LA Fitness — Attraction in Long Beach

I’m excited to share my experience today and hopefully help lead the next person in the right direction. I’ll start by saying I don’t recommend LA FITNESS PCH nor Isaiah, one of their representatives. The infrastructure needs repairs and pest control. Isaiah was dismissive and wasted time. For those who don’t wish to read further here’s some alternatives, LA FITNESS Bellflower or my favorite ONE BODY STRENGTH & CONDITIONING 5 mins away, save your time folks!

Storytime... After starting a new membership with LA Fitness PCH (Angeles was helpful), I received a call from Isaiah who said he wanted to set an appointment to check my BMI and provide nutrition resources. I thought, "Wow, this sounds like a huge advantage, sure." He made arrangements to come in early at 8:30 a.m., even though his shift starts at 9 a.m. I arrived for the appointment at 8 a.m., and the receptionist recommended I check out the sauna, which had just received updates. I'm all about the sauna; it's the main reason I joined, so I was excited for the improvements to the wooden benches. This is where my experience takes a turn.

I won't dwell on the negativity, just state the facts. I went to the ladies' locker room and laid my bag down on the counter, and ladies, there was a roach on the counter, I kid you not (immediately clutched pearls). I thought to take a picture, but I decided to stay focused on positivity. I proceeded to the sauna, expecting to see updates, but there were no improvements as aforementioned. As a matter of fact, there were crickets and other tiny insects scurrying along the floor. It was absolutely disgusting.

As it got closer to my appointment, I went to wait in the lobby for Isaiah. I waited for maybe 10 minutes, and Isaiah arrived. He was welcoming and started by asking me about my day. I mentioned that I had just finished a workout with my trainer (One Body Strength & Conditioning), and he said, "Oh, you already have a trainer?" It was at this point that I realized our meeting was a consultation for him to train me. He proceeded to weigh me and asked about how I felt about my weight. I told him it could be improved. He then asked my age, and when I said "I don't do age,"(I wasn't rude its a personal quirk) he looked at me awkwardly and said that defeats the purpose and there's no need to move forward. He politely shook my hand, and I was left shocked.

I shook his hand and turned to walk out. My thoughts were that I arrived early with the expectation to discuss nutrition, and after just 5 minutes, he said he couldn't help me because I wasn't comfortable providing my age. He didn't even attempt to explain why age was an important factor; he just dismissed me.

I'm seriously tempted to dismiss LA FITNESS altogether and cancel my membership. Fortunately, there are neighboring gyms that provide better service. I try not to say never, but I honestly don't see myself returning to the PCH Gym, and therefore, I do not recommend it. It's worth noting that the receptionists are not as welcoming as you may experience at the Bellflower location as well.

In the event I do decide to return, I will take pictures and update this review. Until then, don't waste your time, people. We go to the gym to improve and get better; we can't be affected by the poor mindsets of others and poor-quality surroundings. Instead, consider trying One Body Strength & Conditioning; it's worth every penny.

I am open to being reached out to, if LA FITNESS-PCH leadership...

My partner and I went in to apply for the three day free trial. We’ve been shopping around gyms trying to find one we liked specifically for pool usage, we went in and told the two behind the counter what we’d like to do and they said oh you have to wait for the sales associate who was helping another couple. That was fine she was the only one working it seemed and was busy so we waited, my partner had actually been really impressed with this place from the photos and was sorta already sold on it. So the sales associate (who’s name I don’t remember I think it was Ana but I could be very off, she never introduced herself the other two said her name) said do we have an appointment after what we told her we were interested in doing and we said no, and asked if we needed one. She said usually yes but let me see if I can see if you’re registered. Before we had gone there I had try to do this online and the website kept giving me an error message, and I explained that once she said yeah you have no registration. So she after a moment was like no worries let me just get you in to work out for the day, and took our IDs and our information, and as she’s filling things out she starts asking me what my weight is and if I know my BMI. I said I did, and she goes to get the machine, my partner at this point is like “this is kinda crazy” because it’s a lot of personal questions, which none of the other gyms we tried out ever asked us anything like this. She comes back has me do this machine, I’m well aware of how BMI works and what i’m at, to which my partner tried to explain that we don’t need all this and she basically said if you want to do the free pass you have to do this part. She then proceeds to tell me how my BMI is higher and that can be a problem so you have to start doing it now, it was very uncomfortable and was making me feel bad about myself which, if that’s how you sell people on gym memberships that’s insane, I tried to tell her hey I already know this information I’m actually on a medication so I have this all figured out for my own personal info. My mistake honestly telling her that because she immediately said “oh so you don’t want to lose weight the healthy way” which was insane to say to any one, she’s not my doctor she doesn’t even know me and for whatever stupid reason I tried to explain because I was so shocked and humiliated I told her I had a condition, to which she asked me”what condition” which again, is absolutely none of her business. At this point my partner who is completely fed up says no we’re done here grabs my ID and we leave. I’ve never been so humiliated and upset about how I’ve been treated about my own body even by a doctor before, and it’s baffling LAfitness has anybody who treats potential customers like that, how invasive and awful and disgusting that experience was. All we wanted to do was try the gym out and see if we liked it and if we did we were gonna sign up for memberships, and instead I was shamed and judged. It’s not hard to sign people up for a membership and if you want to push personal trainers on people there are 10000 other ways to bring it up then whatever that was. I can’t speak for all LA fitness’ but this one specifically if that’s how she talked to us I can’t imagine how the rest are trained. It was horrible and they need to learn to treat people...

Like most chain gyms they participate in predatory sales and cancellation practices. Whenever I’ve tried to cancel membership or personal training I get a “sure we will take care of it and you’ll receive an email confirmation” and then I have to follow up because they never actually cancel and will try to get you for an extra month or outside of a cancellation period. Their employees will also provide conflicting information verbally (so you don’t have documentation) regarding contracts when signing up to get you to sign up, so read through your contract yourself instead of relying on their employees knowing anything.

On top of this they rarely clean the gym so if you have sensitive skin you will probably get a fungal infection here.

Their ‘personal’ trainers are not actually personal, you basically get the same service you would get from watching a YouTube video and your trainer will switch week to week so you’re just paying for someone to google a YouTube workout for you and add nothing else to the session.

Would never recommend this gym to anyone, the only upside is the location is convenient for my needs.

Edit: after cancelling a personal training contract with them, my wife and I were told by Angelo (I guess the manager for personal trainers) that my wife still had sessions she paid for and to not forget to use them. This was fine, so she setup an appointment... only to have it cancelled by Angelo. Provided no notice, no apology, no compensation for wasted time and only took fault when we brought this up to him specifically. Was very unhelpful and became rude when we asked to file a complaint. Front desk also tried to blame it on the mobile app initially. Horrible service and...