Reading all these complaints regarding GoodLife Fitness Centers doesn't surprise me one bit. As a GoodLife employee I have seen countless incidents that make me question why it is I have chosen this sector to make my living. The only answer I have come up with so far is that I truly love health and fitness and that they are such a big player in Canada's gym industry, that it is a good place to build up my reputation as an excellent trainer. Saying this however, I have no quams about pointing the finger at their pathetic hiring practices when it comes to deciding who gets to put on those Personal Trainer shirts at their 200 plus locations. For those who don't know, all that is absolutely required to become a GoodLife Personal Trainer is a certification from CanFit Pro. Now here is the fun part. CanFit Pro a certifying body owned by GoodLife Fitness originator Patch Evans. This means that if someone is hired at GoodLife Fitness, they have three months to get their CanFit Pro Personal Trainers certification. This certification is a joke as so many "successful" GoodLife trainers with their high school educations can attest. Why would the largest chain of fitness centers in the land have any problem hiring the best, most experienced, most highly educated human kinetics grads? The truth is that their size allows them to get away with hiring practices not afforded to most private, smaller fitness clubs. They can charge more for training, and have more members to sell to than any other club in the land so they need trainers available to them at a moments notice with the life of a trainer only being an average of 3 months.
Once hired, these "trainers" are drilled with marketing, hard selling tactics and GoodLife propaganda at nauseum with an absolutely minuscule amount of time given to education as it pertains to personal training. Why is this a big deal? I have seen barristas, miners, high school grads and others with no fitness or health training rise to the levels of not only personal trainers, but even level 2 and 3 trainers as well. They had no idea of what they were doing and just learned on the fly which wouldn't be alarming at McDonalds but these people were charging fifty dollars a session at a minimum! You can't blame GoodLife alone for this occurence, but what I can say is that until personal training is regulated like physios, chiros and so forth, the customer needs to ask questions to make sure that the person in the tight-fitting shirt is actually who he claims he/she is. Often at GoodLife, they are just wearing the uniform which allows them to charge a whopping amount to stand there and watch you hurt yourself. The truth is that if you turn to your right or left when you are on the elliptical at your local GoodLife, you will be looking at people with more education and actual gym experience than the ones up on the employee profile board. There are good trainers at GoodLife, but they need to be seeked out and buyer beware: the levels at GoodLife are all sales-based and have NO bearing on actual quality.
Fitness is a very good investment and worth every penny, if you decide that personal training will allow you to adopt a healthier lifestyle. You need to be careful however that your hard-earned dollars are going to someone who has th actual experience, education and passion for health and fitness and not just a certification owned by the company itself. Ask questions when the sales pressure is being put on you. Watch the trainers for insight into their quality and ask cients already getting training for their impressions. GoodLife is a business and that is what is emphasized more than anything to its trainers. Selling more is everything so trainers will be pushy because they have to. You will get let go if you do not keep them in the money, regardless of how happy your clients are or your quality. They hire even less qualified people to run the trainers so quality is not even recognized at most locations. GoodLife will be a power in the fitness field for some time, until Canada starts to put controls on who is able to use the title personal trainer. Until then, it is the consummer that has the power because they have the money that GoodLife wants so act empowered and educate yourselves on the industry. It really is a cash grab for those who can manipulate the current system so understanding it will put you at a lesser risk of getting misled in your quest for health.

I've been members at 4 clubs in various cities around the world over the years. This club is without a doubt the very WORST I have ever encountered. They use a variety of manipulative, high pressure scams to get you to pay huge amounts of money to use their personal trainers, they make you sign contracts that will cost you outrageous fees if you decide to leave the club. If you do decide to leave, they make you come in for another high pressure guilt trip, or they make you sit on the phone line for hours on hold listening to recorded 'patch adams' health club propaganda.

The club itself is poorly maintained, the exercise machines are broken half the time, the taps don't work in the showers, and the staff ignore any complaints. Save your money and your time, go someplace else. They don't care about you at all, they just want your money. Stay away.

I signed up for and was using a gym membership, but I kept on getting extra charges to my bank account. I called and complained numerous times, but they couldn't figure out why it was happening. They managed to stop all payments from my account for a few months. When the payments started again, everything looked okay...BUT when I called to cancel my account, I asked for a receipt. They found that the extra payments were coming from a membership of someone with the same name as my wife! (She was pregnant at the time, and has never had a gym membership in her life). Someone had forged her signature and my initials to allow payments to come from my account. It has been over a month and they still are jerking me around. I am now concerned that my banking information may have been shared with more people, AND that my credit score could be damaged.

When the co-ed club became coed/women’s club it started feeling crowded right away. A number of members was increased, but the maintenance didn’t change. The showers in the ladies change room are not clean anymore. The shower curtains are filthy and haven’t been changed for months. Please see a photo attached. The toilets are often out of order for days. The sauna was out of order for a long time.

They have a box for suggestions/feedback by the reception desk. However, they don’t bother to reply to what might be submitted in there. I made a suggestion to re-place existing orange over door shower caddies in the ladies change room with more substantial ones in 2009. The existing ones are useless, and it is impossible to place a shampoo bottle on it. So, we put our toiletries on the floor instead. They are also tipping to either side held by one hook over a door. The staff later placed the caddies over a shower head that is as high as 6 feet. It is impossible to reach the caddy for some women, and we still spread the shampoo and toiletries on the shower floor. How pathetic for a multi-million business to be so cheap!

I was told that i have to come in by 12:00 am the night of to be able to receive the deal of the month that would be changing at midnight. The offer is that with a sign up i would receive three (3) months for free due to me already existing at another gym. So thinking that what i was told was the truth i went into the gym at 11:30 pm ( the earliest i was available ) and signed up. At the time the sales associate that i spoke to was not on duty but promised me that he could still get me the deal as long as i signed up on time. well a few months in once i realized good life was taking payments out of my account i started calling and no one could find out any information that would help me. good life without reason then canceled my account leaving my with a cancellation fee, a few months fees due with the additional costs of not paying on time and the overdraft balance at my local bank account. Upon contacting them there only answer is that they will call head office and call me back. There entire sales tactic is based on lies and promises that are just setups that are made possible by tricky fine print and hidden under hours of call waiting and answering machines. where's the justice, principal, or overall business concept in this over-payed, under-managed company. Also while going to said gym i asked why the shower cleanliness form at the door of the locker room that has daily logs and names to be signed and dated by the cleaner and the general manager and no one would answer my question or even propose to start filling out the information. It is my belief that this form was not used because no one was actually cleaning anything. This may be just an opinion but to back my theory up i took pictures over a few weeks that shows the progressive buildup of dirt in shower, toilet and changing areas. While all this is going on the gym is under construction in all areas, for example the showers that tiles where falling off the wall and water was leaking everywhere almost causing me to trip on numerous occations. The employees whether of good life or an outsourced contracting company one day where witnessed by my coworker and myself looking throw a hole in the shower that actually looked into the women's shower area and joked about seeing a woman showering. This is clearing breaking numerous privacy laws and regulations in this country. Throughout my very short, expensive stay at the Good life facility at the Devonshire mall location i witness many disturbing and shocking events such as a trainer stealing a piece of gym equipment from me then threatening to "kick my ass" and to kick me out of "his gym". He then told me that the person he was training at the time deserved to use the piece of equipment because he paid more for training thus was of higher class than i and every other general customer. If u ask me this is not the behavior of a multi million dollar franchise, more of a group of under educated con-men with bad intentions. Everything that occured during my stay at good life was documented my myself and many witnesses, all names have been documented and iv pleaded my case to numerous goodlife managers and employees and still the only thing iv even been offered is a new membership to help me reach my fitness goals. Thanks to this company Im in debt and unfit, their version of a true Good life.