LA Fitness

Update: I cancelled my membership today. Things have gotten worse since my review in August and I’m just all set with the massive number of out-​of-​order machines. Hopefully for the sake of the club itself it will get its act together so it doesn’t close down.

My husband and I have been members for a little over a year now, and we’ve been very happy with the classes and facilities. We typically go a couple of times a week, usually to swim or take the evening pilates class with Emily. We’re always able to get in a good set of laps at the pool, and after we swim we often use the hot-​tub and or the saunas, we really enjoy being able to hang out and relax in them! I think in the past year the hot-​tub has been closed maybe three times for maintenance (that we’ve seen). That doesn’t seem excessive to me, I’m glad they keep it clean and maintained. The pilates class has been great — it’s a fun, supportive environment, challenges me to get stronger but I never feel like I’m in danger of overdoing it or hurting myself.
I don’t get some of these extremely negative reviews… they strike me as a tad melodramatic. I mean, how pristine of an environment do you need for your workouts? That said, it’s actually always seemed reasonably clean to me. I have noticed some paper towels on the floor in the women’s changing room, and yes even some hair in the showers, but nothing particularly gross or upsetting. Of course I don’t hang out in the showers for fun, mainly I just rinse off the chlorine and hop out. I do wear flip-​flops for showering — I would do that in any public shower. According to my husband the men’s changing room isn’t particularly better or worse than other gyms he’s used. We don’t really use the machines, so I can’t comment on what kind of shape those are in.
Overall, for us it has been a good deal for the price and it’s helping keep us in shape, which is the main thing we wanted in a gym!

I’m writing this review after a 3 day free trial. Gross, gross, gross. The whole gym smells like feet. There are clumps of hair all over the floor in the showers and shower area. Skeevy members. And they keep texting offers to my cell phone — group texts to me and a bunch of random other potential members who now have my personal cell phone number.

I joined and paid for a trainer once a week. Over the first 6 weeks the trainer forgot to write me down twice so they didn’t show up, and another time when there was no time to write the week’s workout my trainer took my book to write the workouts. They then forgot to leave my book for two days so I had no planned (paid for) workout. It’s a waste of money.
I have found that It can be hard to get on machines or get popular weights. There are only 4 benches in the whole place and they are usually occupied. I asked someone if I could have a turn while he rested and he was unwilling to share.
The bathrooms have lacked toilet paper and yesterday I had to try 3 sinks to find soap.
I’m very disappointed.

LA Fitness is cheap and classes are included, but that’s really all that it has going for it.
I have 3 major complaints with this club. At any given time, there are a TON of machines with out of order signs. I’ve been to the club before when over half of the treadmills were out of order. That’s just not ok. They need to upgrade their equipment in a big way.
Second, the pool is so over chlorinated that you stink when you leave the pool, even after you shower.
The showers are absolutely disgusting. I posted a few pictures. Consistently full of huge hairballs in the drains, on the floor, everwhere. Half used bars of soap all over the place, and slime all over. I’m not super picky, but they are really really nasty. And the locker rooms have been under construction for what seems like forever.
I’m finally cancelling my membership today after about a year.

Pros: Locked in with my employer discount at 29.99 a month and no enrollment fees. A great rate considering you get all the equipment, basketball and racquetball courts, training/​spin rooms plus pool. If you have to pay anything more, you’re getting fleeced!
Cons: Where do I begin… Everything seemed to be in a state of repair. Front doors. Ellipticals. Water fountain. Treadmills. Sauna. The men’s bathroom is typically filthy and often missing TP and paper towels. Showers are gross — don’t get caught walking around in bare feet. The staff seem to be more concerned with the benefit of their free gym membership than helping customers (Caveat: I never signed up for any training sessions). I avoided the gym when I knew the 21 – 30 age crowd of men were there, throwing weights around like overgrown chimps and generally leaving the place like their basement bedroom at Mom’s. Too many juiced up jocks for my liking. Cancellation policy also involves mailing a paper to HQs in Irvine, CA. LA Fitness pays millions of dollars in a class action civil suit but you still can’t cancel at your area location…
As soon as a gym opened up in my home town at a lower rate, I left in a heartbeat. Take it for what you will!

Air conditioner in class fitness room has been broken for a month. Had to leave today — still not fixed. Staff is unconcerned. No signs or apologies posted to inform members.

What a joke. I went in to see about joining on Saturday afternoon, August 8^th. On the website it said $ 100 initiation fee plus $ 29.95 per month and no contract. I went there and met with Luis. He tried to sell me a two year membership and if I did that I would get the third year free. Have to pay the two years up front. Then I said I was looking for something more short term so he said $ 100 initiation plus $ 54.95 per month and no contact. Not one mention of $ 29.95 deal advertised on the website. Total «used car» salesman tactic/​attitude. Not to mention the fact the staff couldn’t be any more disinterested with what is going on in this place. No one at the front desk and three sales guys glued to their desks and iPhones. Honestly after meeting with Luis for 15 minutes he could care less if I signed up or not. Not sure how they even keep the doors open in this place.

All-​around a descent facility. Long list of various machines for a variety of different angles to work an assortment of muscles. Racket ball courts, kick boxing, pool, sauna, Jacuzzi 3 lane pool. It appears management doesn’t treat the employees well because they are always changing. Some missing weights from the curl bar section for over a year now. till this day more appear to go missing. The treadmills typically shut down if you run at level 9 for over a minute. They had a long period in which many treadmills didn’t work. It takes a long time for them to resolve an issue. They don’t update new equipment at all. They don’t have any specialty products for power lifters such as bar variations, deadlift platform etc. I haven’t attended any of the free classes. They close early in Friday nights, but it’s great they are open to 11pm most nights. It could be a lot cleaner, change out the fountains to mimic planet fitness. Racket ball courts are a waste, they would be better off revamping it with a small OCR course or kick boxing bag room. During the summer Rush it’s crazy 5−7pm

The size of the gym is good size if you’re looking for a place with more machines and space to workout. The staff is not customer service focused (don’t expect anyone to greet you). They do a poor job maintaining the equipment. At one point there was literally four broken ellipticals in one row. Even the front doors were broken at one point, you can only use one of the four doors. I know things happen, but it was like this for over three months. The bathrooms aren’t clean and there are never paper towels in the dispensers. If you like chain gyms, it’s what you’d expect.

Front staff are not friendly. Facility is filthy. Employees smoke by the back door so the cigarette smoke flows right into the locker room. Machines are outdated and functioning improperly. They don’t refill the paper towel dispensers regularly. Shower drains filled with hair and isn’t draining properly.

I have been a member for about 3 years. It was nice when I first joined but I have noticed that more and more treadmills and ellipticals are «scheduled for service». I am pretty sure about ¼ of the treadmills are broken at a time. Sometimes they just take it away entirely and then space out the others to cover the gap. It’s too bad they won’t spend the money to maintain a nice gym. Front desk staff won’t acknowledge your existence once they get your membership fee.
However I’d give it a 3 if not for membership services. I highly recommend handling your purchase and renewal online versus in person where a salesperson will try to pressure you into signing a contract. Do not listen to the word of the salesperson, the contract is what matters. Take it home and read it over carefully before signing! Get a lawyer friend to take a look if you have one! I repeat the contract is what matters, the salespeople will say whatever they want to get you to sign it. Also if you pre-​pay you can only cancel if you move more than 25 miles away or have a medical note from a doctor.
I won’t be renewing after my membership expires.

I have been going to this gym for 3 years and it is good. The only criticism is that they could repair their equipment a bit faster — one shower was broken and it took them about 3 months to fix it after I complained, some treadmills dont work. But otherwise it is a great location next to the highway and clean, no juice bar though!

NICHOLAS CASTOLDI
This review is essentially about two things: (1) Nicholas Castoldi is one of the most professional gym managers I have interacted with, and (2) the gym is pretty good.
The –1 star is because of the negative PT experience I had (explained below).
I will start with the latter first. I have been a member for almost a month now and feel that the gym has almost everything I need: a pool, racquet ball courts, almost everything you would need for cardio, weight training, workouts in general, etc. It is nicely kept, neat — overall a very practical choice for people wanting to stay fit. I specially like how it is spacious, well lit, and has an amazing vibe for working out.
Coming to my first point (Nick being amazing) stems from an experience that could have been very bad, but ended up being pleasant. A lot of gyms have the whole sales pitch for Personal Training (PT), trainers use numerous techniques to get people to sign up. I am ok with that — what I am not ok with is being outright lied to. I was told (I am deliberately avoiding using names here) that I should try a free PT session. That was the bait, and i got hooked. As the conversation proceeded I was sold on the idea of getting PT. What I ended up deciding was that I will signup for a month and then decide if I want to continue. I was told that the contract will be for 6 months and I can cancel if I did not feel good about it after the first month. That seemed fair to me, I was told to sign on an electronic sign pad, and I did. THIS WAS MY MISTAKE. I signed, essentially, a blank paper. What I did not know was that I was actually signing a contract (the screen was facing away from me, but I still think this was a mistake on my part).
Later that night I checked my email and there was a contract. I looked it over, not really expecting it to be very different from my conversation, and was surprised to say it was COMPLETELY different. (1) I had only 3 days to cancel, (2) the contract was for 1 year, and (3) if I decided to cancel after the first 3 days I had to pay 50% of the remaining contract. This was insane.
First thing the next morning i went to the gym and talked to the guy who had «sold» me the contract. I explained that the contract was very different from what we had discussed. He gave me a crappy line of «Don’t worry, the contract is meaningless. What I say is what matters.» When i tried to explain that this was a legal document (on purpose avoiding mentioning that he had me sign it under false pretext) and his word didn’t really matter, his response was «I am not going anywhere, don’t worry about it.» Feeling that things were getting more than suspicious now, I told him I want to cancel my contract. This is when things started getting ugly from his side. He started getting rude, telling me I can’t just come in and start talking to him whenever I wanted, calling my idea of canceling stupid, telling me I did not know what i was talking about, and so on. I kept my calm and told him that I still wanted my contract cancelled. He told me that he will cancel it by noon (since the corporate office is on pacific time). I left pretty sure that this will get worse before it gets better. On my way out he was talking crap about me to his PT colleagues, loud enough so that I heard, I ignored that.
By 1pm that day I had not received any notice of cancellation. During this time I had done a few things. (1) Talked to my lawyer and explained the situation and told her that I might need her services (having looked over the contract and the 3 day cancellation notice in it, she told me this was a simple thing), (2) Did a LOT of research on LA Fitness cancellation, and (3) convinced myself to remain calm throughout the process.
At 1pm when I went back I met Nick. This is when things took a pleasant turn. On hearing everything I had to say he apologized profusely for the way his colleague had talked to me. He was EXTREMELY PROFESSIONAL throughout, walked me through everything on his screen and told me that I am within my rights to cancel. He looked up my contract worked through everything emailed a copy of the cancellation notice to me and gave me a hard copy for my records. He then went even further and said to make up for the bad experience I can feel free to call him with ANY issues i have at the gym, to the point that even if i needed help working out, or needed training, he was there — FREE OF COST. The proficiency and professionalism he displayed, made me sure that I want to stick with this gym even if I will NEVER go the PT route here.
Thanks Nick.

No stars should be permitted. This is the worst place for a number of reasons. 1) Staff consistently looks the other way when douchey members act like the pigs that they are. To avoid any kind of disease, cold, etc., one must wipe down any surfaces they touch with paper towels saturated with appropriate disinfectant which, thankfully, is available everywhere throughout the gym. 2) Equipment maintenance is almost nonexistent: weeks and sometimes months go by before machines or other equipment is fixed; when inquiries are made about the lack of maintenance, staff blames «corporate» for not permitting any expenditures. 3) Air quality is poor most of the time because «corporate» has set HVAC to «off» after hours. When the gym opens at 5:00 AM Mon-​Fri, AC is switched on shortly before then labors for hours to catch up to thermostat settings; same situation in the winter when it’s really cold. In the summer, early birds are confronted with stale air and high humidity, but a near-​empty gym is cooled off by Noon. The idiots running this place think that’s a savings. The humidistat is set way too high (by «corporate») so that at times with a full gym it feels and smells like 200 people marooned on a tropical island working out in the rain. 4) Speaking of water, rain downpours almost always means leaks on to the gym floor. Recently a plumbing leak in the men’s locker room caused the carpeting leading into to it to soak and become moldy (the black kind) where it smelled like one of the muscle heads defecated on the wet spot. 5) If you decide to train there, be aware of the hyper-​aggressive schmucks in training sales who will seek you out and harass you with phone calls to upgrade to more expensive plans. Between that kind of practice and the «tent» put up in the common areas for no reason, it seems that some of those dubious sales practices were borrowed from automobile dealers’ lame-​o marketing schemes, or «tent sales», and we all know how much the public likes that kind of scenario. 6) The regional representatives of corporate governance are in their late 20’s and/​or early 30’s. Their lack of experience is painfully evident in the way this club is run: as if by a bunch of amateurs who know only how to take direction from the shysters in LA.
Bottom line is, even though it’s convenient, you might want to rethink the grief you may have to experience just to stay healthy. There’s got to be a better place. It’s just not LA Fitness.

Second go around at this place and the staff are still bullies. I was actually told that cardio won’t help you lose weight and nautilus won’t help you build muscle. Really? A friend in the field told me in a gym job interview he was encouraged to tell members they were doing exercises wrong so they’d hire trainers to help them. I’m a retired woman looking to get back into shape after a year long injury. This idiot was talking to me about push ups. I will leave this planet without ever doing a push up and lead a rich and healthy life. Do you really want to belong to a club where you’re told that nautilus equipment and cardio won’t build muscle or burn fat? Here’s my advice to them: Never take a job where you have to check your ethics at the door.

I don’t understand why people hate this gym. FOR THE GOOD PRICE YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED! I do a lot of the classes there and I like all instructors. However, Denise is the best one out of all! She. trains you well and is very personable. She will always call you by your first name and ask how your are doing. I lost weight doing her classes. She makes them fun and makes sure that we feel like a team. Nobody gets left behind!

I do my morning workouts here and I love going to Spin class first thing in the morning. All the instructors are great, really helpful and motivating.
I used to go to PF, and I hated waiting for the equipment and there is no way in hell I would have ever taken a shower at Planet Fitness, even if you payed me. It’s nice to have a clean locker room, with plenty of space to get ready and shower and hit the sauna if you want.
Only 30 bucks for unlimited classes, pool use, ect. I would say it’s a great deal. Since if you go to Planet Fitness, you don’t get classes, or class, or cleanliness.
At first they are trying to get all your money definitely try and talk down the price, utilize the classes, honestly Spin is changing my life! :)
**I just want to say, if you are signing up I would avoid Nick at all costs, I am not sure if he is the manager or what, but I think he is extremely rude and unprofessional, I have almost got in to altercations with him because of his greediness and dishonesty. (I’m definitely not a fighter, but. this guy pushes the wrong buttons) I love the rest of the staff. :)

I am surprised this gym has reviews avg more than one star. Here’s my take:
CONS:
— DIRTY DIRTY DIRTY — it’s everywhere. I even heard from my friend that he got some staff infection from using the benches!!! It’s THAT Dirty. Trash is always full and tissues on the floor all over it.
— I was never lucky enough to find any soap or tissue in the lockers. Outside, I have a a little bit of luck, but again many times no tissues. The lockers are DISGUSTING (for men I dk about the women’s)
— People there don’t seem to care if their sweat is all over hte benches and don’t want to wipe it. Of course it is not enforced which makes it REALLY disgusting.
— The weights are never in their places. Why? look at the next comment!
— Lazy staff that doesn’t care about anything but getting their private sessions. I saw one trainer WALK on a tissue on the floor and didn’t bother picking it up. Man I want ed to pick it up myself!!! They don’t care!!! They are used to it.
— the famous water fountain. Ask anyone that trains there, it’s been broken for over a year now. Sometimes you see an OUT OF ORDER sign on it, and sometimes you don’t as people still use it (TOTALLY DANGEROUS)
CONS: cheaper than other gyms. But still NOT WORTH IT. I cancelled my contract and won’t be going there again.
Conclusion, pay an extra few bucks and go to a cleaner gym. This gym is the most disgusting gym I’ve ever been to.

I live in the Stoneham area and really like this place. They have a huge amount of treadmills and cardio equipment. Good classes to stop in at — I really enjoy their Aquafit morning class.
They offer Personal Trainers and if you want your butt kicked to motivate you — get one. They people are friendly enough, tho sometimes they need a class or two of learning how to answer the phone in a business like manner.
Nonetheless, I like it and am glad we joined as a family.