Edit: most positive reviews seem to be about yoga, which I was not aware happened at this location…read more It's a gym with no workout rooms, primarily devoted to personal training, so there may be some mix up.
**
Negative parts of this are virtually all for Jason (the owner).
I hope in sharing it'll help other people avoid what I experienced.
With the exception of Jason, the trainers I worked with here are excellent overall. Devin has so much light in him, and his energy really holds up the corners of this place. I hope he finds a working situation that better supports and nurtures all he has to offer.
Iman was great as well, but because this place is patriarchal and has deference to masculine baked in, there were instances in which I saw her feel the need to defer to Jason, which was symptomatic of outdated leadership approaches and an unhealthy work environment.
The effects of that misogyny showed through other women there as well, particularly younger women who were in admin or nutrition (and in male-presenting clients with more fem energy). Didn't see it in the seasoned fem trainers.
Russell is fun and knowledgable, but I overheard him shit-talking clients on more than one occasion. Matt is further down meathead spectrum, so there was more obliviousness/negligence showing through, but knowledgable about his work.
But Jason was negligent outright . His behavior resulted in injury I'm still dealing with ~7 months later, and he wasn't mature or professional enough to simply take responsibility for what he'd done.
I went here because I saw the Vanity Fair video that talked about how they help people clean up injuries. I have a back injury from like ~10 years ago that I really wanted to correct, and a more recent shoulder injury, and was very relieved to learn Rise could help.
In maybe 3 months of 3ish sessions per week, my back injury seemed to be healed! I was ecstatic.
...but then I ended up with Jason as my trainer 3 times in one week.
He was consistently late, eating/doing other stuff that made him distracted, had a kinda negligent vibe. Probably not the way he behaves when working with Jennifer Aniston or whoever, and not behavior I imagine he'd tolerate in a trainer he hired.
That Monday, he pushed too hard with his hands when he had me doing a side plank, and it messed up my back again.
Wednesday, when I had him as a trainer again, I told him about this.
Friday he had "forgotten," so I had to tell him again. But the damage was done. My back was fucked up.
Everybody messes up. It's not great when your preventable mistake comes from not being attentive/good at your job. It's worse when that mistake physically injures a human being...especially when those effects are long-lasting.
If Jason could've acknowledged what happened and apologized for it, okay. But he kept "forgetting" about it. Then he tried to tell me that I wouldn't get better if I wasn't doing the exercises I did there every day at home....though 3 days a week at their location had gotten my back healthy before, and I had explicitly asked multiple trainers if 3 days a week of training there was a good amount. All said yes.
Jason was trying to cover his ass and sidestep responsibility. He later tried to refer me to a back expert or something, acting like the cause of the re-injury was a mystery.
So yeah, don't go to Jason. There's narcissism in him, and he may cause you months-long physical pain because he isn't paying attention, and then play it like he has no idea what he did even as you repeatedly speak up about the damage he caused.
