Fitness 19 — Local services in Goleta

It was a hot day in August 2024 when I walked into Fitness 19 on Hollister in No-Leta. I entered the air-conditioned lobby and I was greeted by two lovely, young ladies behind the desk. “Welcome to Fitness 19! What can we help you with today!”, they said with an almost eerie synchronous tone, like the twins in The Shining. I smiled back, my eyes still adjusting to the pleasant lighting of the gym against the harsh sun outside, “I want to talk to someone about signing up for a membership.” One of the girls said, “I can help you with that” with a hopeful tone; “follow me!” We walked to one of the nearby desks where all of my options were explained to me. “And would you be interested in working with a personal trainer? We offer a personal assessment where we can evaluate your fitness and discuss your goals. That’s included in your membership.” I agreed to the assessment but, I already had an idea of my fitness level. I don’t need to read a Google review to know that a personal trainer is probably a good idea. I work a physical job and I get minute-by-minute feedback from my body that I’m not getting any better by just doing what I’m doing. Plus, there are mirrors in my house. My eyes are getting worse but they’re not so bad that they can’t see that my body is getting worse too. I signed up and scheduled my assessment. Now, for you ladies, you need to know that the head trainer, Andrew, is a red-headed, bearded specimen of a man. Something out of a warrior movie. Think one the Vikings or Celts in 13th Warrior or Braveheart. Maybe even a red-haired Spartan in 300! Turns out, he’s not an actor just an Army veteran with great genetics and a crazy work ethic. Andrew put me through the assessment and we found some imbalances that were easily fixed. We discussed next steps and he assigned me a personal trainer. Enter Aliyah. She had her work cut out for her. Turn this 55 year-old blob in front of her into something resembling his former self. Actually, just something resembling anything that can work outside all day and still have something left over when he gets home. Less pain, more strength, a vague definition of tone… Could/would she do it? Did she run the other way? I mean, she could’ve quit her job right there and run off to be a recluse in the woods and live like a hermit eating tree bark, exposed to the elements and it would’ve been an easier task. I wouldn’t even have blamed her. Here was this beautiful, young woman, her whole life in front of her,… She took me to get a full body scan (something called an In-Body; look it up), we reviewed my results, and we set up a schedule to start fixing all the things that had been, slowly, deteriorating in my physical fitness. She made me a meal plan, she designed workouts to fix the imbalances and, when those were corrected, she added new ones (workouts, not imbalances). We went from 2 half-hour sessions a week to 2 full hours. From there we added a third day. Suddenly, I’m arm wrestling Andrew and beating him 3 out 5 times! He still looks better than me but the today version of me looks better than the old one and I have much of the strength back that I had lost. Maybe I have it all back but I’m older and wiser so I know better than to put myself through what I used to do daily when I was younger. I’m an inspiration to the whole gym and members regularly will come up to me to ask me about my transformation. I hope this review will help you as you try to choose a gym and, more importantly, a trainer. I can sum it up with this simple haiku:

If you’re feeling weak And your body looks like...

As a gym it's alright, has good equipment and space. HOWEVER, their business practices are horrible. As a student, I am not contractually obligated to pay the cancellation fee if I move more than 100 miles away from the closest gym by providing student information and documents. Those documents were sent to ABC fitness as specified, and was told they would be reviewed. THEY NEVER CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT.

They kept charging me every month, and I would call and call, as well as ABC Fitness the people who "run the business" but they never got back to me, or refused to give me in writing that my account would be cancelled, as well as put me on hold for hours which never went anywhere besides "Huh you're right, ill send it over to the cancellation team etc."

It got to the point where I disputed the charges through my bank, and then THEY SENT ME TO COLLECTIONS for an account I had CANCELLED?? Apparently this had happened to a bunch of people during covid, and the best answer I got from management was to pay $5/month to suspend my account until the subscription was over (like 6 months... which literally defeats the purpose of allowing students to cancel for free if moving). The $140 they claim I owe for a cancelled account costed me 100 points to my credit. And still haunts me to this day when I apply for homes. Now they offer me a $1 charge to re-join and wave my "debt", which I would never do b/c they would probably just charge me for that amount anyways. IF I COULD GIVE ZERO...

Second Edit: Cancelling a membership at Fitness 19 has been nothing short of an ordeal. Apparently, the new manager, Theo, has taken away the ability to cancel memberships from all of his staff. This wouldn’t be an issue if he was always present... however he is almost never there.

First Edit: I am very impressed by how quickly Joe, the manager at Fitness 19, called to apologize about what had happened earlier today. He has excellent customer service and from that phone call alone, I bumped this review from 1 star to 4 stars. I wish his employees were as attentive as he was on the phone with me as they would coming to work on time.

Original Review: Fitness 19 is a reasonably priced gym with new equipment, artificial turf, and overall a good place to go... when they open on time.

Their Saturday hours are from 7am-8pm.

Today, I planned to workout in the morning because it’s the only time I can go.

Unfortunately for me and everyone else who came at 7am, the opening staff was nowhere to be seen. As you can see in the photo attached, after about 15 minutes of waiting, the other members waiting decided to warm up. I left after 30 minutes.

This is not the first this has happened at Fitness 19.

Something needs to be done about the opening crew not showing up on time to their shifts.

If you’re someone who works out in the morning like me, it may be better to...