LA Fitness — Local services in Sarasota

Leaving bad reviews is not something I enjoy doing, however, after my experience today I felt the need to write this review in order to perhaps save someone else the hassle and waste of time that I experienced while trying out this facility. My name is Stacy Taylor. I am a former MR. Sarasota, Mr. Naples and a Florida State Bodybuilding champion. I have been featured in Muscle and Fitness Magazine (Dec 2015) as well as numerous other publications I have been living and working out most of my life in Sarasota. I am the owner of two businesses in sarasota, a clothing company and a chain of tanning salons in the Sarasota and Tampa area and have been a business owner most of my life. So I am familiar with how to speak to customers and resolve issues in a courteous and professional manner. That having been said, I am a member of Crunch in Sarasota and have friend who belongs to another LA Fitness location. He has been trying to convince me to join LA but his home gym is too far away... so he convinced me to give LA a try at a location closer to my area since he could use multiple locations. Truthfully I was kind of enthusiastic about joining a new place (Dont get me wrong, Crunch is great but new scenery is always good) so after checking in to the front desk myself and my friend began our workout. After a few sets I noticed my friend was doing a movement improperly and I asked If he would like some advice. After he agreed to accept my help, for the next few sets I corrected his form and advised that he watched me and noticed my form while I did my set. At that point the 20-something year old manager came over and made a scene as he VERY rudely informed me that I had to leave because they did not allow any personal training. I advised him that I am a business owner, not a trainer and I wasn't "training" my friend.. I was simply correcting his form on ONE particular movement before he injured himself. Well, the manager was having none of it and, in my estimation, TOTALLY over-reacted to a situation that he had no knowledge of. I pointed out that there was a husband and wife right next to us and the husband was instructing his wife on how to do the exact same movement. That didn't seem to matter though. I guess its OK if you're married to the person you're helping but not ok if your not. I dont get it quite honestly. Anyway, I did as the manager asked, grabbed my gym bag and proceeded to walk to the front. It was then I noticed that, again, this 20-something year old manager was actually ESCORTING me out! I mean I'm 50 years old. Do I really need to be escorted out. I felt like I was being escorted out of a night club after a fight or something! Just a gross overuse of authority by someone NOT prepared to be IN a position of authority. The whole situation was handled in a very unprofessional manner and definitely was the deciding factor in my decision to forego joining that facility. Instead, I took my friend back to Crunch and we finished our workout without incident. After which my friend purchased a membership. The LA facility itself was decent (Just kind of sparse when it comes to equipment) but the staff leaves MUCH to be desired. Extremely unprofessional, rude and not something I want to deal with on a daily basis. I've been working out for three decades and have belonged to dozens of gyms over the years... so trust me when I tell you... This facility in NOT someplace that believes that their members come first. By the way, read the other reviews below.. this is the third bad review concerning...

4-4-2025 I still go. It still smells like dirty gym locker room and is hot and humid on the fitness floor (accept for late night hours) Blown out ceiling tiles from leaks when it rains, stained carpet, and a rusted equipment. Prob something to do with the landlord (benderson) /lease and plan for the land.

2-2024 cleaning person hired. Well done.

9-2023 look at the number of very positive reviews at the same time as other reviews saying the exact opposite thing. For example is this a spotless gym in great repair or a filthy gym with broken equipment and facilities? Seems like some of that would be fact not opinion based? The recent positive reviews are also coming from Google user profiles who have very few reviews. Seems a bit sketch. Just go to any other LA fitness branch the others are not broke and filthy.

6-2023 well done w ac. Working well again. Still seem to have difficulty with staffing, but who isn't these days. Dirty place, even the pool is milky when it's working, but it's so convenient. The staff that used to clean are never seen. In fact, never see anyone cleaning. Bike seat pin springs are worn out. Be careful bike seats can suddenly drop if the pin is not fully seated.

5-2023 ac broken, 80 degrees in front half of gym. So hot and sticky. I just gotta leave this gym and stop leaving reviews of how bad it had gotten! Dirty, broken, understaffed, crowded. I mean water fountains and ac are a pretty low bar and this branch can't seem to handle that!

2-19-23 cleaner workout floor. Loose seats on dumbbell benches ...still. keep up the cleaning. Finally, they replaced the old v bar with a safe one (see pics below)!

12-2022 update new employee cleaned all of the dumbles and rack. Great work on that. Perhaps hire one employee to deep clean would be helpful if you can afford it? I have posted some pics hopeful a manager will see them and do something. Who knows, it works for me. I just hope no one gets hurt. The upright benches in the dumbbell area have wobbly loose seats. I have said something several times to staff. They haven't been taken out of use or repaired over the months. It would be easy for someone to get unstable doing shoulder press and drop a dumbbell on their head.

2022 update. Taken some time off for covid. Wow, this gym has gone down hill. Dirty, broken equipment that does not get repaired, some days the place stinks of dirty lockerroom. Sure seems like a gym about to close to me. Doesn't seem like they clean the place. Benches are loose, were reported and never fixed. I still workout here but it is a safety risk now and filthy, don't let anything touch the floor. I still go here bc it is generally empty other then peak hours.

Descent gym. Not as new and fresh as chrunch but they have a pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room, basketball, and spinning. So, that's the real difference. I like the large selection of dumbbells going up to heavy weights. They also have a bunch of cable machines which is nice. They have more then most gyms that size. They also have enough attachments for cables which is also good.

In addition they have a few pre loaded straight and ez bars which is super convenient especially for doing drop sets etc.

It's not as young of a crowd as crunch but that can be nice just to get in and get your workout done...

My boyfriend and I stopped in over the weekend looking to tour your facilities. We recently moved to Sarasota, and always had access to a free gym before moving, so this was our first experience looking to join a gym with a membership. We knew when we walked in that we weren't going to be signing up for a membership because we had other gyms we wanted to look at as well.

We worked with Trent and you could tell right away he was really only interested in making a sale. We told him we were planning on looking at a few other gyms right from the get-go, and he immediately started putting them down. He also scribbled out half of the membership terms paper instead of going over them with us, whether they fit our circumstances or not (racquetball courts, which he told us the Sarasota location didn't have but others did, and we said we were interested in this and he disregarded it anyways, towel service, and guest privileges, to which he said "if you just moved here you don't have friends to bring with you to the gym anyways"). After touring the facilities, which were very nice, we sat down to discuss prices, and again, he was nothing but sales. "Well, you can't beat our prices, the other gyms you're looking at can't even compare to our stuff." I get it, you're a sales man, but when someone has questions that are disregard and also made fun, that really makes us not want to sign up with your gym. Even if it is cheaper and more convenient than the others. Also, you probably shouldn't make fun of customers that call with minor complaints when you're trying to get new people to sign up. Finally, even though we told him we were going to look at other places as well, when we didn't sign up before leaving, he took the paperwork that was sitting on his desk and crumpled it up and threw it away, while we were sitting there. It was very clear to us that we were only a number, and not two people who wanted to join the establishment to...