Can You Get Jacked at Planet Fitness?

Planet Fitness — and gyms like it — have long been the butt of jokes in the fitness world. Full of purple decor, “lunk alarms,” free pizza nights, and “judgment-free zones,” but lacking in barbells, squat racks, and deadlift platforms, it’s known as the kind of place in which serious athletes and dedicated lifters wouldn’t be caught dead. Planet Fitness has a rep for being the kind of gym fitness newbies join in January, aimlessly putz around in for a few weeks without changing their body, and then stop going to — while continuing to pay for a membership that is notoriously hard to cancel.

That was basically my take on Planet Fitness for a long time.

Though I had once been a member of one nearly twenty years ago — when Kate and I were first married and couldn’t afford anything else — I had subsequently become the kind of garage-gym-training barbell zealot who looked down my nose at so-called “globo-gyms.”

But, in middle age, I’ve been changing my mind about some things; for example, while I used to be a free-weights-only purist, I now think fitness machines can play a healthy role in building strength and muscle.

That got me wondering if I’d also misjudged Planet Fitness and similar gyms.

So recently, I decided to return to Planet Fitness for the first time in a couple decades to see what kind of training you can actually get done in a cheap globo-gym. I got a day pass to a nearby location to check it out and do a workout.

The experience surprised me.

Here’s my report.

Note: Because the internet has made us all so damned jaded and cynical, this is NOT a sponsored post for Planet Fitness. I have no relationship with them and have not received a dime from them. To get the day pass, I had to fork over my phone number and email, and I am now being bombarded with promotional texts and emails from Planet Fitness. Sacrifices must be made for journalism! I’m using Planet Fitness as a stand-in for all chain gyms (like 10Gym) that offer cheap monthly membership fees.

My Return to Planet Fitness: First Impressions

The Planet Fitness I visited sits in a strip mall and once housed a Walmart many years back.

Signing up was a breeze. I told the guy I just wanted to train for the day, and he said they had a free day pass for potential new members that I could use.

I said I wasn’t interested in joining, just training for the day.

“That’s cool. You can still use the free day pass. Have a great workout!” he replied. No upsell. No pushing me to join.

Nice.

Had I joined up, I could have bought a year’s membership for $15 a month, plus a $59 start-up fee and a $49 annual fee. Added altogether, that comes out to $24 a month for a year. It’s a good deal; many gyms are double and even quadruple that.

I walked around the facility to get a lay of the land.

My overall first impression of Planet Fitness after not visiting in nearly twenty years?

Surprisingly impressed.

This Planet Fitness was really clean and well-maintained — cleaner and better maintained than the $75-a-month gym I belonged to before building my garage gym.

Even the bathrooms/locker rooms were really clean.

I didn’t see anything about pizza night, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a slice of Papa John’s after a training session as long as it fits my macros. Pizza is a decent post-workout food — a nice balance of carbs, protein, and fat.

They still have the “lunk alarm.” It never went off while I was there. I imagine it rarely, if ever, does; it’s more branding symbol than disciplinary device.

And honestly, as a curmudgeonly 40-something, I’m glad Planet Fitness has a rule against people being loud while working out. While there’s evidence to suggest that grunting and yelling can slightly improve your athletic performance, you have to balance that modest boost against annoying and distracting other people. One of the tradeoffs of working out in a communal space is that you’re honor-bound to act as a considerate communal citizen.  

Lunks who make a bunch of noise while training are, in the words of Mark Rippetoe, disrespectful “ostentatious, histrionic pussies, that are trying to make noise to call attention to themselves.”

I’m not a fan of dropping weights, either, unless you’re doing Olympics lifts.

As far as that third potential lunk-alarm-triggering infraction, I’m not sure how you judge whether someone is judging and if/how that’s enforced.

So overall, I find the idea of creating an alarm to police what should be implicit etiquette silly, but tolerable.

Now, what about the equipment?

Better than I remembered.

While they are emblazoned in a garish purple primer, there were plenty of machines for every body part you’d want to train. Most of it was Precor, but they also had some Hammer Strength machines. All of the machines were in great condition. They looked new. Here are the machines you’ll find at most PF or 10Gyms:

• Chest press machine
• Shoulder press machine
• Pec deck/reverse fly machine
• Shoulder lateral raise machine
• Lat pull-down machine
• Seated row machine
• Leg press and extension machine
• Hamstring curl machine
• Hack squat machine
• Bicep curls and tricep extension machine
• Calf raise machine

You can create a program that works your entire body with all those machines.

Besides the machines, PF had several cable towers where you could do lat pull-downs and tricep pushdowns. There was a functional trainer (which we’ve written about before).

Planet Fitness’ dumbbell selection was impressive. Their dumbbells were from American Barbell and felt nice in my hands. You could create a full-body workout with just the dumbbells they have.

While they don’t have squat racks, they do have Smith machines. I’m not a huge fan of Smith machines (especially for bench press), but they’re a decent option for squats, RDLs, rows, and lunges.

And, of course, they had plenty of treadmills and elliptical machines where you could do Zone 2 cardio while watching Columbo.

In addition to the absence of squat racks, there are indeed no barbells or deadlift platforms.

But, you’ve still got everything you need to create a well-rounded fitness program and get jacked in the process.

The Science of Muscle Growth Doesn’t Care About Your Gym’s Branding

Here’s the thing about muscle growth: it doesn’t care if your gym looks like Barney the Dinosaur, whether you’re using barbells or machines, or whether you’re paying $15 or $100 a month for a gym membership.

Your muscles respond to mechanical tension and progressive overload. Period.

When you subject a muscle to sufficient mechanical tension and then allow it to recover with adequate nutrition and rest, it grows. This process is the same whether you’re using a 500-pound barbell or a leg press machine with the pin set at 300 pounds.

Research confirms this. Studies have found that free weights and machines are equally effective in increasing strength and muscle mass. As long as you’re getting adequate mechanical tension to stimulate muscle growth and are progressively overloading your muscles workout to workout, you’ll get bigger and stronger . . . even if you use bright purple weight machines.

A Sample Routine You Can Use at a Cheap Globo-Gym

So you’ve got everything you need to get jacked at Planet Fitness or 10Gym.

I had a great upper-body workout while I was there. Got a fantastic pump with that purple Barney the Dinosaur equipment.

Below is a four-day upper/lower split you could do at any Planet Fitness across the country:

Day 1: Upper (this is the exact workout I did on my visit to PF)

• Machine Chest Press: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
• Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
• Lat Pull-Downs: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
• Machine Shoulder Lateral Raise: 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Pec Deck: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Machine Bicep Hammer Curl: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Cable Tricep Pushdown: 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Day 2: Lower (Quad focus)

• Smith Machine RDL: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Hack Squat: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Bulgarian Split Squat: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
• Seated Leg Extensions: 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Smith Machine Calf Raises: 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Day 3: Upper

• Machine Shoulder Press: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Hammer Strength Machine Press: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Machine Seated Row: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Face Pulls: 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Dips: 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Day 4: Lower

• Smith Machine Squat: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Single Leg Dumbbell RDLs: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Leg Press: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Machine Leg Curls: 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Glute Machine: 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Machine Seated Calf Raises: 3 sets of 10-15 reps

I’d do this Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I’d do cardio on Wednesday and Saturday.

You can also use this prompt for ChatGPT; it created a really solid upper/lower split for me:

You are an expert fitness trainer who specializes in hypertrophy. Create an upper/lower 4-day split using equipment that you can find at Planet Fitness gyms. Goal is to pack on as much muscle as possible.

If your budget or circumstances lead you to Planet Fitness or 10Gym, go for it. Train hard, be consistent, focus on progressive overload, and you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve in that purple and yellow judgment-free zone.

The iron doesn’t care where you lift it. And neither should you.