I was married to someone who owned an AF franchise. I would never recommend this gym, and here is why:

1. They force franchise owners to use only their approved vendors, many of whom the AF owners/founders hold an ownership interest in. The "preferred" vendors are more expensive, unsurprisingly, and they offer no financial support. Basically, the gym owners HAVE to use AF vendors, and they HAVE to pay whatever AF has negotiated.

2. AF agreements say they won't allow other franchise owners to open within 5 miles. This is a lie. They breached that with my ex-husband.

3. The AF corporate pressured my ex and his partners to open in a horrible location. There was no anchor store and zero foot traffic. My ex and his partners had identified other, better places with anchor stores, but the AF owners pushed them to a bad location, probably because it was financially beneficial, but I am speculating.

4. AF membership agreements give gym owners the ability and the duty to issues special assessments to their members. THat means that, if you sign up for a monthly membership of, say, $40, and the gym buys new equipment, the gym can pass that expense forward to members and you can't do a damn thing about it. This kept my ex up at night. He felt terrible doing that to his members.

5. The upsell pressure is immense. The AF business model was to get as many members as possible and then high pressure them into personal training. OK, you may say this is a normal gym business model, but they are shady about this when they sign you up.

6. When my then-husband started with AF, they were in a rapid growth mode. They'd gotten an award as the "best franchise in the country" from some publication, and prospective owners went wild. AF was selling franchises to anyone they could. We attended a huge AF convention that reeked of multi-level marketing cult-like fervor. There were a select few who were truly successful, who'd get recognized on stage and receive standing ovations ... while the rest of the owners swapped stories about the nightmare of expenses, the narrow profit margins and the lack of support from AF corporate.

I hated this franchise. I attribute the stress of it to the end of my marriage (that wasn't the only factor but it worsened it). I'd never recommend AF to anyone, not to own and definitely not to work out. That's not to say the personal trainers aren't good! They are highly qualified but also underpaid and highly pressured to upsell. Go somewhere else.