Finding Planet Fitness at the Nittany Mall

In the last few weeks, a friend has encouraged me to join her a few mornings a week at Planet Fitness. I know I need to adopt some kind of regular exercise but for some reason, I never seem to make time to do it on my own. Plus, exercising with a friend at a gym sounded like a way to give me some structure to the activity.

Of course, I knew where Planet Fitness was located…in the Nittany Mall outside of State College. The Mall has steadily lost various stores over the last several years so I wasn’t sure what stores were left. The anchor stores of Sears, Macy’s, J. C. Penney and BonTon have closed up.

The space left by Sears is now a huge Rural King. It seems to be competition for Tractor Supply just down the road. The store is always busy and is focused on the needs of the surrounding rural community. It anchors one end of the Mall, but is separate from the Mall. There is no access inside the store to get to the inside of the Mall.

The other end of the Mall where Macy’s was is now all boarded up, waiting for approvals to open a Casino. Who knows when that will materialize.

The entrance to the Mall nearest Rural King is still available and leads you to a few office fronts and a restaurant and on into the Mall.

The whole side of the building inside that used to house various clothing stores, is now occupied by Planet Fitness! It’s quite a facility that extends from where Sears used to be, clear up to the hallway taking you to the Public Restrooms.

So, when my friend said, I’ll meet you at Planet Fitness, I was sure I knew just where to go!

However, with all of the glass advertising that Planet Fitness was inside…nowhere could I find a DOOR! In fact, in the first photo above, the one door says, “Not an Entrance.” Great! I sat down and texted my friend. “Where are you? There is no door!” She said, “You have to get back in the car and drive around the end of the Mall (past Rural King) to the back entrance.” That entrance used to take you into the Mall…now it just goes to Planet Fitness! Oh My!

I would love to show you some pictures of the inside of Planet Fitness, but one of the rules is no photos! (Go online to see the inside of some of the facilities.) So, let me tell you…for a person like me that has never been inside ANY gym, this place was overwhelming. So many machines…and so many different kinds of machines. Treadmills looked familiar! Beyond that, people were riding bikes, rowing, stepping, etc. The best part, nobody cared what I was doing. My friend let me follow her around and showed me how to use a few machines.

My first impulse was to be careful. I didn’t want to fall off anything or stretch the wrong way. Most of the machines were pretty self-explanatory…a diagram with the muscle group highlighted, and an illustration of how to do the exercise. Luckily my friend showed me how to adjust the weights and how to sit down on the machine. Let me tell you, I really needed to see someone do it first.

Next came the challenge of signing up! I could use my Silver Sneakers card…but of course it was very out of date. So, I said I would check it out with my insurance company and would come back. Turns out, I could sign up online and was issued an ID number. The next day, I returned with my number in hand and went through all the rules and signed a dozen places. I was told to download the Planet Fitness app and I’d be set to sign in like everybody else…showing a code on my phone. Sure.

I finally got the app downloaded but I could see I needed one more step…the gym needed to sync my information with the app so it would recognize my information. The next time I went to Planet Fitness, a young man took my phone and synced everything! Yea! I could now check in!

The third day, I actually had time to try the machines on my own. I handled the treadmill fine except I discovered I wasn’t coordinated enough to walk and open a bottle of water at the same time. Oops! I can see I have a way to go! One day at a time!

More about the Nittany Mall

I don’t really know exactly how many stores are left in the Mall. Just wandering a way up the Mall I saw many boarded-up store fronts. Looks like American Eagle Outfitters is still there, along with Spencer’s.

The Centre Region Active Adult Center is just across from the windows of Planet Fitness. They were busy with many seniors playing cards and visiting. I stopped in and picked up their schedule. Who knows, maybe I’ll try out some line-dancing when I get a little more coordinated!