Rant on

The manager weighs 300 lb and the sales employees are both plump (30-50 lb overweight). This is not a statement about individuals, but more about the type of people GNC hires to represent their stores to the healthy fit minded customer.

Rant off

Rant on again

I find it hard to buy product for getting ripped and muscular from someone who does not walk the talk. It is too bad. I feel they are more about pushing product, getting you to buy "one get one 50% off" and know just enough to make one very high level statement about it. No real passion about how the product works and how i could benefit. it is like they learn one line to memorize and that is it. So i need to say no when they try and push something on me that i am not even interested in. Almost feels Like telling one of those timeshare guys who do the 90 minute sales presentation "no." they make you feel guilty for saying "no." It is impossible to have any meaningful anatomical science based conversation with these GNC guys because they do not seem to embrace the product that they are selling. Sigh.

Rant off.

I think I will take my business to Vitamin Shoppe where the level of knowledge is so much higher or perhaps i will just stick to Amazon. However, I do like being able to walk into a health store and have meaningful conversations about health, fitness and supplementation...

To anyone thinking Fiddle is being mean/whatever, would you take any advice from a Doctor who weighed 400 pounds and was telling you to lose weight? Same concept. I'm not going to take a recommended supplement for strength from some GNC kid who's calves are the size of my forearms.

Our local Vitamin shoppe is run by a local strength trainer and natty body builder. Dude is legit and cool as hell to talk to. GNC uses product targeting to push their crap. They have a list of things to recommend for each goal, and their based on a sales number, not what works. I wouldn't go to GNC to buy a bottle of Water, that's for damn sure.

If you're looking for supplements, google them, review them, research them, and then you'll likely find the best price online somewhere. But, beware of the 15 year olds reviewing products on bodybuilding.com. Supplements are so sketchy these days since they don't have any regulations put on them until they kill someone, then they're taken off the market. I.E. ephedrine. A great product got dropped.

I do have to say what I like about vitamin shoppe is they let me shop but if I have questions they are there, GNC employees won't leave me alone.