Help me get my thoughts together please?
Situation- joined a fairly expensive gym chain in Jan and noticed a guy coming onto treadmills to chat to people exercising. He always had a notebook so my first thought - taking a survey?
Sometime in July before the summer holidays I am on the rowing machine and suddenly he appears on the rowing machine beside me saying my form is incorrect and demonstrates the right way. Then he introduces himself as a PT and more or less pressurises me into buying a lesson.
Me being the softie agrees and so we do a lesson the next day. He spews the "stop doing so much cardio, do more weights" line (it was a weights session basically). Anyway I pay for it and leave it at that and he says OK and invoices me as "as and when necessary". Whatever that means.
Come Sep I am on treadmill running and he comes tight up and takes the one right beside me despite a whole row being empty. I ignore him. He tries to chat during my 5 min walk between running. I ignore. Then jump off straight after. He tries to catch my eye as I walk out.
A week later he is on treadmill again so I use the one right at the end. I know he has spotted me. He finishes whatever he is doing then hangs around. Spots another woman on the treadmill row adjacent. Interrupts and talks to her. She clearly pushes him back. He then goes to weights machine. Between his set he comes back to treadmill area as if to see whether I am done (I am the only one on the cardio floor apart from the other woman). I make a quick exit when he goes back to weights.
Long story short - do PTs try to hard sell this way in gyms? I find the behaviour slightly harassing and troublesome. He only seems to target women. I've since spoken to the gym manager who says he will speak to this PT about communication styles. For what it's worth, I saw the same PT do it again to another lady using the treadmill while she was running! The optics looked like he was a guy trying to harass a woman esp since he never wears the standard PT shirt identifying him as a PT.