It’s time for more groupon shenanigans – after Christmas, after the three months I didn’t tell you about in which I was doing hot yoga (it’s awesome, I’m still doing it!), and fully time to embrace a relatively inexpensive 3 month membership at Premier Fitness.
I’m not exactly into the whole gym thing, but they have a lot of classes, including at least two spin classes each evening, so I jumped on the cheap membership. I jumped so hard that I dragged two of my friends along for the ride.
We went last night for the first time, showed up a half-hour before the Zumba class was scheduled to start. I figured that would be enough time. I figured, we show up, we hand them our printed out discount sheets, we get handed a three month pass with the expiration date on it, and we go Zumba-ing.
Too bad that Premier fitness is now Physiomed fitness, and Physiomed wants to make my life complicated.
Instead of flailing to the tune of dance music and a fiercely enthusiastic instructor with a thundering voice, we spent over an hour talking, sitting, getting a tour, and then sitting some more.
They wanted to know our fitness goals. They wanted us to sign up for the very low super special offer biweekly payment plan for our continued enrolment in Physiomed. They really didn’t seem to grasp that, when this Groupon is done, we’d be moving on to the next deal, not enrolling for another three months. The Hot Yoga classes were so enjoyable that I signed up for more, and will keep doing them – considering how pissed off I am, even the day after this waste-of-time experience, even if I fall in love with the gym and classes, I will not give them any more of my money.
When did I start considering joining a fitness club? When I found an online deal for it that would ensure that the fitness club never ever gets ahold of my credit card information, because I know how hard it is to stop them from direct-charging you when you want to quit.
What are my fitness goals? Get a bit more fit, do some classes.
How long is my goal-plan? Three months. (To which he responded that I’d need to be there 8 hours a day, every day, to achieve my goals. My goal is to be ‘more fit’, not ‘be like Arnold’)
When can you come in for your two day fitness evaluation? Cue screech of slammed brakes. Never? I don’t need one. I just want to take classes.
But it’s free! But I just want to take some classes… like the one we’re missing right now. And I don’t care what my resting heart rate is. Or the circumference of my thigh, calf or ankle. I can tell I’m getting more toned by how well my pants fit. And why do you have a chiropractor involved in this?
But it’s required. Seriously? I have to show up for two more non-exercising days before I can go to a Zumba class?
On Friday, I’ll be going in and seeing a chiropractor. I’d imagine the conversation will go something like this (bearing in mind I’ve never been to a chiropractor, and am not really sure what they do… but it sounds ominous, and I’m not a big fan of strangers touching me, and if the google-image search for chiropractor is anything to go by, there is lots of touching… and a fascination with spinal columns.):
I’m going to move your… no, don’t do that.
Well, then let’s see how far you can bend this way. Ok, I can do that myself.
… Meanwhile, I just keeeeeeeeeep bending (seriously, I’ve told you I’m bendy… it isn’t a lie.)
“Holy mother of god what’s wrong with you? What are you, Gumby?! Please stop!”
… and maybe they’ll discuss my posture. My mom once told me that in a room full of sitting people, you could pick out the people on my dad’s side of the family by finding the people with the most upright posture. At the church gathering after a family funeral, I saw the truth in this.
After that, I’ll be getting a base test of some sort, possibly involving a bike, and probably involving one of those peppy drill-sergeants whose classes I want to take instead of having my blood pressure taken after doing sit-ups.
And then I’ll need to come in on another day, where they might actually have me do actual exercising, the entire point of getting a deal for a gym membership.
Suffice to say – I will NOT be buying another gym membership deal… I’ll stick to the cross-fit, horseback riding and Jukari type things – all they require is a liability waiver.
All I want to do is be yelled at while flailing obediently along with the group and listening to upbeat music! Why is this so hard to understand?! Just let me Zumba.
Gone for a Walk 
My question for you is if you an actually flail obediently? In your first class… or second I mean…
Do you remember the first kickboxing class? The one where you had to wait a good minute and a half of whatever was happening to get the gist of it, and by then he was moving onto the next part?
In my mind, Zumba is similar to this 😀
I hope you continue freaking out the people at the gym/hell hole of stubborn with your plastecine stretchyness… Put your foot behind your head, and then o to the class already 😀
I usually keep moving, even if it isn’t quite in time with the others, or very graceful. Everyone else might be vine-ing to the left and right, but I’m at least flailing to the beat… it works out well enough, anyways.
It was kind of tempting to do something stretchy in the office area they were asking us questions in, and say, ‘see, healthy, fit, flexible. I’m going to ZUMBA, now, bye!’
Haha I don’t understand why gyms feel the need to hold you hostage before you work out.
I’ve never run into a process this complicated to just take some classes. It isn’t like i’m trying to sign up for a marathon with zero training. We’re all fairly fit, we’ve all done similar classes recently, and if I get tired, I reduce the level of enthusiasm with which I flail to the music. simple!
Ok 3 month fitness warrior! I have worked out all my life and have been a fitness instructor for over 20 years. Fairly fit are we? I think it is an awesome program as I am tired of hearing of all the bitching and complaining about people having aches and pains, not reaching their fitness goals, can’t loose weight…knowing that my tax money is going to pay for people like you who don’t take their health seriously! How much does an extra 20 pounds of weight stress your body doing aerobics, do you have high blood pressure, low back pain, pre-diabetic?,family history all of these things will affect how your body responds and reacts to any kind of exercise. Wow what a waste of time to have a professional for free give you some advice??That’s okay I am sure you spend more money on your hair, shoes and repairing your car then understand your body and health! Why not get educated by professionals who want to get you healthier? I am sure you get your teeth cleaned every 6 months because your dentist tells you because you know that prevents cavities!! Wrong! Educate yourself.
3 month fitness warrior… doesn’t have the same ring as weekend warrior, but I get where you’re going with that. Unfortunately, in the same way as reading page 37-45 of a book isn’t going to give you the whole story, reading one blog post in which I claim decent health does not a whole story make. You are certainly right that jumping into a difficult fitness regime with no working up to it (like running a ten km race without training for it) is stupid and unhealthy. What you aren’t taking into consideration is that this three months is hot yoga + a gym membership. The last three months were hot yoga (try it before you claim it isn’t exercise), and the three months before that were Jukari (I highly recommend it)… before that, it was biking all summer, as well as Crossfit, and before that, well… you get the picture. I generally exercise in some way at least twice a week, year-round. And that exercising isn’t including the fact that I walk 1.5-2 hours a day, rain or shine. That’s my definition of ‘fairly fit’.
I hope you come back to read my follow-up post about how the actual meeting went, but, in case you choose not to, I’ll give you the run-down. They asked me a variety of questions about my health, to which I mostly answered ‘no’, never once asked about family history, so I added that information in (for instance, ‘no’ to having heart issues, but there is a history of it in my family), though they didn’t seem the slightest bit interested. They asked me about my knowledge of things, but when I said I didn’t know a lot about something, they didn’t tell me anything, just moved on to the next question… not exactly informative. Perhaps if you had been the person I was speaking with, I’d have gotten some kind of feedback, maybe a pamphlet or two.
The free personal training session was definitely handy. I would consider continuing with something like that, if I could afford it. What with all the time and money I spend gussying myself up at the beauty salon (or wait… was that, all that time I spend still living with my parents, and trying to save up enough money to move out, while also still feeding my dog…?), I can’t really take my health all that seriously.
You have far more patience than I do my friend. I would have told them to take their membership and shove it up their Zumba asses and to watch for my scathing report on my blog oh and by the way, I have 200 twitter followers I will be tweeting and asking to retweet and 315 facebook friends I will be asking the same.
Then I would have left. 🙂
Kudos to you for hanging in, I hope you enjoy the Zumba.
If it weren’t for the fact that I’d already paid for it through Groupon, I would have gotten the hell out of there. as it was, I would have had to jump through hoops to get my money back in the first place. Oh welll, at least now I’m actually going to get to go to a class 🙂