Planet Fitness

Most of the locations do not have a squat rack/much of a selection of free weights. They basically have dumbbells, cable machines, smith machines, cardio machines and strength training machines.

But it is a really cheap and convenient option if you mostly do cardio or use machines or dumbbells. Definitely worth the money if you don't lift heavy.

They really want you to sign up for the $10 autopay and then to never darken their door again. If you can ignore the decor and the basic anti-athletic aspects of the place, then it's a cheap option for getting access to seated exercise bikes and the like. Make sure you don't leave any sweat spots anywhere. Their advice people really only have one script and don't know much.

I use it as my secondary gym for cardio, my primary is strictly for lifting. I go in, do 30 minutes and get out. Try to ignore the people not knowing what they're doing.

I really enjoyed planet fitness. I only quit because it was too hard of a drive and then I felt rushed to get back home. I was a no-show for the most part but when I was there, I easily spent 2 hours there. The cable machines are wonderful. The cardio machines were better than I had at home. At the time I was a member, I wasn't lifting weights and had no plan of action. I was just hitting all the machines. I didn't really start seeing results until I got my own weights at home and followed a plan off bodybuilding.com's site. Now I kind of wish PF was closer to my home. There are a lot of machines I would like to use now that I know more than than last year.

I go there every other day - it's only a couple minutes from my house. I pay $20/month to get some of the extra perks (unlimited guests, tanning, use of every location, etc.). If you are training for competition weight lifting, it may not be the place for you. My location of PF is huge, has a lot of free weights. I like it because I do a combination of strength and cardio. I had a trainer (one down fall they only have one trainer and he's only there 3 days a week) put together a plan with me to achieve my goals of losing weight and getting in shape. It's cheap, clean, clientele primarily comes in to workout and go home. It's not a social club and I like that.

I don't know this particular gym, but I do train at a chain gym which is okay. However, where I live no one complains when you do compound lifts and the gym has a rubber-ish floor in the free weight area as well as 8 barbells (including two 10 kg ones, 1 bench and 1 incline bench) and a couple of bumper plates.

• Ask if you can train there once to see if their assortment of equipment matches your goals and abilities.
• Check if it is busy on your preferred times/days. You don't want to train in a chain gym at peak hours.
• Check if they have a bench press station, a barbell rack high enough to (un)rack for squats and overhead presses, a couple of barbells plus weight plates and a lat pull down machine or a place to do pullups at the very least. You can do most exercises or similar with dumbells, kettlebells and some machines if you're not going too heavy but I like barbells more.
• Make sure that the commute there is do-able and will not become much of a chore.
• Whenever you're there, focus on your own workout.

A no-drop rule is in my opinion not too much of a problem because you don't need to drop weights unless maybe you're doing 1 rep maxes, which is a bad idea as a beginner and certainly if you train alone, or want to avoid DOMS for athletic training. For most purposes it is better do >3 reps and lower the bar/weight stack in a more controlled no-noise manner.

You will be fine without a squat rack if you stick to training with loads that you know you can handle >3 times and lighten the load if you don't feel well, but you will never be able to ego lift, perform extra repetitions after technical failure, or max lift without putting yourself in danger. At this point let me kindly remind you that you always need to have a high enough place to rack the bar after overhead presses and squats, especially for the latter because you can Romanian DL after an overhead press. It's a really awful place to have a barbell on your back and no free rack. Walk. Of. Shame.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

SeikoMonster wrote: »

Muscleflex79 wrote: »

the catch is they don't like people who take their workouts too seriously - no deadlifts, no noises, no supersets, no benching, no overhead press. if you like just cardio I guess it could be ok.

You are incorrect in almost everything you said.

I dead lift, super set, bench and overhead weekly.
They don't want people screaming and dropping weights. If you are referring to that as noise. Actually its nice, not having that guy doing massive 70 pound bench press grunting like he just lifted a car.

It is not the gym to turn you into mr olympia. But for the other 80% of people that don't need more than 75 pound dumbbells, and are okay using a smith machine its a good place.
Cheap, clean, never much if any wait for using a machine or spot to use the dumbbells.

Lol..."massive 70 Lb bench press"...if a 70 Lb bench press is massive, PF is probably spot on your place to be. My bench is in no way impressive, but far more than 70 Lbs...

And a deadlift is always going to clank when it hits the floor...I can't imagine you're deadlifting much without bumpers and a platform.

Note that I'm a cycling enthusiast and not at all a big "lunk" body builder or anything like that...but the notion of someone training hard enough to need to grunt a little to get the weight up being offensive is why PF is ridiculous...if you don't have to work at it, you're not pushing or pulling enough weight...you're spinning your wheels.

Yes, this!!