I always have to slow down when a target seems this big and this easy. I mean, cancelling a Planet Fitness patron's membership because he grunted with a quarter ton of steel on his back? I grunt every time my son sneaks up behind me and jumps on my back. And he weighs less than 50 pounds. 

My first reaction, like almost everyone else, is that this is nuts. Grunting while you're standing in line at motor vehicles can be interpreted as rude, as hostile, as perverted, as a sign of impending sphincter failure, as a number of things you wouldn't want to be standing next to in shorts and a tank top. But grunting at the gym, while holding up the equivalent of a bathtub full of water? Could this not reasonably be parsed as a trailing indicator of exertion?

Now, that said, I kinda sorta get where Planet Fitness is coming from. They don't want their bread and butter clients, the "rest of us," to become alienated by a fitness scene taken over by intimidating hulks who make the rest of us feel inferior and judged. After all, Planet Fitness's motto is "judgment-free zone."

The problem is, they are making a statement that anyone engaging in a high-intensity workout is unworthy of Planet Fitness membership. As FitFam.com readers know, high intensity workouts are far superior to easy, 65% of heartrate workouts, in terms of development of fitness, strength, stamina, and fat burning. And of course, if the general public knew that 5 minutes of hard exertion interspersed with 5 minutes of rest (say, 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off, for example) could be a complete daily workout, why would they need Planet Fitness? Would you bother with the inconvenience of a gym if you were only going to work out for 5 minutes?

If you really need motivation and social structure to get a workout, and you're willing to pay for it, why not pay your kids to play with you? I guarantee, they won't complain when you grunt.