AUTO AEROBICS : Gym Members Don’t Want Exercise in the Parking Lots
Cesar Galvez gets an eight-hour workout at his gym without lifting a barbell or setting foot on a treadmill.
He gets his exercise at a West Los Angeles physical fitness center by doing the running for others who have come to use the health spa’s exercise machines.
Galvez, 22, sprints up to seven miles a day parking and retrieving cars for athletic club members so they do not have to walk to or from one of the gym’s parking lots.
The sight of the club members standing around in sweats, gym shorts and training shoes while the shirt-and-tie clad valets run back and forth for their cars is amusing to many who travel past the Sepulveda Boulevard workout center.
“I just have to chuckle when I see them,” said lawyer Lisa Volpe, a New York transplant who lives in Reseda and passes the area on her way to visit friends. “It so silly. It’s ludicrous. It’s as if walking isn’t exercise.”
Up to 17 Hours a Day
Twenty valet parking attendants tend an unending line of Porsches and sporty Mercedes-Benz convertibles that pull up carrying doctors, lawyers, entertainment executives and others eager to tone up muscles and sweat off flab at the Sports Club/LA.
Valets are on duty up to 17 hours a day. They race to four parking lots outside the gym while club members inside are using such equipment as electronically controlled exercise bikes and a special jogging track.
Gym members who spend up to $1,900 to join and $135 a month to use the club say the valet idea is not as bizarre as it looks.
“Time is money,” said Reja Sabet, a Century City stockbroker. “If you only have an hour and a half to work out, you don’t want to spend 15 minutes walking to and from your car.”
Nanette James, of Bel-Air, agreed.
“If you’re late for a private training session and are paying the guy 50 bucks an hour, a dollar or so for valet parking is not much,” James said.
Gym members who sweat through such professionally planned exercise routines do not want to deal afterward with the regimen of hunting for their cars in a six-level self-parking garage that is available for club members, said David Limor, a real estate investment company owner from Sherman Oaks.
“After an hour and a half of cardiovascular work, weights and stretching exercises, you feel good. But you’re thinking about getting home, and that’s all,” Limor said, climbing into his white Porsche. “If all you want is exercise, you could run around your house.”
The members’ garage requires tight turns, added Brentwood lawyer Pat Delchop with a grin as he waited for his black BMW. “If someone else dings it getting it out of the lot, I can sue them. If I do it, I can’t.”
Even club members who park their own cars say they appreciate the valets, who are paid $5 per hour and split all tips among themselves at the end of the day.
“I think, for the people who use the valet parking, their time is a little more valuable than mine at the moment,” said Alyson Stover, a television network film acquisition assistant who lives in Century City. She said she parks on the street during her five-times-a-week gym visits.
Not all visitors walk away enthusiastic about all the pampering, however. Not even those who use the valet service and do not have to actually walk away.
“This wouldn’t go over in San Diego where we live, I’ll tell you,” said Susan Lapidus, who visited the club as a perk that came with her stay at a Bel-Air hotel. Lapidus found the valets and other club amenities a bit excessive.
“It’s L.A., I guess,” added her husband, attorney Robert Lapidus.
