If you’re looking to work out at Planet Fitness, you better save the midriff-baring tops for home because if your body is right and tight, you might get kicked out for being too “intimidating.”
That’s what happened to former Planet Fitness member, Tiffany Austin. After being in a car accident and dealing with injuries that kept her from the gym for a while, Austin went back to the Planet Fitness gym in Richmond, Calif. recently, ready to work on her fitness again. She wore a pink cropped spaghetti top and matching capri bottoms from Puma and was ready to go. However, she didn’t get to work out for too long before an employee approached her and reportedly said this:
“Excuse me, we’ve had some complaints. You’re intimidating people with your toned body. So can you put on a shirt?”
That’s right. She claims that she was told that the gym doesn’t permit folks to wear thin spaghetti tank tops in the facility. Planet Fitness has mottos of “No gymtimidation” and a “judgment free zone,” which means no grunting, no over-the-top behavior that you might see in other facilities, and most importantly, “members can relax, get in shape, and have fun without being subjected to the hard-core, look-at-me attitude that exists in too many gyms.”
However, Austin says that she didn’t think she was dressed inappropriately, showing off her outfit to the KTVU Channel 2 news. “I don’t feel like it’s anything crazy, but I mean you tell me if it’s burning your eyes.” While Austin initially was going to follow the rules and put on a shirt that the gym sells with membership for her workout, she says another employee approached her, bothering her again about her attire, and she had had enough. She cancelled her membership that day, feeling judged and intimidated by the staff, something that obviously goes against the company’s mottos…
When KTVU reached out to the company, a spokesperson, named McCall Gosselin, said that badgering and judging Austin for her gym attire “…is not in line with the Planet Fitness policy whatsoever.”
However, this isn’t the first time the gym has been in the news for its treatment of members. A man was removed from a facility (by police) in New York in 2006 for incessant grunting, which he claims was him just breathing hard.
As someone who used to work in a gym, and had to encounter the weight-slamming folks, grunters, and people who literally worked out in stuff that looked like swimsuits, I can understand the motto of Planet Fitness. But Austin’s outfit was far from “intimidating,” and if someone felt so bothered by it, well, that’s kind of their problem isn’t it?
What do you think of Austin’s treatment?
