FITLIFE Columbus — Local services in Columbus

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Equipment in disrepair, only one squat rack, dirty, policies and membership agreement are set up to make it difficult to cancel / leave. Sign up month to month if you must join this gym. REVIEW: I was a member of this gym for a full year. I joined due to a lack of other options in Columbus, specifically around the Exit 10 area, which is close to where I live. There are several major factors that caused me to have a negative experience at this gym and to write a negative review. (-)EQUIPMENT: The first issue is the equipment. A large amount of the equipment is in disrepair, specifically free weights, and is in desperate need of replacement / maintenance. The stickers indicating the weight of dumbbells have fallen off nearly all of the weights, so it is difficult to tell the difference between weights of similar size. A simple paint marker would solve this problem, however nothing has been done about it. Additionally, most of the large bars are severely bent. I have not seen a single bar be replaced in the 12 months I have been at the gym. I have observed other machines and equipment out of order for prolonged periods of time during my membership. Another equipment issue is the fact that there is only 1 squat rack, and it is frequently difficult to get time on it. If you come during a peak time, be prepared to wait up to 15 minutes to access the rack. (-)CLEANLINESS: Another major issue is the overall state of cleanliness of the gym. The toilets in the bathroom are frequently clogged with toilet paper, Today when I was in the mens bathroom, only one toilet was in working order. The remaining toilets had been locked due to clogs. No employees were visibly working on fixing this issue. There is a large amount of dust around the gym, the paper towel rolls are frequently empty. (-) POLICIES: The final major issue I have with this gym are its policies. First off they have a "code of conduct" posted in several locations around the gym. This code of conduct states things such as no sleeveless shirts, no gallon jugs as water bottles, etc. This is fine, however it is not followed at all. If you are going to post about your code of conduct, and use it as a selling point to potential members then there should be some enforcement. There are a large number of clowns who run around the gym leaving messes, doing ridiculous things with the weights and wearing inappropriate attire and they are allowed to do so since there is no enforcement. I signed a month to month membership when I joined the gym. I knew that I had to provide the gym 30 days notice to cancel, and this is fine. However, when it was time to cancel the gym wanted me to fill out a form notifying the gym of my desire to cancel, and then mail this form via certified mail to a PO box in Columbus. The PO Box would be checked by "corporate" which I am assuming is some guy who sits in the office upstairs in the gym, and he would process it "in the order it is received". I was lucky since I was month to month, and I was not required to produce one of the documents with sensitive / personal information on it. It was harder for me to cancel my membership with Max Fitness then it was for me to break the lease on my apartment.

Bottom Line: If you join this gym, be prepared to deal with shoddy equipment, dirty environment and ridiculous policies. I recommend joining month to month, because the contract memberships seem like a sham and they are difficult to cancel without producing and sharing documents with personal information on it. There aren't many other options in Columbus, but it is probably worth exploring options at a further driving distance or just working out on Ft. Benning if you...

This management team is a JOKE!! Had an incident happen today that was handled all wrong!

So some dude decides to record me on the hip abduction machine (290 lbs btw) without me knowing. My gym partner sees this and tells him to stop or basically he'll be sorry.. not cool to secretly record chicks with their ass in the air and post it all over social media without them knowing. Incident over right.. wrong! Turns out this dude is 16, runs and tells Ms. Piggy mama and the staff that he got threatened by some dude. Now, do you think the staff asked "what happened that he threatened you"? Nope, do you think they came up to us and asked to speak with us to explain what happened while this dude and family were present? Nope. They wait until this family leaves and have 2 people approach my gym partner WHILE he's working out on the gym floor (without ME btw)... not even ask him to talk to them in private.. WHILE ON THE GYM FLOOR WITH DUMBBELLS IN HIS HAND!! They want to emphasize the fact that this kid doing grown man s* is only 16 (which he doesnt look btw) BUT don't want to look at the fact that he's recorded a female in THEIR gym and posted it all over social media without her knowing it. They want to make sure this kid is safe, okay great but at NO point do you, Ms. Piggy mama, or other staff members question WHY this kid feels like he's not safe in this gym? That's #managementgoals and #momgoals right there son!! He tells mgmt he was just snapchatting with friends and was threatened, let me ask you this MAX FITNESS.. did you ask him to see the video or what he snapchatted? Nope sure didn't because he's innocent right? being 16 and all. While I'm being recorded and shown all over social media with a video that I have no idea what it says or how he's altered it your concern is that this shaddy kid got threatened but not WHY?

Let me come into YOUR gym MAX FITNESS and record Ms. Piggy mama running on the treadmill bouncing everywhere without her knowing it or heaven forbid she has a daughter and I record her working out and post it to my social media.. I'm wrong for that right? BET!! don't test my crazy.. it's on a whole nother level!

Send your mgmt team to classes to deal with situations like this that might occur because they're embarrassing you as a company by doing what they just did. Word of mouth is a very powerful thing ESPECIALLY when you already have 1 star reviews and people dragging your name through the mud. Everyone is leaving your gym for a reason.. there's only 1 Max Fitness in Columbus for a reason!

MAX FITNESS I'll be there tomorrow at 10 am and 5 am Monday - Friday, send whoever you want up to me to talk about this review, my only suggestion is that you ask me to step into a room because I cuss like a sailor and I'm pissed!!

Bottom line, don't come here to this gym if you're a female or you'll be recorded, put all over social media and questioned when approaching the person that's...

Terrible management staff and unreasonable cancelation policies.....give this place a wide berth when considering fitness options....

Edit: Sure, I'll talk to you about it...my name is David. You'll be able to find my last name and phone number in this month's pending cancelation requests. And it had nothing to do with an overdue balance. SINCE YOU want to try to slander me publicly based on assumptions, I'll let everyone know what the whole story is. I have Parkinson's disease and just had major brain surgery that left six holes in my skull. So i can assume that with your 35+ years of excellent management experience , you can understand why my neurologist and neurosurgeon do not want me working out in this condition. Well, I come in with the insurance documents proving that I had this surgery, not to mention "35+" stitches in several different locations where they drilled holes in my skull and Cathy or Kathy or however she spells it said that wasn't good enough to cancel and that I needed a Dr's. Note specifically saying that I am 100% disabled and unable to work out in any manner for a specific amount of time....REALLY!....COMMON SENSE could have been used in this situation.....I am not even trying to get out of paying the cancelation fee....I was prepared to until the whole "you have to have a note from your Dr incident.....so yes....terrible policies.

Sincerely, David D Edit 2 Once again your facts are mixed up. First off, publicly announcing what kind of Dr. note that I provided is a gross violation of HIPPA. At this time I am considering legal council for this. If I had disclosed it there would be no problems....more to the point, I tried to submit additional letters from my Neurosurgeon, Neurologist and nurse practitioner from UAB and the young lady at the front told me that you didn't need it and that you had everything you needed to proceed with the medical cancelation. The fact that your staff chose only to retain and submit the note from the chiropractor is their error, I offered plenty more documents a few days after I submitted the initial paperwork from the chiropractor. The fact that I had to submit a Dr. note detailing my personal medical history is also a violation. At this time, I am giving you a written warning to cease and desist publicly discussing my personal documentation and I give you 24 hours to edit the comment where you did. For legal purposes I have taken a screenshot as evidence so that you can not deny it when my attorney contacts you. Feel free to contact me to discuss...