked what a "circuit" was for, she said "you don't know? everyone who comes here knows about equipment. your trainer can teach you.". wow. when we were in the change room i asked whether the facility was scent-free, which elicited a defensive "well, we can't police that". that was pretty much it for me, any further questions stuck in my craw. she didn't show me the outdoor area. she didn't tell me about the jiu-jitsu and mma club. she also did not mention anything about a free trial (the website says they offer it).
the only good thing i learned was that i don't have to be a member of this gym to use one of the personal trainers for whom they had business cards; they're all independent. so if i end up liking the trainer i noticed on their website, i can go to another gym at times when i am not training with her.
it didn't help that the facilities didn't look as bright and friendly as in the photos; everything looked like it might well have been bright at some point, but that time had passed. the spin cycles were much too close together. maybe the change in ownership last year affected the place negatively. maybe the receptionist's unwelcoming attitude affected my vision negatively. and no, seryn, i did not walk in there with a bad attitude, i was primed to LIKE the place. i had been positive. i had even been a little excited -- i was about to do something about stalling my body's slow descent into decrepitude.
after that experience i was a little disspirited, and was gonna just go home and think about it. but what the hell, if my impressions of a place that looked good online were mistaken, maybe my impressions of a place that didn't look that great were also mistaken. fine. i decided i'd visit all local gyms. i am kinda proud of myself. interacting with strangers in person is not fun for me, and any negative experience makes me want to just stop it and go home. but i didn't throw in the towel.
of course i didn't have their addresses with me, and my phone is bricked. reminder to self: get new cell phone ASAP. apparently one result of the widespread use of cellphones is that public pay phones are becoming rare. there were none in the redesigned (made smaller) port place mall. the rogers rep (whom better to ask for a landline phone than a cellphone company rep, *snrk*) sent me to the wharf. there were two phone booths, but neither had a phone book. yeah, that's helpful. they were not ripped out, no, there was apparently not even a provision for them. fine. this day was so not going my way. but by now i had my stubborn on. fortunately, the guy manning the wharfinger's office had a phone book and lent it to me.
i scribbled down the addresses and started the trek.
first on the list was harbour city fitness & tanning. ok, somebody tell me what's up with all the tanning that seems attached to the fitness clubs. how does tanning make you fit? is that all about keeping up appearance; you're tanned = you're healthy = you must be fit? anyway, NAC had been somewhat busy, HCF&T was mostly dead; only one car was in the lot. the parking lot belongs to howard johnson's and threatened i'd get towed, but i figured there was probably a deal with the gym, and blithely left my preciousss behind (the kayak is always in the truck now). the receptionist was very friendly even though i was obviously not in the target population for this gym, and she did not need to be exhorted to show me around. i couldn't see anything obviously wrong, the place was spacious, clean, and certainly didn't look any less inviting than NAC. they had some machines i don't think i saw at NAC, but the machines mostly look like unidentifiable ghost-in-the-shell apparati to me. they have no classes of any kind. my impressions from the website were pretty much spot on -- this is a place for people into serious weight lifting and body building.
the personal trainer situation was a little weird; she had business cards for one person (who's not listed on the website), but not for the other -- i doubt we'll be a good fit since she is/was a competitive body builder, and i am disinclined to call the other who's a young guy also into competition.
then i went to northridge health performance centre. i hadn't much liked their website with its stock photos of beautiful stepford people with plastic smiles. it is indeed somewhat hoity-toity (what with the aesthetics spa and all), but it was friendlier than i had expected. sheri, the person at reception was very nice, took her time with me, didn't get distracted, and was not patronizing in response to my newbie questions. the facility is bright, clean, and has some obvious top-of-the-line equipment. they have oodles of classes, and two personal trainers as well as a nutritionist on staff. they're not lying about it being nanaimo's premier facility; it is. everything is beautiful. they offer a 3-day free pass.
however, oddly i couldn't get an appointment with a personal trainer unless i become a member first. that's a deal breaker, and sheri said she'd call me back about it. in any case, this is probably just a bit too ... too white upper middle class for me, i think.
ah, gotta go sleep. more later.
it was a good reminder that website impressions don't necessarily translate into the equivalent real-life impressions. the gym that had seemed the friendliest turned out to feel like the least friendly. 20 years ago i would have given up. today i went to another 4 gyms to check them out instead. yay for perseverance.
what went wrong at the "nanaimo athletic club", which was the only one that features a "safe harbour" pro-diversity and tolerance badge on their website? the receptionist went wrong. i don't think she read the website or the mission statement. she wasn't unfriendly per se, but she had apparently no clue about new customer service. she shoved some price lists under my nose, and a schedule, and i had to explicitly ask whether i could take a tour. she became patronizing and acted like i was stupid when i asked newbie questions -- and that after i had told her at the start that i knew nothing of gyms and had never been a member at one. her tour of the facilities was so quick i hardly had time to look at anything, and she sucked at presentation. like, she literally went "ellipticals, garbage can, drinking fountain, our first circuit..." -- ok, lady, i think i can identify those two in the middle on my own. and i kid you not, when i asked what a "circuit" was for, she said "you don't know? everyone who comes here knows about equipment. your trainer can teach you.". wow. when we were in the change room i asked whether the facility was scent-free, which elicited a defensive "well, we can't police that". that was pretty much it for me, any further questions stuck in my craw. she didn't show me the outdoor area. she didn't tell me about the jiu-jitsu and mma club. she also did not mention anything about a free trial (the website says they offer it).
the only good thing i learned was that i don't have to be a member of this gym to use one of the personal trainers for whom they had business cards; they're all independent. so if i end up liking the trainer i noticed on their website, i can go to another gym at times when i am not training with her.
it didn't help that the facilities didn't look as bright and friendly as in the photos; everything looked like it might well have been bright at some point, but that time had passed. the spin cycles were much too close together. maybe the change in ownership last year affected the place negatively. maybe the receptionist's unwelcoming attitude affected my vision negatively. and no, seryn, i did not walk in there with a bad attitude, i was primed to LIKE the place. i had been positive. i had even been a little excited -- i was about to do something about stalling my body's slow descent into decrepitude.
after that experience i was a little disspirited, and was gonna just go home and think about it. but what the hell, if my impressions of a place that looked good online were mistaken, maybe my impressions of a place that didn't look that great were also mistaken. fine. i decided i'd visit all local gyms. i am kinda proud of myself. interacting with strangers in person is not fun for me, and any negative experience makes me want to just stop it and go home. but i didn't throw in the towel.
of course i didn't have their addresses with me, and my phone is bricked. reminder to self: get new cell phone ASAP. apparently one result of the widespread use of cellphones is that public pay phones are becoming rare. there were none in the redesigned (made smaller) port place mall. the rogers rep (whom better to ask for a landline phone than a cellphone company rep, *snrk*) sent me to the wharf. there were two phone booths, but neither had a phone book. yeah, that's helpful. they were not ripped out, no, there was apparently not even a provision for them. fine. this day was so not going my way. but by now i had my stubborn on. fortunately, the guy manning the wharfinger's office had a phone book and lent it to me.
i scribbled down the addresses and started the trek.
first on the list was harbour city fitness & tanning. ok, somebody tell me what's up with all the tanning that seems attached to the fitness clubs. how does tanning make you fit? is that all about keeping up appearance; you're tanned = you're healthy = you must be fit? anyway, NAC had been somewhat busy, HCF&T was mostly dead; only one car was in the lot. the parking lot belongs to howard johnson's and threatened i'd get towed, but i figured there was probably a deal with the gym, and blithely left my preciousss behind (the kayak is always in the truck now). the receptionist was very friendly even though i was obviously not in the target population for this gym, and she did not need to be exhorted to show me around. i couldn't see anything obviously wrong, the place was spacious, clean, and certainly didn't look any less inviting than NAC. they had some machines i don't think i saw at NAC, but the machines mostly look like unidentifiable ghost-in-the-shell apparati to me. they have no classes of any kind. my impressions from the website were pretty much spot on -- this is a place for people into serious weight lifting and body building.
the personal trainer situation was a little weird; she had business cards for one person (who's not listed on the website), but not for the other -- i doubt we'll be a good fit since she is/was a competitive body builder, and i am disinclined to call the other who's a young guy also into competition.
then i went to northridge health performance centre. i hadn't much liked their website with its stock photos of beautiful stepford people with plastic smiles. it is indeed somewhat hoity-toity (what with the aesthetics spa and all), but it was friendlier than i had expected. sheri, the person at reception was very nice, took her time with me, didn't get distracted, and was not patronizing in response to my newbie questions. the facility is bright, clean, and has some obvious top-of-the-line equipment. they have oodles of classes, and two personal trainers as well as a nutritionist on staff. they're not lying about it being nanaimo's premier facility; it is. everything is beautiful. they offer a 3-day free pass.
however, oddly i couldn't get an appointment with a personal trainer unless i become a member first. that's a deal breaker, and sheri said she'd call me back about it. in any case, this is probably just a bit too ... too white upper middle class for me, i think.
ah, gotta go sleep. more later.
no subject
on 2013-08-13 12:53 (UTC)Most are at least switching to sprays and lotions, though. The beds have lost a lot of popularity now that the cancer risk is really sinking in with people.
no subject
on 2013-08-13 13:19 (UTC)2) Public phones are not rare, they are effectively nonexistent. Although I carry my cell pretty religiously, I still miss them.
no subject
on 2013-08-13 13:50 (UTC)And I can't remember the last time I saw a pay phone. There used to be one outside my store, but they took it out. Now you have to borrow the lobby phone, and it doesn't do long distance. (Which is why I one loaned two tweens my cell to call their mom.)
no subject
on 2013-08-13 18:31 (UTC)I read a lot of people who run into intolerance, like how difficult it is to get help with certain kinds of problems. I assumed if "everyone" had problems, there wasn't any point in asking.
I'd been told that gyms were really intolerant of fat people and exercise culture excludes a lot of people who would benefit from it. I did find that exercise clothing manufacturers have this intolerance. But none of the gyms I have seen have been anywhere nearly as intolerant as I'd imagined.
Personal trainers here are really really expensive. Like a hundred bucks a session. If it's not included in membership, it's really not useful to me. I definitely agree that someone who does personal training so they can claim their bodybuilding expenses are business costs is probably not the best fit for someone outside of that.
The gym I belonged to only had freelance trainers. So the membership perk of a free session with a personal trainer actually cost the gym money. I looked at the YMCA (they're too diverse for me, the locker rooms were way too hands-on/help a friend for anything outside pornography.) and they were happy to have a trainer talk to me during my free 3 day pass because they're salaried there.
I don't know if you're looking for a trial session with a trainer before you can decide if that is the right gym for you, no ideas about that. If you wanted to meet the trainer and talk for a few minutes about their philosophy and motivational style, that seems like completely reasonable and would be a deal breaker for me too.
About half the gyms here offer, um, take backs? no idea what they call it. But you join, you go for a couple weeks (usually it's a 14 day window) and it really doesn't suit, there's a process to undo your membership and such.
I want a gym I can walk to, or which has parking. None of this "you can probably use the parking garage for the office building next door, here's this blind pedestrian alley between us, but even though it's dark and the lights don't work, we don't offer escorts to your car. Be careful, lots of people were assaulted here last week in that garage."
no subject
on 2013-08-14 00:13 (UTC)I gave up and got a "burner" cell phone (which tragically doesn't reach Canada). $100/year to ensure that I'm never stranded without a payphone. (There are low-income cell phone programs in the U.S. now; I find it hard to imagine that it's cheaper to subsidize cells than maintain infrastructure, but what do I know.)