Pro-Fitness IS NO MORE

[drizzt]

Monday morning Chris walks into Bodyworks Porirua tells all the staff they are fired only 2 sales staff kept there jobs transfered to PCF. Staff had to tell a lot of the members that PTown was closing a few tears were shed equipment moved out that morning.

Got to love how shiny land works with their loyalty

:-s Sound more like an invasion than an acquisition...

[Chillicat]

Yeah, the whole thing sounds pretty shitty the way it was done. I talked to someone there yesterday and from what that person said it all sounds like a hell of a shock to everyone, and really horrible thing to happen to the Porirua staff right before Christmas.

It's a shame we're going to lose our Bodyworks colours though. It was such a nice Wellington gym, which was part of what I loved about it. Ah well, as long as they don't replace all our lovely equipment with shitty Cityfitness equipment, I won't moan (since I'll be able to go to J'ville anytime now without having to fork out $15 - a definite positive for me, and won't have to traipse into town every day over the xmas break).

[Chillicat]

Johnsonville's the same.... most, if not all (it's been a while) of the free weights were down in the man-cave below ground level. Not a great range of stuff, but enough, off peak anyway.

The upstairs (group fitness classes, cardio and weight-stack machines) was quite light and airy - and you could do the group fitness without everyone upstairs watching, which is more than you could say about Bodyworks Thorndon!

Yeah, off peak is the key for weights. As I said above though, their plates are woeful hand-me-down types :evil:

I generally use it on a Sunday morning, and sometimes even get the 'man cave' all to myself, which is nice. But their smith machine (all one of it!) is awful - really clunky and I don't really feel like it's very safe.

[Gym rat]

Monday morning Chris walks into Bodyworks Porirua tells all the staff they are fired only 2 sales staff kept there jobs transfered to PCF. Staff had to tell a lot of the members that PTown was closing a few tears were shed equipment moved out that morning.

Got to love how shiny land works with their loyalty

That would be sad for the staff at bodyworks Porirua to lose there jobs with Christmas coming up

[drizzt]

I generally use it on a Sunday morning, and sometimes even get the 'man cave' all to myself, which is nice. But their smith machine (all one of it!) is awful - really clunky and I don't really feel like it's very safe.

Yeah, the good times (when I used to go, at least) were around 7am weekdays and most of the time on weekends :nod:

They used to get horrendously busy after work hours - especially with the paucity of machines in the cave, it turns out like a sauna with barely room to move, and you've gotta be quick to get on what you want - I found that I had to learn to improvize and change exercises on the fly as I couldn't always do what I wanted.

Also, I remember there not being as much "clean up" of weights/dumbbells when I was there - being downstairs I think they tend to forget about it a little. And agreed on the Smith! Although I do wish Bodyworks had a dedicated dip station (rather than the assisted ones) like Cityfitness has.

The positives/negatives don't really bother me though, as I only intend to use it on weekends if that Maybe do a spin class every now and then, though I do prefer Bodyworks spin room...

[Hybrid]

Monday morning Chris walks into Bodyworks Porirua tells all the staff they are fired only 2 sales staff kept there jobs transfered to PCF. Staff had to tell a lot of the members that PTown was closing a few tears were shed equipment moved out that morning.

Got to love how shiny land works with their loyalty

The whole takeover was done unprofessionally. I had to ring Porirua City Fitness to confirm that Bodyworks Porirua was closing as the staff at Bodyworks Porirua had no information to relay to us members in regards to membership transfers etc other than they had lost their jobs . Bodyworks owners are as classy as a Rat with a Gold tooth!!

[michaelk]

I had a leg session at palmy north City Fitness over last christmas, was a great gym I thought, yes plenty of cardio when you walk in, but plenty of Nautilus nitro machines and then a great freeweight area too.

Plus a couch within crawling distance of the leg area!

Highly recommend if your in Palmy to try them out, ridiculous such a small town had such a good gym.

Damn I had a look through Palmy & trained in the New Plymouth gym - henceforth the chain dubbed Shitty Fitness! Weights were crap in both, lots of machines & cardio (fitness centre so figures), weird oly bars with hexagonal profiles????? No doubt if you like Shinylands this is the place for you.

Reading your comments surprised me Mike, I guess it highlights that every gym caters for someone, and that what one person considers rubbish suits another member to a tee.

Hardcore is in the heart not the hardware.

Lots of equipment and freeweights provide the variety to keep the body adapting.

I only saw the normal bars there, regular benches, hack squat, leg press, squat racks etc.

Shiny or rusty....good enough is good enough.

[mr natural]

I had a leg session at palmy north City Fitness over last christmas, was a great gym I thought, yes plenty of cardio when you walk in, but plenty of Nautilus nitro machines and then a great freeweight area too.

Plus a couch within crawling distance of the leg area!

Highly recommend if your in Palmy to try them out, ridiculous such a small town had such a good gym.

Damn I had a look through Palmy & trained in the New Plymouth gym - henceforth the chain dubbed Shitty Fitness! Weights were crap in both, lots of machines & cardio (fitness centre so figures), weird oly bars with hexagonal profiles????? No doubt if you like Shinylands this is the place for you.

Reading your comments surprised me Mike, I guess it highlights that every gym caters for someone, and that what one person considers rubbish suits another member to a tee.

Hardcore is in the heart not the hardware.

Lots of equipment and freeweights provide the variety to keep the body adapting.

agree with this entirely

[teamfatboy]

Seems there's a lot of unhappy folks out there....

A. It's made the Wellington paper here

B. City Fitness is apparently planning on changing a lot of things, which has irritated some Bodyworks staff, who it turns out were City Fitness 'refugees'... who came to Bodyworks BECAUSE they didn't like the way City Fitness worked....

[Chillicat]

Yes, I'm worried about the changes, particularly to the group fitness classes. I don't go so much anymore, but I chose BW based on their non Les Mills approach to group classes, and have instructors make up their own routines. My two absolute favourite instructors, Riz and Wendy, both do fantastic pump classes, their own great music which they change about regularly, and not the same old same old 3 monthly releases which get very boring very quickly, especially with different instructors teaching the same classes.

That's a change I think will most definitely be for the worse - and I think there's a fairly general consensus about that with BW members, as it's been asked before in surveys and they've retained the individual format for the most part (except for a few, whose classes I avoid as much as possible). I'm talking solely about pump here - don't do cardio classes (except spin - do they do samey classes for that too - could be interesting)

[teamfatboy]

It'll be interesting to watch... Bodyworks used to offer three levels of Spin Class - a Fatburner, a sumthing or other, and a Challenge...as well as an Intro class, but now they just do "Spin" and it depends on the instructors.

I'm not opposed to the more regular "Update" or "New Release" cardio, but it'd be nice to get a chance to learn the release, rather than the pick-and-mix variety depending on whether the class instructor got out of bed on the right side or not...

Lotsa grizzling going on up on the weights floor last night....

[Chillicat]

It'll be interesting to watch... Bodyworks used to offer three levels of Spin Class - a Fatburner, a sumthing or other, and a Challenge...as well as an Intro class, but now they just do "Spin" and it depends on the instructors.

I'm not opposed to the more regular "Update" or "New Release" cardio, but it'd be nice to get a chance to learn the release, rather than the pick-and-mix variety depending on whether the class instructor got out of bed on the right side or not...

Lotsa grizzling going on up on the weights floor last night....

I think the release thing works for classes like step and dancy type classes where there's a genuine need for coordination and when doing the same class for a long time is going to be beneficial - first time at a new step class is always a bit of a joke with people flailing about all over the place.

But I don't see any need for that kind of thing with pump when all you're doing is lifting weights and it requires almost zero coordination (compared with step/dance). Variety is key with pump classes.

I guess I'm immune to all the grizzling, iPod on, pretty much ignoring everyone!

The poor receptionists are getting a bit over answering the same questions all day though!

[Chillicat]

First change I don't like - they don't have the name of the instructor next to each class. I choose my classes based on the instructor, so that totally sucks. Now I'll have to keep ringing them to find out who is on each time I'm considering a class! Bet they'll get sick of that real quick!

[mr natural]

yes its a bit of a shame when these fitness fluffy type chains come in to a town a take over,their set up and way they run things are certainly not for everyone.

[Chillicat]

I'm too much of a control freak! I don't mind change, as long as I'm driving it!