Dr. Mike Israetel has spent over two decades in exercise science, but he’d never stepped foot inside a Planet Fitness—until now.
In a recent video analyzing Planet Fitness commercials and policies, the RP Strength founder dissected everything from the infamous “lunk alarm” to pizza Mondays and those mysterious total body enhancement booths.
What he found surprised him: Planet Fitness is evolving into something far more legitimate than its reputation suggests.
His verdict? The chain deserves credit for improving its equipment offerings while maintaining accessibility—though some of its past policies remain head-scratchers.
Jump to:
- The “Non-Intimidating” Philosophy That Started It All
- The Notorious Banned Exercise List
- The Lunk Alarm: Policing Intensity
- Pizza Mondays and Bagel Tuesdays: Fitness or Irony?
- The Total Body Enhancement Chamber: Science or Snake Oil?
- The Evolution: Real Equipment for Real Training
- Questionable Machine Selections
- The Dress Code: Targeting a Stereotype
- Who Planet Fitness Actually Serves
- Dr. Mike’s Final Verdict
- What This Means for Your Training
The “Non-Intimidating” Philosophy That Started It All
Planet Fitness built its brand on being the anti-Gold’s Gym—a sanctuary for beginners terrified of grunting powerlifters and clanging weights.
Their commercials proudly proclaim that “everybody can work out in their own way,” featuring everyday people doing everyday exercises without the pressure of hardcore fitness culture.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Dr. Mike sees the irony immediately.
This is actually the least true statement Planet Fitness could have made about themselves.
He points out that while Planet Fitness markets itself as judgment-free, it simultaneously enforces rules that explicitly ban certain training styles—the exact opposite of letting people work out “in their own way.”
The Reality Behind Gym Intimidation
Dr. Mike acknowledges that feeling intimidated in a gym with serious lifters is real for many people.
But he challenges the premise that muscular people are actually threatening.
Those big scary people can’t hurt you. In the sense that statistically, how many people get accosted or assaulted or outright verbally intimidated on purpose by big jacked people in the gym, it is so unbelievably rare.
His producer Scott confirms he’s witnessed “basically zero” fights in gyms over his training career—but plenty outside nightclubs, where intimidation somehow isn’t considered a barrier to entry.
Dr. Mike’s advice to those who feel intimidated? Grow up a little.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
He emphasizes that serious lifters are completely absorbed in their own workouts, not judging beginners.
The Notorious Banned Exercise List
Planet Fitness has historically prohibited exercises like T-bar rows, overhead presses, clean and jerks, deadlifts, and even supersets.
Dr. Mike methodically breaks down each restriction.
T-Bar Rows: The Ego Lift Detector
T-bar rows require pulling a barbell from its normal position and loading it with plates in a corner or specialized attachment.
Dr. Mike suspects Planet Fitness banned them because lifters can stack multiple 25-pound plates to create visual bulk without moving truly heavy weight—feeding exactly the ego-driven culture the gym wants to eliminate.
Overhead Presses: The Confusing Ban
This restriction genuinely baffles him.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Almost nobody does overhead presses because they’re insanely hard.
He can’t identify any logical reason to prohibit an exercise that most people avoid anyway due to its difficulty.
Deadlifts and Olympic Lifts
Banning deadlifts and clean-and-jerks makes slightly more sense from Planet Fitness’s perspective—these exercises attract serious lifters and create noise.
However, Dr. Mike notes the absurdity: historically, Planet Fitness didn’t even have barbells, making the clean-and-jerk ban technically unenforceable.
The Superset Problem
While banning supersets seems extreme, Dr. Mike understands the motivation.
He describes the gym member everyone hates: the person simultaneously “using” five machines scattered across the facility, somehow maintaining supernatural awareness when anyone approaches their claimed territory.
Somehow that asshole knows that you’re fucking with one of his 18 machines that he’s using for his 35-minute, 17-exercise superset cluster.
In crowded commercial gyms, courtesy matters more than optimization—and hoarding equipment disrupts everyone’s experience.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
The Lunk Alarm: Policing Intensity
Planet Fitness’s most infamous policy is the “lunk alarm”—a literal siren that staff can trigger when members grunt, drop weights, or otherwise train “too intensely.”
Dr. Mike finds this particularly strange.
While he acknowledges that some lifters do behave obnoxiously—throwing weights carelessly, screaming unnecessarily—the lunk alarm targets behavior that’s often completely normal during challenging sets.
Scott admits he’s never actually heard it activated, suggesting it functions more as threat than enforcement tool.
Pizza Mondays and Bagel Tuesdays: Fitness or Irony?
For years, Planet Fitness served free pizza on the first Monday and bagels on the second Tuesday of each month.
Dr. Mike’s analysis is nuanced here.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
One slice of pizza isn’t going to destroy a month’s worth of work in the gym. That’s true. Moderation is key and finding the right balance can benefit members in their quest for a healthy lifestyle.
The problem? People already indulge at work, school, and home.
The gym should be the “not pizza time” space.
When pizza becomes available everywhere—including the place specifically dedicated to health improvement—moderation becomes functionally impossible.
His favorite moment: footage of a member eating pizza while using the back extension machine, simultaneously consuming and (barely) burning calories in what he describes as heroic dedication to maintaining the status quo.
Good news for those concerned about nutritional mixed messages: Planet Fitness has discontinued both Pizza Monday and Bagel Tuesday as the chain evolved its approach to member wellness.
The Total Body Enhancement Chamber: Science or Snake Oil?
Planet Fitness offers members access to “Beauty Angel Total Body Enhancement” booths—12-minute stand-up chambers combining red light therapy with whole-body vibration.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
The marketing claims these devices firm and tone muscles while reducing stress.
Dr. Mike’s response is immediate skepticism.
Why not two things that don’t do hardly shit? Might as well call it a Gary Busey vacuum machine and get it over with.
While red light therapy shows some promise for skin health and minor recovery benefits in research contexts, the dramatic body transformation claims associated with these booths lack substantial scientific support.
Whole-body vibration platforms have similarly limited evidence for meaningful fitness outcomes beyond potential minor improvements in balance for certain populations.
Combining them doesn’t multiply negligible effects—it just creates expensive placebo.
The Evolution: Real Equipment for Real Training
Here’s where Dr. Mike’s critique transforms into genuine praise.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Over 1,700 Planet Fitness locations have introduced legitimate strength equipment including squat racks, barbell platforms, deadlift areas, battle ropes, and hip thrust benches.
This represents a fundamental shift in the company’s philosophy.
Dr. Mike notes the irony: the landmine row stations now available would have resulted in ejection under old T-bar row policies, and the overhead pressing equipment directly contradicts historical bans.
This is actually some stuff that can help people get into better fitness and better shape. I didn’t know Planet Fitness specialized in that, but I guess they realized that their market actually wants to get in shape and not just go to the gym and pretend like they want to get in shape.
The new equipment lineup enables progressive overload—the fundamental principle of strength development where resistance gradually increases over time.
Without barbells and adjustable free weights, members were limited to machines that, while useful for beginners, eventually plateau in effectiveness.
Questionable Machine Selections
Not everything at Planet Fitness earns Dr. Mike’s approval.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
He critiques several machine exercises where members barely contract their muscles beyond normal walking intensity—essentially wasting time on movement without meaningful resistance.
One particularly amusing observation: a member using a machine with such light resistance that she knits simultaneously, completing rows faster than her exercise reps.
The “swim machine” receives similar mockery for providing negligible training stimulus despite occupying floor space and member time.
His point isn’t to shame individual exercisers—it’s to highlight that equipment selection and programming matter tremendously for actual results, and not all machines deliver meaningful benefits regardless of effort.
The Dress Code: Targeting a Stereotype
Planet Fitness prohibits jeans, boots, sandals, and string tank tops.
Dr. Mike recognizes this as targeting a specific archetype: the “Jersey lifter bro” who wears stringers to showcase muscles, potentially intimidating beginners simply through appearance.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
While he understands the intention, he maintains that this stereotype represents a tiny minority of serious lifters, most of whom train with complete focus on their own performance rather than audience impression.
Who Planet Fitness Actually Serves
Despite his critiques, Dr. Mike acknowledges that Planet Fitness successfully serves a specific market segment: people who want basic fitness access without cost barriers or cultural pressure.
At $10-25 monthly, it’s dramatically cheaper than boutique facilities or full-service gyms.
For someone who needs cardiovascular equipment, basic resistance machines, and a consistent place to show up, Planet Fitness delivers sufficient value.
The limitations become apparent for intermediate and advanced lifters who require:
- Progressive overload with barbells (though this is improving with new equipment)
- Exercise variety including compound movements
- Training intensity that might involve controlled grunting or challenging sets
- Specialized equipment for sport-specific training
The chain has historically repelled this demographic intentionally, though recent equipment additions suggest strategic repositioning.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Dr. Mike’s Final Verdict
After examining commercials, policies, equipment, and member behavior, Dr. Mike delivers his conclusion:
Planet Fitness used to be a laughing stock, but is increasingly becoming a more normal gym. I don’t think they kick people out anymore much for being jacked or grunting.
His official rating: “Planet Fitness better all the time out of 10.”
The assessment reflects grudging respect for a brand willing to evolve based on what members actually need rather than rigidly maintaining ideological purity about “judgment-free” culture.
He remains skeptical about certain policies and gimmicks—the lunk alarm, total body enhancement booths, and historically restrictive rules deserve criticism.
But the trajectory matters more than past mistakes.
By adding legitimate strength equipment and quietly relaxing enforcement of arbitrary rules, Planet Fitness transforms from fitness theater into functional training space.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
What This Means for Your Training
If you’re considering Planet Fitness membership, Dr. Mike’s analysis suggests asking location-specific questions:
- What free weight equipment is available? Newer locations with squat racks and barbells offer dramatically more training potential than older machine-only facilities
- How strictly are policies enforced? Many locations have relaxed lunk alarm usage and exercise restrictions as culture shifted
- What are your actual training goals? For general fitness maintenance and cardiovascular health, nearly any Planet Fitness suffices; for strength sport preparation, you’ll need more specialized facilities
- What’s your experience level? Beginners benefit most from accessible, non-intimidating environments; advanced lifters typically require resources Planet Fitness historically hasn’t provided
The bottom line: Planet Fitness occupies a legitimate niche in fitness accessibility, and it’s improving where it previously fell short.
Just maybe skip the total body enhancement booth and focus on the increasingly legitimate equipment instead.
