Life Time Fitness

I have been a LT member since the very beginning and I was relatively happy… at first. I did notice that the service is slowly going down (tennis, swimming lessons for children…). The quality is going down. But what I experienced today, I can not even describe! It was a busy Saturday morning, Mr. Payne’s group lesson completely took up the central area of main gym including multiple exercise machines. I attempted to use the rowing machine, which was not currently being used. Payne was extremely aggravated and condescending, he told me to leave the rowing machine or if I want to use it I must pay him for a group lesson. He behaved like he owns the gym. I was shocked! I pay for membership and I can not use the empty rowing machine for 15 min! I immediately brought the incident to attention of Tim King, the manager. So far I have not received any response from him. As a physician, I found the behavior of Mr. Payne simply insane and probably supported by LT administration.

Lifetime Fitness in Vestavia Hills is a great place to work out. State of the art, clean, and plentiful equipment. They have free weights, tons of cardio equipment, indoor and outdoor pool, tennis courts, and an outdoor Crossfit training tower. Really impressive facilities. They also have a spa and café (both are quite good).
Overall, my experience as a member here has been great.
Only negatives: Locker rooms can get stanky and dirty during peak hours, like the pre-​work crowd during the week. Also, sales staff here is disingenuous and PUSHY. Clearly looking to just make a sale… and get leads for any of your unsuspecting friends/​family who you might consider providing an email or phone contact for. Not good enough that you sign up… you have to bring friends?!?

Birmingham is lucky to have such an awesome gym. All the employees are friendly and professional.

We joined early as a family Diamond membership. We stared paying $ 275 per month 9 months before construction finished. We were so excited as a family. Once the facility opened our payments jumped to $ 475 per month. We at first felt the money was well spent here versus a Country Club that went mostly unused. We could get in shape and spend more quality time with our family. First, the promised parking for Diamond shrunk then completely went away. Next, we were hounded by fitness instructors to buy instruction. Every 5 minutes a different instructor would pounce on me like an insurnace agent needing to sell something after repeated and continuous selling. I hated even seeing employees and never could even ask a question as they would lecture me on taking lessons of some sort. I was not a marshmallow but certainly needed to lose 35 pounds. Forget playing basketball and trying to spend quality time wth your family… it is a free for all and won’t happen… like the wild west with balls and court time. The pool is similar with over sold lesson attempts and too many kids I am surprised no kid has drowned yet. Nearly always the pool is only open with a few lanes that are already taken. The outside pool is only good in Summer but it is more of a competition of mom’s looking for attention versus family’s having fun in the pool. Overcrowded and free reign kids everywhere. Forget tennis unless you pay through the nose for lessons you may get fourt time with 2 weeks notice. Forget it if your out of town guests want to pick up a game as it will never happen! Embarrassing! We spent over $ 7,000 on fees in 19 months and went there a handful of times, each time getting worse than the last. Biggest regret I can recall in a very long time. Avoid this place if you are a family, go to a good country club they treat you respectfully and seriously need/​want your business and mostly empty where ypu can spend quality time with your family in building a relationship! With numerous new apartments within feet of this place it will get so overcrowded you cannot breathe!

As a former member of this gym, I should have written this post long ago. To be clear – I only left Lifetime after moving away for school. Whenever I come back for short periods in between quarters, I am treated with the same respect and courtesy as if I had been a continuous member since my initial visit. I am always impressed too, with how personal the staff is… always remembering me after months away. Such was my experience with Michael R. yesterday, who was very welcoming and made it easy to jump right back into my routine. Great equipment. Clean and flexible space. Even better people.

I was a member of Golds for years and I grew sick of it – no towels, cutting classes, rude desk people, and it is simply dirty. So I decided to join Lifetime.
The membersales person I used was super nice and went over everything. But it was frustrating since they claimed not to negotiate and I know friends who pay less and some that ended up paying huge joining fees. I ended up getting the just about all the fees waived and for them to buy out the remainder of my Golds billable time.
The place is clean and parking is not bad if you get there before 5:30 PM – at 6ish when there are swimming competitions and lots of classes on a given night parking is a mess. I always find a locker and a place to get dressed.
The classes are amazing. The instructors are top notch and I have never had to worry about getting there way early like I had to at Golds to get a spin bike. Never had to wait on a treadmill either. There are always towels and wipes.
I also got LT bucks to use. I wanted to use a nutritionist. Sorry out of luck we do not have one. Well ok so I decide to use it on a spa service. The lady was really nice who booked it-​I am using it this week. Had to book a week out – not too bad. Well I ask about booking another massage for after a marathon in the fall and the lady was like we got so and so that is leaving and we will prob be short staffed so do it soon. It seems like a lot of turn over for the services?
I really do like it but it is pricey. It is worth it if you go a few times a week and use the classes and or pool. The café is so good-​pricey again but if you want a healthy meal it is worth it.

Brandon personal trainer is awesome. He is very professional and knows his craft well. This young man has a very pleasant attitude and I enjoy my training sessions. I wouldn’t have any other trainer…

Great gym the problem isn’t the gym but the pool. Parents don’t follow the rules for the little ones and it ends up with the pool or pools in some cases being closed for everyone. The pools being closed effect everyone else so either they need to fined parents who cause the pools to be closed or reduce membership dues for the inability to have full access to the facility.

I am originally from Cincinnati, and am currently in DC, but feel compelled to write how much I miss Lifetime’s yoga classes! I have tried yoga classes in some of Cincinnati’s and DC’s best studio’s, where the monthly fee is upwards of $ 100/​month. Even at those studio’s, where the speciality is yoga, I still missed Lauren’s classes at Lifetime.
Plus, at Lifetime for the same price you’d pay for a yoga studio, youre getting the perks of tons of other high intensity classes, a pool, clean locker rooms, and new equipment. It’s really the best value you can find.
I miss Lifetime’s yoga classes everyday, and if I ever make it back to Birmingham renewing my membership will be the first thing I do!

Has everything I need Yoga & Swimming… tennis and cardio & weight facilities are amazing…

It is an amazing gym! I give it three stars because of the lack of supervision on small children in the weight room. Women just bring their kids and drop them off to play on equipment and bother everyone. The other star lacking is the price. The price keeps going up and up and up. Other than that it is a clean facility and nice gym.

This review is for the pool in particular. My kids take swimming lessons here.
At first glance, the size of this place can be overwhelming. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a facility this large. As you pull up, you can see not only the main facility, but a huge climbing wall and the large water slides for the outdoor pool.
The folks at the front desk have always been very friendly. They are good about pointing you in the right direction, so you don’t get lost in the fitness castle. The indoor pool is among the nicest I’ve seen. It’s much more calm than the outdoor facility, obviously. There is a lap pool for folks trying to stay in shape and a large area designated for lessons.
The teachers have been great with the kids. I don’t remember lessons being a bunch of fun when I was a kid, but my little ones sure do look forward to going to their’s at Life Time.

Beautiful, shiny facility but poor, untrained and unprofessional service. It takes forever to hear back from anyone and there is no clear and consistent leadership to guide a very young (and cheap?) staff.
The outdoor pool did not open until Memorial Day weekend this year, a month later (or more) than other area pools. In addition, there is no separation between children pool and lap pool. There has been a «contamination» in the children pool an average of every other day and because of the lack of separation, the entire pool has to be closed as a result. To top it, they use a radar system that tracks thunder storms 50 miles away and leads to pool closing every time a storm is detected within that radius. In Alabama in the summer, that means every day. I think that the pool has closed 3 times out of 4 I have been there this summer.
Summer camps seem popular leading to crowding of the locker room (the summer camps do not use the family locker room) and the swimming lessons are basically monopolizing the outdoor lap pool 6 hours a day.
Tennis instructors are good overall but do not justify the cost of private lessons at $ 70 per hour ($ 30 more than lessons at other clubs in town). Avoid head of tennis (Ellis) who will spend more time reminiscing about his past «glory» and lecturing you rather than giving you balls and helping you developing your own skills. There is also a fitness tower right by the tennis court and the music and huffing and puffing sounds coming from it are very distracting to tennis players.
So, to sum it up, if you care about a good pool and a good tennis program, do not join Life Time!

I’m writing this review after cutting my workout short because wifi simply won’t work. This isn’t my first time having trouble with it.
I was connected with full bars, yet Internet was not working. When I switched over to broadband, it worked fine, so it wasn’t a reception issue with my phone.
I thought about maybe talking to someone, but I doubt anyone here at 7:30 in the morning would know how to fix my technical problems.
I’m literally writing this in the parking lot while considering canceling my membership. For the $ 88 a month I pay, I shouldn’t be writing reviews about wifi of all things.

New, fancy facilities but otherwise no substance. Customer service is terrible. It can be difficult to simply talk to someone. Many employees I’ve encountered are rude, inept, or both. It has taken 3 weeks and I have still not been able to schedule swim lessons for instance. Also, be prepared to wait, and wait, if you do need help.
If you’re into the family friendly atmosphere and diverse class offerings, join the Y. Their pool and swim program are better. If you want some gym equipment, join a planet fitness or snap, or the like.

CAUTION: If you plan on joining be aware of their cancellation policy. I cancelled in October yet I am still getting charged for the entire month of November. Again, I am canceling my membership before the next month yet they are charging me for another month. The entire time they try to convince you to «freeze» your membership. It’s such a scam and clearly money is their motive, not customer satisfaction. I am not the only one complaining and switching gyms.

Really my review is for LifeSpa inside LifeTime. The staff is knowledgable and the massages are great.

There are a lot of great things about this club, the facilities are nice, the trainers are great. But there are 2 things you always remember about a place, your first impression and your last. There many business practices here that are not handled well and poor customer service.
This is one of the most expensive clubs in Birmingham and when you do cancel it, they will charge you for 2 months. That is their policy for «cancel anytime». Be aware of that going into it. After filing a complaint with the BBB and speaking to upper management, I was told a lot of it was due to «Growing Pains» where they didn’t call me back. For what you pay for membership there, they should go above and beyond.
They also will not return phone calls from management or other departments. When we first joined, we were given «LifeTime Bucks» that could be used for services like swim lessons, tennis lessons, ect. But when we called to schedule swim lessons, we got a voice mail, we left a voice mail but never received a call back. After going in and talking to the aquatics desk, they said they were too busy to call people back. And this was coming from the girl that was almost too busy to talk to us at the desk because she was talking to another employee about her boyfriend. After talking to the employee we were told that it would be almost 2 months before we could schedule a swim lesson. Which in this case would cause our LifeTime bucks to expire. So DO NOT be swayed by the promise of LifeTime bucks to be used on services because you may not be able to use them for the things that the sales person sells you on. We were also promised $ 200 in LtBucks after 60 days, but this was not given. After talking to the management he said the sales person made a mistake and it was 6 months.
I would of given this a lower rating but there simply isn’t one. But it is worth a higher rating for trainers there, they were all great but it is sad that they are working for a company with such poor customer service from the membership side. Don’t just take my word for it, look at the Better Business Complaints for their corporate office
they have over 500 complaints, which is crazy!
When comparing this membership to the YMCA in Birmingham, the Y roughly half the price. Great customer service, great people. Not as new and fresh but they actually call you back and you can schedule swim lessons very quickly.
I have heard a number of other complaints when it comes to the sales side, so make sure you get anything they say in writing. Also negotiate the best rate for your membership because they are willing to negotiate. There is a reason they don’t post their membership fees online or anywhere, they give different rates all the time depending on what you negotiate.
Also when I went to cancel my membership in person, I had to wait almost an hour to talk to someone. Maybe if they would return calls, I could of scheduled a time. But when I talked to management about them returning calls, they said they were just too busy to rely on that. I run a small business with about 5,000 users, we manage that with about 2 employees and we call everyone back. They have 300 employees at this location and less than 10,000 members. I think they could improve.
So be careful and don’t get sucked in because they will not treat you with the respect that a customer deserves.

Favorite spot they have anything and everything an athlete would want.

This place is fantastic. It’s a huge facility with anything imaginable. If you can’t get it done here, you’re not trying.