Life Time Reviews 8

Lifetime Fitness Mount Laurel, NJ member for a long time and parent here.

I have witnessed Tammy Palumbo use her position to nearly make the Lifeguards tear-up with her completely using embarrassment as a specific tool that seems unusually domineering well beyond what the situation calls for. Her tone is absolutely vicious to her staff, just simply ask them, and it crosses a line where I would immediately recommend that Lifetime Corporate investigate her behavior toward these young kids working there. Other reviews mention behavior being insufferable to members, too. There was a young gent a while back that seemed to be college age, very professional, and polite. He was a lead or assistant with handsome features appearing Spanish and he was brutalized by Tammy in public settings. Felt terrible for the young man. Parents were threatened to have membership revoked by her (not me if you were wondering) for random small things, some even appeared made up because she didn't do that to families without accents - differential fairness at minimum. Staff and members would be physically approached like she was going to attack them - really fast and furious.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde behaviors were observed with her interactions with others. These symptoms are an open secret - more than likely because of membership numbers but that doesn't mean these young employees should be the brunt of anger and an overtly witnessed toxic environment. The management style here from Alex and up, supports and protects this aggressive style reported here. It is rewarded, protected and maintained. These young employees should have the ear of Lifetime Fitness Corporate HR - there is no way this should be permitted. Unfortunately it is so heartbreaking to keep seeing - if we see this abuse continue to vulnerable people under their authority or to random young parents, we will be morally obligated to report it locally and to the appropriate oversight agencies. Please protect these kids - please investigate these matters seriously

I love LifeTime... it's a very clean, spacious, luxurious gym with great facilities. I love the pool, sauna, weight room, etc.
My one complaint (and this is a big one) - they got rid of the basketball court and replaced it with Pickleball :( Basketball was my favorite exercise and now there is nowhere to play!

I was a member at the Shenandoah, TX Lifetime Fitness location. My membership was recently terminated by corporate, and the stated reason was “unauthorized photos.” The image I shared was a still from official police bodycam footage that documented an incident where I was harassed and physically confronted by another member.

Here is what actually happened:

I asked another member to clean chalk off a barbell before I used it. She became hostile, insulted me multiple times, mocked my appearance, and physically put her hands on me to move me. I only touched her to remove her hands from my body.

She admitted to officers that she was finished using the squat rack, yet suddenly decided to move back toward me and perform another lift — clearly attempting to intimidate. Staff were not present during this incident. When they arrived afterward, they were dismissive. One trainer referred to me as a “rule follower” to the officers — not as a compliment. The other stood by while the member continued to mock me.

Only when police informed her she could be cited for contact did she claim she “felt threatened.” If she truly felt unsafe, why had she mocked me, escalated the conflict, and initiated physical contact?

I obtained the official bodycam footage, which clearly shows the sequence of events and supports my side of the story. I offered to share the footage with Lifetime Corporate. They refused. There was no request for clarification, no follow-up, and no interest in the truth. So I posted the still and a 24-second clip of the bodycam video to social media.

Soon after, I received a call informing me that my membership was being canceled for violating the club’s photo policy.

Meanwhile, other members routinely post gym content — including selfies and locker room photos — on public social media. Those posts are never questioned. It’s clear the rules are not enforced equally.

I was penalized for speaking up. This experience left me deeply disappointed in how Lifetime Fitness handles member safety, fairness, and professionalism.

The facility may look premium on the outside, but behind the scenes is a culture of:
• Uneven rule enforcement
• Dismissive treatment of women who report harassment
• Corporate avoidance and PR damage control

If you are a woman who trains seriously, be cautious. You can be mocked, touched, and belittled — and if you defend yourself or document what happened, you may be the one removed.

I expected better from a brand that claims to support health, safety, and mutual respect.

I am deeply disappointed with Lifetime Burlington due to their lax safety practices with children and the total lack of care from management. Our first incident involved our 6-year-old son nearly drowning during swimming lessons. This was followed by him breaking his arm in the kids' gym while left unattended. Shockingly, little to no care was given to him after these incidents. He was left crying, holding his hand, and being consoled by his 4-year-old little brother.
When we tried to understand what had happened, the management refused to see us. We requested video footage but never received it. Instead, Lifetime was prompt to send their lawyer to talk to us, who never introduced himself as a lawyer.
We subsequently learned that they are not registered to look after children in a childcare facility. Additionally, we found several accounts of similar bad experiences online involving children. Be warned and consider this before trusting them with your child's safety.

I am a family man, business man, and a Christian man and believe me when I tell you from personal experience; Lifetime is all about corporate greed and does not care about its customers OR employees.



I have been a member of Lifetime Gym since 2023. I recently started working with one of their personal trainers, whom I wanted to work with specifically because of his physique and personal experience body building.



A few weeks ago my personal trainer sent me a text telling me he had a last minute appointment with his GM, Rob and his boss Nick and to go ahead and warm up and stretch and he’d be on the floor around 3:10. At 3:20 I text him and ask if he’s on his way, by 3:30 I sent him a text asking to just reschedule, and he let me know he was just fired.



At 3:47, I get a text from a Brandon at Lifetime stating my trainer has decided to move on from lifetime, acting like it was his decision. Literally the same hour that they fired him they had another sales person reaching out to me. It’s important to note: I pre-paid $3000 with my personal trainer, at this point they owe me for 18 sessions. (They say I only have 14 sessions, because I pre paid under the guise that it was a “Buy 4 get 1 session free” promotion, which they told me they knew nothing about and couldn’t honor) So I decline the invite to switch trainers and tell him I would like a refund of the money I pre-paid, because I will be continuing my training with my same trainer where ever he moves to. Via TEXT, this guy informs me that I will not be getting a refund.



The next week I attempt to get a hold of a manager, but I’m told Nick the personal training manager is on Vacation.



When he gets back, he tells me that in the FINE PRINT, I paid to train with LIFETIME NOT MY PERSONAL TRAINER? He also throws in my face that litigation wouldn’t be a route I could choose because I signed an arbitration agreement. He says that they can’t give me my money back, BUT if I were to follow through with the 14 sessions I had left, and I wasn’t satisfied, they would give me a full refund. I said if you really wanted to act in good faith, you would refund me my money, and give me a session with a personal trainer and if I liked him or her I would purchase more sessions. They said they couldn’t do that. So their only route for me to get a refund would be to screw over a trainer and have them train me 14 times just to ask for a refund so they don’t get paid on it?? Sounds equivalent to using your employees as a literal human shield.



After hours of my time wasted with emails and phone calls I finally get connected to Van and tell her all of this last night. She is some type of assistant manager at lifetime.. And she actually verbally agreed with me, and so did the manager Nick, that when people pre-pay they are pre-paying under the assumption that it will be with that trainer, and they spend that money to specifically be trained by that person. She tells me she will have Rob call me by EOD, then sent an email stating she didn’t get to speak with him before he left for the day.



I called in today to speak with Rob and left a message, Van called me back. So Rob the GM doesn’t even have time for me yet they want to just steal thousands of dollars from me?? She let me know that they will not be issuing a refund.



So if you want to go somewhere that treats their employees as disposable, will fire your personal trainer without letting you know and will let you sit at the gym for an hour wondering what’s going on, a gym that will literally steal thousands of dollars from you on a technicality when the opportunity presents itself then remind you of the fine print that you signed that allows them to do so… Then this is the gym for you. FYI Villa sports in Roseville is about half the price, has all of the amenities that lifetime does and others that it does not, such as red light therapy. Save yourself the headache and go there, this place does not care about it’s employees or it’s customers.

Not worth the money.

This review is for Life Time in Framingham, MA.

The facility is gorgeous, clean and well-run. The staff is incredibly nice. They have an Aurora program for older members and it is the best conceived, well thought out and well-executed program I’ve ever participated in. The Aurora classes are wonderful and everyone seems to really like them.

The personal training is abysmal. When I joined I was told there would be a discount for signing up for multiple sessions. Nope. Is that fraud? Then when I was talked into signing a contract, the trainer told me she would add an extra session for free. That never happened. Is that fraud? I was told I would be able to use the hydro massage machine after each personal training session, but out of five sessions I was only able to use it 3 times. Is that fraud? One time the woman in charge of personal training for the gym put her own trainee on the machine for double the time and that left me out in the cold. The woman in charge also tended to not respond to requests from me asking how much it was going to cost. No price transparency. She mostly sends out form emails.

Lastly, I found the three trainers I encountered to be slightly condescending. During the first three sessions I felt like I had not challenged a single muscle and felt like I had not done even a minimal workout. I was told by the woman in charge that they were “assessing” me for three hours. The last two sessions were just ok.

It appears that Life Time pays trainers based on their paper qualifications and not on how much the trainees like them. If you join a gym for the personal training, I would definitely not join this gym. It was difficult even getting the trainers to teach me how to use the machines. They wanted me to do ridiculous floor exercises when the main reason I signed up for personal training was to learn how to use the machines. There is no one else in the gym to help you do that.

In one class, someone (not me) brought up the subject of personal training. Everyone (all women) agreed that the personal training was awful, so it’s not just me. The personal training business model seems to be dreadful, the management of personal training is dreadful, and the trainers are not great. At Life Time, personal training is about liability management, not about helping people get stronger. For the record, I’ve done a lot of personal training in the past at other facilities and it was vastly superior to the training for which I paid a fortune at Life Time: $150/hr!!!!

I would not even bother with the first free session since they just use that to get you to sign a contract. You won’t get a workout or get to know the machines.

But the gym is great if you avoid the personal training!

This review is primarily for the LifeTime in Gainesville, Virginia. We have also been to the clubs in Centreville and Ashburn, and I visited the club in Tampa Florida when on a trip. The LifeTime experience, it is so much more than a gym, it has improved our health so much since joining two years ago! The clubs are beautifully maintained, and depending on size have swimming pools as well as exercise floors, sauna, steam room, jacuzzi. Gainesville has two studios dedicated to yoga and others for cycle and other classes, all included in the membership. They provide many ways to spend lots more money if you choose LOL, like personal trainers, pilates and a very nice cafe open early morning to evening.