Working out isn’t working out

Over the last few months I have thought about and formulated (but never quite typed up and posted) blog entries about the Mill Valley Health Club, including such subjects as:

“Congratulate Me, O Friends, For I Have Been to the Gym and Then Gone Back Again and Again”
“I Can Run 10-Minute Miles on the Elliptical, Does That Still Count?”
and my personal favorite, 
“Steam Rooms and the Women Who Love Them Even Though I Think They’re Sort of Scary” (that one still may be in the works).

The Mill Valley Health Club was one of the perks of working at Marin Theatre Company – every one of their staff, cast and crew gets free use of the health club.  After one and a half shows, I finally went, thinking I was being idiotic to not take advantage of such a great opportunity.  Well, let me tell you, the MVHC is wonderful.  It’s mellow and has lots of big windows, high ceilings with fans everywhere, enough equipment that I almost always got to use my favored machines, and it even has lavender-scented sanitizing wipes.  The locker rooms and clean and sweet and the showers were clean and provided shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and even shaving gel.  The steam room was fine too, although that’s another story.

Well, I don’t work for MTC anymore (sad face) so I can’t go to the health club anymore (sad face) unless I wanted to pay for it, and I bet it doesn’t come cheap, and pay bridge toll every time I go.  So today I decided to look into some gyms around here.  Bally has a lot of commercials on TV, and they have that deal where you get a week-long free guest pass, and then they are doing this other deal where they waive the initiation fee and you get the first 3 months for $27 each.  If you go on their website, you’ll see that it expires on [today’s date] but I’ve been checking back and it’s consistently expiring on [today’s date] so I think that’s a sale point.

So I signed up for my guest pass today, printed it out, and was all set to go this evening.  Then I get a call from “John” at Bally, wanting to know when I’m coming in, and I remember this from the time I was going to use a guest pass at Bally in New York – they want to try to pitch to you.  I’m like, I can hold him off.  And I don’t want to be all slinking around or anything, so I decide to roll with it.

I go in this evening around 5:00 and ask for “John” like he told me to.  He comes over and takes me around to show me the gym, and also asks all the same questions he’d asked on the phone, about my fitness goals, what I’ve been doing, what I’m interested in doing here, what time of day I’ll be coming in, etc.  Now, all I really want right now is a place I can go and use an elliptical, maybe a treadmill sometimes, and just do cardio.  I have Jillian Michaels for the Shred stuff, and maybe I’ll start incorporating more of that someday, but right now I’m fulfilling a need for cardio in my life.  He’s not really interested in hearing about that though.  He tells me that since I’ve never worked out with a trainer, he’s going to give me a special training session today.  I’m like, Okayyyy…not what I signed up for, but again, I decide to roll with it and see what I can take away.

So he starts me on an elliptical, but it’s only for 20 minutes (psshh) and it’s the “fat burn” mode, in which you’re supposed to keep your heart rate down to like 126.  I’m trying to do that but I’m going like under 3 miles an hour and this is soooo laaaaaaaaaaame and boooooooring.  So I give it up and just start running like usual, but it’s just flat and level 1 and easy even though it keeps beeping at me to lower my heart rate.  Whatevs.  After 20 minutes he comes back over and we go do “some exercises,” and he puts me through squats and lunges using a bar, and then some arm and ab stuff on a ball, and then right before he starts whatever’s next, I say, “Is that the time?  I actually have to get going.”  It’s 6:00 on the dot.

“So soon?” he says.  “Yeah, I have to get home and shower, I’m supposed to be somewhere at 6:30.”  Lies, all lies.  “Okay, well, you have a minute so I can go over some stuff with you?”   “Sure,” I say.  We go into a little cubicle where he lays the hard sell on me, and I keep repeating, “It sounds great, yeah, that’s a huge discount, but I don’t want to sign up for anything today.”  Then he goes over how little it is per day if you pay for 3 years up front ($499 for 3 years – about 45 cents a day!).  I say, “Yeah, wow, but I don’t want to sign up today.”  Then he leans in and tells me he’s going to add his personal discount on top of the other discounts.  How’s that?  “That’s really great.  I don’t want to sign up for anything today.”  Then he says he has to go check something, and comes back with the manager (or something) of the center, who proceeds to give me the harder sell.

You may ask why I just didn’t get up and take off.  Because they take your driver’s license away from you at the front desk and hold on to it.  Which is skeezy.

The manager (or something) hard sells me, leans in and tells me he’s going to authorize a discount that John here isn’t allowed to, then offers the same discount that John here just offered me.  I thought about calling them on it but didn’t.  The manager will not listen to my repeated “I’m not signing up for anything today,” plus, he keeps saying things like “if you want to lose the weight” or “lose that weight” and I”m like, can you please not essentially point at me like that?  Let’s talk in euphemisms a little here.  They kept me in that cubicle for 30 minutes, hard selling at me, and not listening to me at all.  Finally I started saying things like, “But you guys offer this free week guest pass so people can try the gym out, why won’t you let me use the full week?”  The manager (or something) just keeps talking about how I have to commit to this, and how only I am holding me back.  I don’t want to hold me back.  I just want to come in for a free week, run on the machines, and then next weekend, sign up for membership.

Also, the way the manager (or something) kept talking about how you can’t make changes without a gym, or how you can’t make changes in a week, was really starting to offend me.  I mean, he’s looking at me sitting there, and I know I look like a hot mess because I’ve just been exercising, I forgot to bring a bobby pin so my hair is all over the place and I can feel how sweaty I am…but he doesn’t know me.  He doesn’t know that I have actually made a difference over the last few months.  He just knows the number he wrote down when I entered my weight into the machine, he doesn’t know how that’s changed recently.  I know you don’t need a gym, especially not Bally Fitness, in order to make changes in your life, and I resent the implication that I’m just going to founder around out there without John the personal trainer to keep me on track.

Speaking of John, he’s supposed to call me tonight so I can say whether I’ve decided to keep my guest pass for a week (it’s their promotion!! why won’t they let me use it??) or trade it in for my super discounted awesome amazing fun cool bust out style membership.  Yeah…I’m pretty sure I’ll be letting that call roll to voicemail.  And then deleting it.

The funny thing is, this is why I was bad at sales.  Because the first time someone said to me, “That’s great, you know, I’m really not interested now, but I think in a week I will be,” I would say, “Awesome!  Here’s my card.  Lemme know.”  I think pushing someone like that when she is CLEARLY NOT GOING TO CHANGE HER MIND is stupid and waste of time.  A waste of time!  Did I mention I didn’t get out of there until 6:30?

The messed up part (for them) is that I was totally ready to pay them money for the privilege of using their facilities.  And now?  I’m not going back AT ALL.  There are other gyms in the area (which he readily told me about in order to talk them down and Bally up) and if all else fails, there’s the treadmill and machines in our apartment’s fitness room, and there’s outdoors!  There’s always outdoors!