Having been presented with the very real possibility of having to take my shirt off on stage in front of quite a few people, Andy and I decided to look into Fitness First the other day. In we walked, optimistic of picking up some kind of brochure before going swimming at Waves.

“Please fill in these forms.”
“Ah, we’re just really after some info, if you’ve got some…”
“I don’t have the information, I can let you in to talk to one of our advisors, you’ll have to sign these forms.” This receptionist has raised the bar for sullen and uninterested receptionists everywhere.

Alright, we fill out the forms, making sure to tick “No Promotion” but not knowing if it’ll do any good. Then we go to a table, where we are met by the friendly-but-not-particularly-fit-looking advisor person. We’re about to ask her about the gym but she blindsides us by giving us yet another form to fill out, each. This one is much more in-depth, and includes such questions as “What are your personal goals,” “What’s been holding you back from them,” and “Are your family and friends supportive to you?”

Having filled them out, our new friend proceeds to read them to us. Er, we know about us, thank you very much. In fact, not only is it our special subject, but we just wrote it all down for you.

Only after having all of the random crap we’ve written down re-affirmed to us in very positive and motivational terms are we allowed to actually look around the facilities. Well, mostly positive:

“I see one of your goals is weight loss. Looking to lose the spare tire?” I bite down the proper response, something along the lines of “Fuck off, you’re at least 4 times fatter than me, and you work here.” Instead I debate the difference between a spare tire and a lump. It’s a good save, but I lament the day when I become old and impatient and insult everyone I meet.

We wander the gym, and it is truly large. Equipment everywhere — lots of people, too, but more equipment. There are televisions which you can watch while you cycle or run on the treadmills. It’s all very nice. Well, except:

“It’s not a very big pool,” I comment.
“It’s 23 metres. Do you know why? If it were 25 or more, it’d be a public pool, and we’d have to have a lifeguard.” Don’t ask me how, but she sells this to us as a plus.
“I’m not very keen on a 23 metre pool. I like the rhythm of a 50 metre pool.”
“Shall I tell you how many long distance swimmers we have swimming here?” Oh, I see. Now I’m a long distance swimmer with a spare tire. You go to all the trouble of filling out two forms about yourself and they still don’t get you.

And now of course, it comes time to sign us up for membership. She’s waving the third forms of the evening at us enticingly. We weren’t actually looking to sign up today, but talk of the ‘first visit’ bonus and 15 days cooling off periods convince us. We get nice backpacks and membership cards. Her logic is inescapable; why not sign up now if we can pull out later? Of course, the idea behind it is that we won’t be bothered with the pulling out. The possibility concerns me, as I am quite lazy.

Luckily, one week later, I’ve pre-ordered an iPod Nano, and am therefore answering every mysterious call that my phone receives. Disappointingly, it’s Fitness First. Apparently something about my contract is confusing. I come up with a novel way to avoid the problem; I cancel my membership. Random Admin Guy seems quite okay with it, which is almost disappointing, as I was hoping to round the story off with my account of their cultish attempts to keep me in the fold. I almost wanted to hear ___’s nicely prepared script for people who think they want to leave Fitness First. Perhaps I still will.

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The amusing epilogue to all of this is our visit to the Waves gym, where they hand us a brochure with pricing info, answer our questions about the availability of the gym without first interrogating us about our lifestyle choices, and quickly nip up and give us a tour, before letting us have a swim without nagging us to join right then and there. Oh it was magnificent. I wanted to hug them and tell them about the nasty, creepy people at Fitness First. But I didn’t.

Or, to put it another way, Waves good, Fitness First bad. That is all.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Thursday, September 13th, 2007. It concerns such pressing issues as gym. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.