Everyone wants a perfect body. We are an image driven society. Unfortunately we are also a very lazy and unmovitaved society. With that in mind there are a lot of people out there trying to make money off of you by promising you the world while simultaneously convincing you it’s not going to take any hard work. If you want to be in shape, it takes hard work. There are no two ways about it. If you can’t accept that, stop reading now.

With all the bad information out there, I personally feel that it is my duty to dispel fitness myths, and help you avoid scams. In this article (and over the next five days) I’m going to expose some big time players that people spend a lot of money on. I’m not going to pull any punches with this one. It’s going to get ugly in here, and when this goes to press, I’m going to have to sleep with one eye open, because these marketing giants are going to be really pissed that I pulled the veil off of your eyes!

#1 Planet Fitness- I know it seems strange to think of an actual gym as a gimmick. But that is what it is. The truth about Planet Fitness is that they want you to come in, sign up, never come back, and never cancel your membership either. Simple question: Which is the larger group, those who exercise, or those who do not? Clearly there are more people who DO NOT exercise compared to those who do. So that larger demographic is the group that Planet Fitness markets to. Why? Because they can appeal to your emotions by making it easy to join, but they know that you’ll probably lose motivation and not come back. But at $10/month who can be bothered to go down to the facility and cancel? Did you know the average Planet Fitness has over 5,000 members? Did you know that they do a weekly report to show them how many people DID NOT check into the facility, and that it averages above 70%? That means if a club as 5,000 on any given week only 1,500 people used their facility. That means that there are 3,500 people not coming in. That means that at a minimum of $10/month Planet Fitness is making $35,000 a month from people who cost them $0.00. Pretty sweet business plan, right? That’s why people involved outside of the fitness industry are buying into Planet Fitness franchise as quickly as they can.

What makes it a gimmick

If someone signs up for a gym membership and doesn’t use it…well that’s not really the facilities fault (although this is the exact opposite concept we adhere to here at FIT.  Our goal is for you to show up for every scheduled session and get the best results possible. We like to check up on members we haven’t seen in a while to ensure everything is alright and see what we can do to help). But what you have to consider is that if you are serious about achieving your goals, it’s going to be hard to accomplish at Planet Fitness. Why? Because their facility is filled top to bottom with machines, machines, and more machines. In case you’re wondering what my beef is with machines, check out our article “Just say NO…To machines.” In fact Planet Fitness locations across the country are slowly but surely stripping their facilities of all of their free weights, which are widely accepted by well qualified professionals as the key to success in achieving nearly any fitness goal. There are also a lot of rules at Planet Fitness. You cannot “drop weights,” you cannot “grunt” (heaven forbid you actually challenge yourself to the point where your exertion is audible).

From Wikipedia: Planet Fitness has a device called the “Lunk Alarm” at all of its facilities. The Lunk Alarm is sounded when patrons “Grunt, Drop Weights, do unapproved lifts such as

deadlifting, or lifting too much (exhibition).” The “Lunk Alarm” sign has a spinning light, and sounds like a tornado siren. The sign also defines a “Lunk”, and it reads as this: “Lunk , n, [slang], One who Grunts, Drops Weights, or JUDGES”. ^[10] Some of the Lunk Alarms also have an inscription below the definition of a lunk. It reads “[Ricky is slamming his weights, wearing a body building tank top, and drinking out of a gallon water jug... what a lunk!]

They even ban specific exercises like the t-bar row and dead lift (two great posterior chain exercises that can help correct posture, eliminate low back pain, and alleviate sciatica). Oh yeah, Planet Fitness also gives out free pizza to their members every month, and they have a bucket of candy on all of their counters. Yeah they really care about your being healthy. The icing on the cake? Planet Fitness is a self-proclaimed “judgement free zone.” Which is odd because they discriminate against people who are serious about their fitness. In fact they go as far to imply with their recent ads that densely muscled people are so stupid they cannot even tie their own shoes. Which to me is about the same as saying all black people are criminals. It truly shocks me that we are accepting of such a place in this day and age.

I wonder how Layne Norton would feel about such insinuations. Not only is Layne an accomplished ALL NATURAL body builder (IFPA Heavyweight champ) he is also a competitive powerlifter, AND he is an extremely educated person as well. Holding his PhD in Nutritional Science, and running his own personal website www.biolayne.com . Years ago when I was first beginning to get into fitness and nutrition I e-mailed Layne asking him a myriad of questions. He quickly replied and answered all of my questions, and asked for nothing in return. Looking back my questions were kind of silly and truly coming from a novice, but Layne patiently answered each

question in detail. Hardly what I would call judgemental or intimidating. And yes Planet Fitness, he also knows how to tie his shoes.

The Verdict

If you want a cheap gym membership to see little-to-no results from, Planet Fitness is the place for you. You can head in there the first

Monday of every month and eat as much pizza as you’d like, so I guess that’s worth ten bucks. Couple that with an unknowledgeable staff, and typically under qualified trainers, and this ranks really high on the gimmick chart. Final score 9.2 out of 10.

Check back tomorrow for the next fitness gimmick I’m going to expose!

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