Planet Fitness is a great starter gym, which is what it was for me. For only $10 a month, you can figure out if you like going to the gym, if it's something you'll want to continue, and what you'll like and not like in a gym. There's a decent variety of equipment for the price. Cardio equipment includes treadmills, elliptical and stepper machines, stationary bikes, and a 30 minute circuit training area, but that's it. Strength training equipment includes free weights, a limited selection of barbells, three cable machines, three Smith machines and nautilus equipment. For most people, especially beginners, this is all you'll need.
Once you start going regularly and looking for more variety in your routine, PF's limitations become apparent. PF is a high volume gym, so they value quantity over quality. During peak hours (3pm to 8pm, Monday through Thursday), it's not uncommon for every single treadmill to be in use, so you'll have to wait for one to open up, but fortunately that's never long. Steppers and stationary bikes can get filled up too. In order to limit how much time you spend on cardio equipment, all equipment is programmed to automatically stop your workout after an hour of use. While I understand this fits into PF's high volume business model, it's a real limitation once you build endurance and want to work out longer.
Trying to use all the equipment you'll need for your strength training routine also gets difficult because of the high volume. Be prepared to wait for the most popular machines. Oddly, PF has only one of the most popular weight lifting machines, but two of the less popular machines. Staff do little to monitor whether people are bogarting the weight equipment, which happens all the time. Watching a group of 3 or 4 guys stand around a machine and do nothing but BS for an hour without lifting so much as a pound gets pretty frustrating when you just want to get your workout done and get home. It's also frustrating waiting for someone to get done doing 10 sets on the one piece of equipment available for that exercise. A little more policing by the staff to encourage people to use the equipment and move on would help. In that same vein, PF does little about "lunks", even though that's supposedly their thing. That being said, I'm sure there are 'roid heads at every gym on the planet, so it's something you have to learn to tune out.
Even though it's a relatively new gym, the treadmills all show serious signs of wear and tear, and many are simply worn out and should be replaced while others have clearly been refurbished. The worst ones feel like you're running on concrete because they no longer have any "give". There always are at least a couple treadmills out of order, and at least a couple other pieces of equipment out of order, and it seems to take PF months to fix them, if they ever get fixed at all. In general, there are a lot of things that never get fixed. One of the most troubling is a leaky HVAC system. Expect buckets to be strategically placed around the gym throughout the entire spring, summer and fall because the HVAC system never gets fixed. Legionnaires Disease, anyone?
The absolutely most frustrating thing about PF is that their wifi service and/or equipment is simply not up to handling the large number of people trying to use it. I constantly get "internet connection is unstable" messages on my smartphone while trying to listen to music. I have no problem connecting to any other wifi system, and as soon as I switch over to 4G at PF, the problem immediately stops. If you're like me and must have energizing tunes for your workout, be prepared to spend a little more on your data plan if you want to listen to music or read while working out. I think this is pretty poor of PF, especially since so many people now have smartphones and use them for listening to music or reading all the time. Based on how full the gym is, there's no way they're hurting for money, so come on PF, don't be so cheap about your wifi!
Overall, PF was a great gym to get started, but I've outgrown it. If you're serious about getting fit and have joined gyms before, pass on PF. If you don't know how many times you'll go or how long you'll stick with it, PF is right for you. read more