Long story short: Woman signs up at a California Planet Fitness to begin light physical therapy, and is immediately flagged as intimidating and showing off after just 15 minutes of walking on a treadmill.
Real article synopsis: Woman signs up at a California Planet Fitness to begin light physical therapy, and because she was not a fat, physically incompetent blob of a human being, she is immediately flagged as a tryhard for actually exercising at the gym, and cited as someone intimidating other patrons with her toned body.
The link to this story gave no indication that Planet Fitness was involved, but I knew right away that it had to be Planet Fitness, since it hinted at people being intimidated, and only sissies and people who don’t take exercise seriously go there. And it didn’t take long for Planet Fitness to be outed as the place where this incident occurred, naturally. And the second I saw the name Planet Fitness, the entire rest of the story was pretty much not necessary to read, although I did, in order to piece this puzzle together.
Basically, this is a sad, sad incident for Planet Fitness, because it basically makes them look like the gigantic hypocrites, and that’s saying something, because gymrats have the capability of being the most egotistical, narcissistic hypocrites out there.
Anyway, back to the story, a woman who wasn’t a fat mess of humanity to start out with was declared to be intimidating and a show off to enough patrons to where the tryhard alarm had to be sounded on her. The thing is sure, she’s not fat or even necessarily obese, but she’s not what I’d call “toned” either. Toned would be the women in the background of a Jillian Michaels workout DVD, or possibly a WWE Diva.
Yet, to the eyes of the regulars of this California Planet Fitness, she’s pretty much an Adonis (or it’s female equivalent) and scares them and their frail self-esteems by showing up to their house, where judgment isn’t supposed to happen, so they judge her right out the door.
I mean, I don’t know why I’m even writing about this, because it’s not like this story had any real traction once Planet Fitness was named. Everyone knows Planet Fitness is pretty much the biggest joke of a gym in the world, and that this story lost all credibility upon its mention. But I guess it’s just such an easy target to criticize that I just can’t help myself.
Sure, if you want to be able to tell your peers that “you work out,” you could sign up for a Planet Fitness membership to be able to fulfill such claims. But given the criteria of not being allowed to even so much as breathe too hard, because it indicates that you’re tryharding, it’s safe to say that you’re really not going to have much chance at any physical improvement either.
Planet Fitnesses are such a joke. Aspiring to be better is what anyone who exercises should strive for, but Planet Fitness’s criteria seems to want to stifle some of the things that come along with those aspirations.
I’m proudly pretty tame at my gym, as I don’t slam weights, grunt and/or scream. I will breathe heavily though, because I take my cardio seriously, and I want to actually elevate my heartrate and actually sweat. If I were at a Planet Fitness, even with my fairly tame gym behavior, I’d probably not last a single workout without getting flagged, because I actually workout my legs, and since I wear shorts, my calves might intimidate other members, or because my sweat might be offensive to those too incapable of generating such excretions on their own.
Either way, Planet Fitness is a joke, and I’ll continue to view and treat them as one, forevermore.
