LA Fitness

Reviews 4

AN

Anantharajah Ananthakumar

I have been coming to LA Fitness for over a year, and I have gotten used to it. Can’t grumble. I won’t change now, but back then, if I knew what I had known now, I would definitely not have signed up. FYI, I am the type of person who always tries to write a positive review. Before I wrote this today, I felt like writing this at least ten times, and I resisted my urge to write a negative review. But eventually I felt obliged to write this so that future customers are better informed. The trigger for this has been included further below. I wouldn’t have definitely minded a small or limited facility. In this case, what put me off was constant lying and disrespect for all customers in general. Let’s be nice first. There definitely are a lot of good things here. Pros: 1. Clean equipment. 2. Equipment are almost always free whatever time you come. I have been to the Chicago Signature club, and I definitely prefer the Evanston gym for the availability of its equipment. 3. Excellent group sessions. On time and people even doing sessions when they are a bit sick. Or making up with replacements in a timely fashion. I go to the spinning classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, as well as the Kickbox cardio sessions on Saturdays. Sigalle and Mike are really committed and motivated trainers. Now the Cons: 1. Swimming pool. Constantly lying about the state of the pool and keeping it closed. During winter when asked, they said the pool was “open”, and I swam and got a sever cramp since the heating system was not functional. After that, they closed the pool for repairs. They said it’d be open in a week. They always promised “next week”, but it took 2 months to open again. Still the 2. Falling ceiling: the ceiling fell down twice after I joined. I learnt that this had been a pattern in the past as well. Water gets trapped in the ceilings and eventually the ceiling falls down. If someone had been underneath, they’d have definitely been injured. You can see the photos on Yelp. You can see the water clogged ceiling. I informed them and asked them to attend it. No action was taken. The ceiling eventually fell down. I take this as an utter disregard for customer concerns or health. 3. Closing the door earlier than closing time. Almost always, the main exit is closed at least 15 minutes before closing time. When asked, the staff’s reply is always rude and irritated. Today, I left 15 minutes before closing time, to find the main exit blocked. 4. Adding to above is the act of reminding people to leave from 15 minutes before closing time. On occasions, staff remind people to leave from 20 minutes before closing time. On numerous days, I have seen the Tv indicate “Gym will be closing in 5 minutes” 15 minutes before the actual closing time. 5. Adding to the annoyance and disrespect is that sometimes the staff workout during the closing time, and prevent us from completing the workout. This is a very rare occasion. But still annoying nonetheless. I am not sure what the rules here are. But I have known gyms preventing the staff from working out while on duty; let alone preventing others from working out, or worse ----- not placing the weights back in place. Needless to say, the staff have huge muscles. On more than one occasion, I had to remove a ton of weights to work out on an equipment that a staff member had used. Especially when they themselves have pasted notes indicating – “Please place weights back in their respective palces” 6. Closing at 11 – Main reason I joined LA fitness was that they closed at 12. Perhaps their contract gives them freedom to change the closing time, but I am disappointed by the fact that they now close at 11. I used to workout from 10.30 to 12, when I have done all my readings and assignments.

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A

Anonymous User

I have been a member for over a year and this place seems to be in a downward spiral. The pool facilities have not been fully functional for many months. The mens lockerroom is generally beat-up and poorly cleaned. There have been atleast 2 or 3 shower stalls taped off as if they are out of order for the past 3 months. The stretch-out room is never clean. The entire club is generally dirty....i think they might have one janitor run around with a mop from time to time, but that is not the way to keep a health club clean. I think there is something wrong with the building in general, because the stores on the street level have either been driven out by the pool leaks or closed (this week) from pipes bursting. My gut feeling is that LA Fitness is going to not be operating here at this location much longer. They seem to have stopped doing even the bare minimum. I brought my wife in to work out and hit them up for a free visit which they gladly gave me. That was because they saw it as an opportunity to try to sell us on adding her to my membership. They subjected us to thier hard-sell even in the face of me laying out all these problems I see with the club. I told them I am likely to cancel my membership come Jan. 2009 and they just pressed on with the hard-sale thing. Since I never took advantage of the complimentary consult with a personal trainer that came with my membership, I went ahead and did that a few days later. Not surprising, this was just another opportunity for them to subject me to a hard sell of the personal trainer services. I restated my long list of complaints and how I am most likely going to cancel my membership unless I see a dramatic turn-around in the next few weeks. They ignored what I was saying and just continued with the sales tactics they must have laminated in thier training manuals. I am going to cancel my membership asap.

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DA

David Holstein

Any LA Fitness outside of the city limits of Chicago typically has decent amenities, a spacious floorplan with plenty of machines/equipment, and good class schedules/facilities. When you consider the price for membership, its a great value. The only thing that I would change, if I were management (which I am not), is your personal training staff. I am someone who is in the gym regularly and I typically know what I am doing and how to accomplish my goals. But, every once in a while I wouldnt mind a coach or someone who looks & acts like they know what they are doing to push me/make my workouts more engaging. More often than not, I see LA Fitness clients with a personal trainer who is more interested in talking/texting on their cell than actually helping and playing the role. I understand that not every LA Fitness client is the type of person who wants someone in their face, pushing them to do better. But, there is a HUGE market of people who are looking for exactly that. Just think of all of the TV Shows that people watch to get inspired to workout & be healthy (Biggest Loser, Extreme Weightloss, Wake Up Call, etc.)... all of those shows have personal trainers who LOOK and ACT the part. Just a suggestion. At the end of the day, great value, solid location.

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FU

Futbol Phan

There seem to be a lot of LA Fitness haters out there, but my experience has been generally positive. First the bad:Ive been a member for 2 years, during which the pool has been closed a majority of the time for various unexplained reasons. Because I am not a swimmer this hasnt bothered me, but I can understand why those who want to use the pool are irked. As for customer service, which everyone seems to complain about, I havent had any issues; then again I havent had reasons to deal with them much. But when I have they have always been pleasant to deal with. On the positive side, there are lots of weight machines, and they are never crowded and almost always in good operable condition. The treadmills, ellipticals, etc., are also plentiful and in good working order. The place is large and rarely crowded, which is a big plus for me. Those who work out there are generally there to work out and not preeners and socializers (although there are a few notable exceptions). If you are looking for a good place to do weight training or workout on aerobic equipment, I think you will like LA Fitness

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