24 Hour Fitness, Anaheim Hills Gym temp at 77 degrees, unacceptable, when I cancelled they kept 2 months dues and refuse refund Anaheim Hills California

As a former employee, I had experienced the same issue regarding the temperature. My position was Front Desk Rep. Each day that I worked I would notice that I was sweating despite the fact that I was not working out or conducting any rigorous task.

I began opening the front doors to allow circulation of cool air in for short periods of time. Suddenly one day my club manager reprimanded me and threaten me with termination if I opened the front door again.

I than warned him that if he attempted to terminate me, I would report him and the company to the CA state dept of labor, OSHA and the county health and safety for forcing me to work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. Instead the company alleged I stoled a soft drink and reported me to local authorities for criminal charges. Thank God the investigators were smart enough to realize that I was being wrongly targeted, and the case was ordered closed.

All gyms are required by OSHA standards along with the States health and safety regulations to operate at room temerature. A room temperature of 77 degrees does not have any impact on how your muscles warm up. Rather warming up your muscles has to do with performing cardiovascular exercises prior to engaging in weight training. Heat is applied on muscles as a post work out remedy to ease the muscle tension accrued from weight trainning, along with intense cardiovascular workouts.

A heated room can force the body to over heat and cause fainting spells, fatigue, lethargy, and respiratory attack.

Actually, the ideal workout room temperature should be in the low 60's setting. I'm not getting into the validity of the Aneheim complaint but a couple of responses erroneously suggested that cool or cold temperatures can cause your muscle harm. Read the following excerpt from an article I found on the Internet:



Cool Temperature


During the Osteoporosis Research Project, the air conditioning malfunctioned and kept the temperature in the low 60's. Despite the seeming discomfort, they pushed on with the scheduled workouts. Much to their surprise, the researches found an across-the-board improvement in the study subjects' workout performance. Further reflection reveals why this is true. Hard muscular work produces a lot of heat. This is true because most of the enzymatic reactions in muscle contraction are heat liberating reactions, and because working muscles have a lot of friction. This heat is produced so rapidly, that the body cannot dissipate it quickly enough and the temperature within the muscles (and body in general) starts to rise. The processes that drive muscular contraction are temperature dependent. Once too much heat accumulates, the muscles will fatigue and fail. The mechanism for this is still unknown, but Dr. Timothy Noakes (an exercise physiologist from South Africa) believes it is some sort of neurological regulator that protects us from hyperthermia (overheating). Exactly why this occurs does not matter, what does matter is that this is another way in which the inroading process can be cut short.

The body loses internal heat by three different mechanisms: conduction, convection, and evaporation. If the environment outside the body is cooler than the internal body temperature, then the heat will follow this temperature gradient and be lost to the external environment. Conduction refers to direct transfer of heat from one object to another. An example of this would be your body losing heat into the cool upholstery on the exercise machine. Convection refers to loss of heat into the surrounding cooler air. For conduction and convection to be a significant source of heat loss, there has to be a large temperature gradient. Your body will lose a lot of heat by these mechanisms when it is 40 degrees out, and very little when it is 95 degrees out. This is because there is a very small gradient between your body at 98.6 and the environment at 95 degrees. When conduction and convection fail as heat loss mechanisms, your body then resorts to an evaporative heat loss mechanism: sweating. Applying moisture to the surface that is losing heat accelerates heat loss because evaporating moisture carries a lot of heat.

In a workout, we want to lose heat at a quick enough rate, so that the muscles fail because of maximal inroading, not because of heat buildup. By the time your body has to resort to an evaporative heat-loss mechanism, it is already too late. You will fatigue prematurely because of heat buildup. If the temperature is at an ideal 61 degrees, you can effectively lose exercise-related heat buildup through conduction and convection. At the beginning of your workout, it feels uncomfortably chilly, but by the conclusion of your workout, it will feel perfect to you and you will not have a drop of sweat on you. More importantly, you will have inroaded as efficiently as possible and given your body the greatest stimulus for improvement possible.

If you are going to be building muscle or stretching it, your muscles need to be warm. Having your muscles cooled from the outside, you are more likely to injure yourself.

I am not suggesting that sweating is a pleasant sensation, in fact I don't really like it at all, however, you need to sweat to have a productive work out.

If you work out in an air conditioned space, it hinders your lung capacity as well. Just like it is easier for your body to absorb room temperature water (as opposed to refrigerated).

While you are entitled to your opinions and preferences, and while I can't say either way whether or not they "breached" your contract, you can't rightly claim that they made the conditions "unbearable".

Sounds like alot of 24 hour fitness people read these reports. However, they are sadly mistaken on the what is now required to cancel a membership. A new law was passed this year that makes it illegal for gyms to require 30 days notice, no matter what agreement they signed.

If a member calls on October 31st to cancel effective October, then it must cancel effective October. If an EFT is set to go through for November that cannot be stopped, then appropriate measures must be taken to refund the customer as soon as possible.

Not only do I work at a fitness resort that has over 4000 members in one location, I work in the Accounting department and know what I am talking about. We cannot even charge last months dues at time of sign-up anymore.

Oh, and anytime members complain about it being too hot or cold we try to accomodate them instead of telling them they are there to sweat anyway. That is why we have over 4000 members at one facility...without any ripoff reports against us. Sounds like 24 hour needs to do their homework.

You are still stuck on the thermostat change and are failing to realize what is actually relevant to your situation. Regardless of why you cancel, you are still obligated to the terms of your agreement. It does not matter if you move away or if I choose to open the door for you, hand you a towel, tell you to have a great work out and then poop in your gym bag. If you do not cancel 30 business days before your tap date, it will bill you. Your agreement not only states this very clearly, but you signed in two places stating that you agree to this. It sounds like you are angry with yourself for signing something allowing access to your bank account without even knowing how to stop it properly. By the way, next time we decide to change the radio station in the club, I'll be sure and shoot ya an email. Stay fit!

I am entitled to cancel my membership because conditions in the gym (temperature) have changed and are no longer acceptable to me. I have stopped payment by notifying the credit card to reject payment, and that will serve to save me one months dues. If the gym conditions are no longer acceptable to work out, I no longer have an obligation to pay them money for nothing. Paying gym dues is NOT the same as leasing a car. When you lease a car, you have POSSESSION of a valuable asset. When you pay GYM DUES, you merely have the right to USE THE EQUIPMENT on their premises. You can't consider the two the same. It is comparing apples and oranges.

I own a health club myself and this time of year I get complaints about the temp in the club. What I ask my members is "wouldn't you agree that sweating is part of working out?" And I would ask you the same question. I also encourage my members to drink more water prior to working out as well as during the workout out.

As far as canceling your agreement is concerned, almost all health club agreements require an 30-days advanced written notice to cancel. Which means you will most likely be billed one more time before the thing is cancelled. You will need to READ your agreement and see if the "up front" payment can be used as your final payment at the club. Probably not.

Regardless if you used the club or not, you are still contractually bound to monthly membership dues. Same as a cell phone or a car. Whether or not you choose to use the phone or to drive the car, you still have to pay the bill each month. Period.

Why should have you been given 30-60 days notice before management changes the thermostat? That is absolutely ridiculous!

I see that you only gave them 3 days notice before your next debit when you cancelled your membership. How about YOUR 30-60 day notice? This is clearly spelled out in the membership terms and conditions. Sounds like YOU did not uphold your end of the bargain, and that the gym had the RIGHT to debit your account that one time.

Furthermore, 77 degrees is NOT "unbearable" to work out in. It is actually a healthy temperature to prevent injury -- a very important factor in working out! Any colder and you would be more susceptible to muscle spasm, sprains, GI discomforts, etc. If you believe that all gyms should be iceberg-like in temperature, why not join one in Antarctica?