Fitness Together

Fitness Together Kirkland is THE place to work out. I have been going to the FT in Kirkland for 1−½ years (since January 2015) and I love it. All the trainers are very professional, knowledgeable and organized. I have been so lucky to work with Steve the whole time. I have worked with lots of trainers at other places in the past, and he is by far the best. I started out at just 2 times a week, now I regularly go 4 times a week. I really look forward to my workouts, and the improvement in my strength and stamina (as well as my muscles!) is remarkable. FT is a really upbeat place; you get a great workout while having fun too. Rebecca the studio director will help you figure out what will work for you. I highly recommend FT Kirkland. (I was NOT compensated in any way to say all these nice things… I really mean them!)

this place told me that my old session credits (20 of the 28 I had purchased) had expired. They only honor training session credits for a year

First the good stuff.
This place’s training was really good. I improved my overall fitness quite a lot (running faster, lifting better, etc.). Another client, training primarily for weight loss, lost over 50 pounds (between this place and another Fitness Together franchise), and was keeping it off.
By personal training standards, their prices are good — personal training is always expensive, but their prices are better than most personal training studios I checked, and a _​lot_​better than personal training sessions at a regular gym (where you pay both the trainer and the gym’s mark-​up).
They also did a good deed when I signed up. I had previously trained at a different Fitness Together franchise (with different owners), and had 38 sessions remaining when that one went out of business. This FT had no obligation to honor sessions purchased at another FT, but they did.
I was really happy there, and bought another 28 sessions, and I probably would have bought more if I hadn’t moved out of the area (just over two years ago).
Now the bad stuff.
One minor problem the place had was that their tracking of session credits was pretty haphazard. The other FT franchise had the same problem. I always tracked my sessions with a spreadsheet, and when the time approached to buy more sessions I printed a copy and brought it in. My spreadsheets always matched their appointment calendars, but didn’t always match the software they use to track session credits. (My guess is that the national FT provides the software, and it just isn’t very good at that.) Both this place and the other FT always adjusted the session credits; the other one was generally more graceful about the mistakes than this one. I got the impression that the owner-​manager at this one likes training clients a lot better than he likes managing the franchise.
My larger complaint is that when I moved back to this area, and asked about going back to train there again, this place told me that my old session credits (23 of the 28 I had purchased) had expired. They only honor training session credits for a year (or maybe he said two years). As much as training sessions cost, losing 23 sessions is quite a hit: over $ 1000.
It’s a frustrating situation. I’d like to go back there and use the 23 sessions. But since it’s a husband-​and-​wife business, I worry that if I make a stink about the lost sessions to get them to honor them, they might be thinking about the business issue while conducting the training sessions.
Given that the place did a somewhat haphazard job of keeping track of session credits even when a client is there every week, I can imagine that they’d really have trouble with someone who has been away for a couple of years. Still, they got me on board as a customer in the first place by honoring session credits from a franchise that had failed. One would think that they’d want to keep me as a customer by honoring sessions that I bought directly from them.
You get a pretty hefty discount for buying a lot of training sessions at once. However, if you end up with sessions you can’t use, you’re stuck. Watch out for that.
On the basis of the training itself, the place deserves 5 stars («Woohoo! As good as it gets!»), reduced to 4 («Yay! I’m a fan.») because the trainers’ personalities weren’t as good as the FT that went out of business, or maybe 3 («A-​OK.») due to the haphazard session counting. But refusing to honor paid-​for sessions knocks them down to a 2 («Meh. I’ve experienced better.»)

Chuck and Nancy are great motivators and they help you get great results. But remember it is about you doing the work. I have tried many programs and was a member of the pro club for years and tried personal training with them. But with FT I got results — in 4 months with them from Nov 2009 until today March 3 I have followed their program and lifted 3x per week. I lost 40 points off my cholesteral which was at 238 the week before I started and is now 198. My body fat was reduced from 26.6% to 18.7%. I also have lost 10 lbs but gained ton of muscle and hope to lose another 10. I can now run almost 6 miles in about 1 hour, can do 59 situps in a minute (did 24 when I started), I lost 4 ½ inches on my waist, and 2 ½ inches on my hips and on my way to have some decent guns for arms. So I can tell you Chuck is a former marine and he will get you in shape, his son Wyatt is also a part time cage fighter if you want hard core, and Nancy is one of the most cheerful and energetic people at 7 am in the morning I have ever met. It is not cheap but you get results and their hourly rate is ½ as much as Pro Club if you do a longer term deal. These folks gave me the fitness intervention I needed.