I visited GymU as a prospective member because I was interested in taking a tour of the facility…read more The gym looked like a nice, upscale place, and although I knew the membership would probably be outside my budget, I thought it would be a nice treat to check it out while they were offering tours.
Unfortunately, my experience was one of the worst gym experiences I have ever had.
When I arrived for my tour, the person who was supposed to give the tour wasn't there. Another employee named Mike stepped in. Before even getting to the tour, he started asking me a long series of questions. The entire interaction gave me a very uncomfortable feeling. The best words I can use to describe the experience are pretentious and patronizing.
Instead of feeling welcomed, I felt like I was being interrogated. The questions kept coming one after another, and the overall tone made me so uncomfortable that I decided not to continue with the tour and left.
Afterward, I texted Mike and explained how I felt. I told him that I felt interrogated and that the interaction had made me uncomfortable. To his credit, he apologized and offered for me to come back the next day for a tour and an hour-long training session.
I agreed and returned the following Tuesday.
What happened during that training session only reinforced my impression that the questions from the day before were not being asked from a place of genuine concern for my goals, health, or fitness journey. The reason I say that is because despite having spent a significant amount of time asking me questions the previous day, Mike appeared to remember virtually none of it. He asked me many of the exact same questions all over again. Even when I answered, it often felt like he wasn't really listening.
The workout itself felt strangely structured. The first thing he had me do was get on a treadmill for 30 minutes. Personally, I usually stretch before working out because I believe in preparing and priming my body before exercise, but there was no stretching. I was simply put on the treadmill.
While I was on the treadmill, he talked about being in a specific "fat-burning range." I am not convinced by that explanation and did not find it particularly convincing. He also told me that the walking I normally do is not enough. From my understanding, movement is movement, and fat loss primarily comes down to maintaining a caloric deficit. The advice left me questioning whether the information being presented was actually accurate.
After putting me on the treadmill, Mike walked away. Thirty minutes later he came back and told me that this was not normally how he structures workouts and that normally exercise would come before cardio. That left me wondering why the session was being run this way in the first place.
When we finally moved on to the exercises, I felt talked down to. For example, when he brought me to a hamstring curl machine, he asked whether I had ever seen or used a machine like that before. Maybe that question was innocent, but given the overall tone of our interactions, it came across as if he assumed I had never stepped foot in a gym before.
What made that especially odd was that he had already asked whether I had a gym membership, and I had told him that I did. So being repeatedly spoken to in a way that felt dismissive or overly simplistic became frustrating.
Another thing that stood out was the way the gym's equipment was discussed. GymU uses Panatta equipment, so I asked what specifically made the equipment special compared to equipment at other gyms. The answer I received focused primarily on the fact that it was expensive and that it was made by a famous bodybuilder. I was expecting an explanation about biomechanics, functionality, training advantages, or something related to performance. Instead, the emphasis seemed to be on prestige and price.
Throughout the conversation, Mike repeatedly spoke about GymU as though it were the best gym in the world. Personally, I found that difficult to reconcile with my experience. There are many gyms with similar amenities and strong reputations, so I was left wondering what specifically justified that claim.
After my training session, I used the sauna. In my opinion, it was surprisingly lukewarm. I barely broke a sweat.
Then came the worst part of the entire experience.
I went to take a shower, and when I stepped out, there were no mats or other visible slip-resistant surfaces where I exited. The floor was wet and slippery. I slipped, fell, and injured my right elbow.
As I write this review, I have extremely limited mobility in that elbow. I have been doing nearly everything one-handed. I don't yet know the full extent of the injury, but the pain has been significant enough that it has affected my daily life, school responsibilities, and ability to get ready for my day. The experience was upsetting enough that I nearly had a breakdown from the frustration and pain.
What disappointed me almost as much as th
