BBA Gym — Attraction in Sunnyvale

I worked with Benny who is an incredible sweet and nice guy. I’ve always been a pretty athletic person, and have worked out extensively on my own. I booked personal training sessions to improve form, and ensure I’m lifting a safe weight. I did a consultation and everything seemed to check out - Benny is incredibly fit and so I figured if someone knows good form and lifting properly, it’s him. He’s also a really nice and sweet guy.

Fundamentally, it’s the job of a personal trainer to know when someone’s form is ready for a certain lift, to know which exercises are safe, which amount of weight is safe, and to advise a beginner on when to stop.

On the second personal training session, as a 120-pound woman, Benny gave me 272 pounds to lift — on my second, ever training session!

Since that session I have consulted 2 medical practitioners and 4 other folks who lift regularly; all 6 have said it’s extremely irresponsible and negligent to give someone 2x their bodyweight on a second training session and that the workout was barely short of pure recklessness. There's simply no way a beginner's form can allow for proper lifting of 2x their body weight.

For context, if you’re a 200 pound man, that means they'd give you 400+ pounds to lift - on your second session.

As you can imagine, on the lift, my back completely went out (I heard and felt some sort of sound), and was in incredible immediate pain — right after the injury, I couldn’t bend over without immense pain.

With a personal trainer, they're prescribing all sorts of weights with 10+ different moves each session; if any of those are off or cause injury, you will be living with that pain and the medical expenses that come with fixing it -- they won't.

Had the pain gone away in a week or so, I wouldn’t be here writing this review. Unfortunately, it’s been over a month and that pain has not fully gone away — 6 weeks and $500+ in medical bills later. Most likely I will need to have an MRI to see if there’s any kind of disc issue. These 2 sessions alone will likely result in over $1000 in medical bills if I go ahead and do the MRI.

I wrote the bulk of this review at 1 am in the morning in bed, because the tingling in my right leg has actively prevented me from falling asleep. My experience involved 3 days of intense pain, 1 week of extremely limited movement, and a month of continued lingering pain and tingling in my right leg down to my feet. Even a month after the injury, I cannot lift anything substantial without the pain returning. Woke up on Christmas morning with a backache.

I can’t in good conscious recommend this gym. I regret coming to this gym so, so, so much.

Giving a complete beginner 272 pounds to deadlift on a 2nd session seems to fall short of reckless.

If this gym employs someone that gives a workout like that on a 2nd session, I think it needs to re-consider it’s standards. Back issues are no joke, and I’d give anything to have to live pain-free again. You can always get another job, another car -- pretty much anything. But you can’t get another back. Plus, still dealing with all the medical bills.

If you’d prefer avoiding a slipped disc or back pain, I would...

Reached out to BBA gym once I was given the all clear from my doctors at 6 months postpartum (c-section) and it's been a fantastic experience with them from the start. I have been training with Benjamin (Benji) for almost 6 months now and he is very knowledgeable, upbeat and have made me feel very safe and understood that I m getting back into exercising. Each training session is the perfect mix of interesting and challenging workouts while still being okay to move around the next day. Can feel myself getting stronger and better with each session.

I have always hated gyms and physical activity, but Benji has changed the way I think about working out and eating healthy. He does a great job at personalizing my workout based on my body, fitness state, and personal preference (I hate, hate, hate cardio). He has motivated me to get healthier and has been very invested in my progress, checking on me even outside of our weekly workouts. In a few months working out with him I have seen tremendous changes to my body and to the way I think about food and physical activity.

Overall, Benji is an excellent trainer and I strongly recommend him, even (especially) if you are thinking you will never love...

This is an awesome gym with an owner who's dedicated to keeping the equipment and surroundings organized, clean and in great shape! It's an open environment where you're surrounded by and energized by trainers focused on helping their clients in a friendly atmosphere and where everyone's efforts are respected. The gym also enables the trainers there to really customize their client's workouts and it's a learning experience (everyday) to see various training techniques and their focus.

My wife and I first came to BBA when one of their trainers, Alex, started training at this gym. Alex is outstanding and has been our trainer for two years. He's extremely knowledgeable and passionate about training and can take you anywhere from HIIT to serious strength training for competition and everywhere in between. His latest mantra, "Exercise is fun!" is code for "Don't stop!" during our circuit training (LOL).

But that's how these trainers are at this gym. They're friendly, serious, focused on you, and they want to bring a little fun so you can improve and keep at it. My wife and I love coming to this gym for our sessions and we'd recommend it to...