Member-only story
What Planet Fitness’ Lunk Alarm Reveals About How We Cannot See What We Do
And even when we do see, we refuse to change.
Note to Dear Reader: this is, in fact, an article about how we are around race, and how so much of what we see every day reflects those values. Fair warning.
I’ve been a member of Planet Fitness (PF) now since May. My previous gym, 24 Hour, filed for a messy bankruptcy. Besides, I moved to Eugene, and they had nothing here. So ended my gym membership which began in 1973, was grandfathered in through each successive owner, and allowed me to pay the paltry sum of ten bucks a year for my overused, much-abused, and much-beloved membership.
Best gift my folks ever gave me.
Over the 46 plus years I’ve been lifting I’ve worked out all over the world, and in hundreds of gyms. Here in Eugene, I also work out at a classic chalk-and-fart-and grunt “lunk” gym, which is how I learned to lift years ago. There, I employ an advanced fitness trainer to dovetail the regular workouts at PF. At my age, it’s important to get specialized help, for the culmination of decades of lifting and plenty of injuries means that sometimes I need workarounds.
PF has a business model that is predicated on the notion that absolutely EVERYONE IS WELCOME. There’s a huge statement…
