Crunch Fitness - Fayetteville — Attraction in Fayetteville

I have a lot of issues with this place, but the biggest is that the locker rooms are less sanitary than the average gas station bathroom.

On the worst day, I’ve encountered literal feces in the shower. But on any given day, there is trash, used razors, or old wash cloths left in the shower, broken soap dispensers ripped off the wall, hair, dirt, grime, and mystery stains (is it poop, who knows? Now I always question it).

Half of the bathroom stalls either don’t shut or lock properly or are out of order. But the ones in operating order are splattered with who knows what and always dirty. The sinks are always dirty. The hand dryers have caked on grime dripping down the walls below them… how does that even happen?? People puke in the trash can. And the paper towel dispenser is always empty. One time large pieces of trash were left in the floor of the changing stall and it was there for 3 days before someone threw it away. I have seen cleaning staff once, maybe twice, in the 6 months I’ve been going to Crunch, but at FAC I would see cleaning staff in the locker rooms almost every time I went.

Childcare – I have only used the childcare facility a handful of times. But every time, it seems severely understaffed. Several times, there will be an older kid (who I assume to be an employee’s kid) who appears to be “helping” which definitely does not count as staff and is hopefully not being considered as such. Last time I was in there, I counted 37 kids of all ages and could only see 1 adult. I think there were 2 but one was helping kids go to the bathroom. The last 2 times I used the childcare, I saw babies laying alone and crying in a crib or their car seat. I’ve never seen a staff member playing with the kids or holding a baby – but how could you expect them to when they’re trying to keep 20+ kids alive on their own? There are 3 TVs and several iPads. If your kids are old enough to entertain themselves, I think they’re probably fine, but I would be extremely concerned leaving a baby or toddler here.

Equipment – I couldn’t even go to this gym for the first 2 months after it opened due to the crowds. Between it being the first of the year and a new facility, I expected as much. I do not mind a crowd as long as I am able to complete my workouts. I don’t mind being flexible and substituting lifts or switching the order if a machine is taken, but after several months I was never able to complete a lower body workout. For a gym this large with this much equipment, it seems that it was poor planning or cost savings driving the decisions of which equipment to put in. There are 10+ power racks and always availability, but only 2 Smith machines which are always taken. There is a wall a mile long of dumbbells, but never any 10-25 lb available. There are only 2 of every machine so you’re always having to wait. This is especially bad with any lower body machines. But there are a million treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, and stairmasters. At any given time less than half of them are being used. Seems like it would have been a better use of space to have more machines than the average gym for leg press, extensions, leg curls, and other machines that are heavily utilized. I also run into machines that aren’t operating properly at almost every workout.

You get a lot of amenities for the price at Crunch, but when they can’t even provide the basics, the rest doesn’t...

It was nice that they provided me a 7 day free trial before signing up so that I could try out the facility (the only reason I’m giving this 2 stars instead of 1). They also feature a lot of unique machines for working out specific muscle groups… beyond that however, it was all down hill

I am a student and my college provides me with a gym, but I wanted to go to a gym that features more equipment than my colleges gym. So I went to the one I’ve heard the most about over the years. I began to walk around and immediately found the deadlifting section that was oddly placed between the multipurpose machines and the squat racks. Here are just a few issues with this written below:

NONE of the mats had weight clips on them, I began to look around frantically and saw none.

no weight risers were insight, meaning when I want to deadlift 3-4 plates, I have to try to wiggle in that 3rd or 4th plate and look like an idiot in front of this massive crowd of people

due to the positioning of the mats, people on the squat racks constantly take the weights away from the deadlifting zone, meaning I had to go searching for 45lbs plates.

due to the lack of weight clips, whenever you drop the bar to the ground, the plates go everywhere and you have to reposition them over and over again, so if you’re deadlifting a 3x5 on like 325, good luck.

Then I went and found a bench. Finding the bench wasn’t difficult because they had so many (that’s at-least positive) but immediately I noticed some issues.

There was literally just a random hole in the wall on the left side of the free weight section… then I saw there was just like used paper towels all around my bench.

All of this lead me to making adjustments to my workout which was the entire reason I sought out for a new gym in the first place. I decided to go looking around for some cable machines, luckily they had plenty (again, a very good thing) however, with the caveat being they just don’t work many of the times. A few examples of this being listed below

While signing up, i immediately noticed a flayed tricep pulldown rope that everyone has to use. As someone who has worked at a gym before, this is something an employee should typically put a work order in for, and judging by the fact that it looks torn so badly, it’s been getting worse and worse with no apparent fix in sight. It should have been replaced very long ago.

I picked out a lat pulldown machine to do my back exercise, and began to try setting the weight for it. However, the switches that you flip to set the weight would simply just not flip. Because the center pole was tilted like 90° to the right not allowing for the clip to latch

certain things like the hole in the wall, the bathroom counters being soaked in water, zero weight clips, the scale being stuck and unable to weigh me properly without messing with the dial… so many of these things are just so difficult to get wrong. I have sympathy in the sense that they’ve got a lot of people in this gym, but there are ways to have a massive gym and also keep it clean and well maintained. If you want a good example of this, see EōS fitness and...

Editing to respond to the owner: The original membership contract actually does not say anything about calling an 800 number so that is false. I pulled ours up to review. Your policy is also not clear by any means when in half of these reviews you see within the last 6-8 months it is a policy where people need only come in to sign a form. Then the other half appears to be an updated policy of having to call this number. So, again it is NOT clear. Also, just a suggestion, if you want your policy to be more clear (I am sure you can clearly state your policy) then please make sure your mgt. is effectively training the staff who are answering the phones on how to very clearly communicate the policy. I believe if they were trained properly and could communicate that well over the phone OR in person it would alleviate much frustration for many people and would result in less negative reviews for your business. When we called we advised we have without any notice had to move away from Fayetteville and would need to cancel. The young man on the phone said "okay you'll have to come in to get a card with a phone number on it". We said - that is not possible, we have MOVED and are no where near your gym. We asked if he could just give us the number on the card... I mean if you are trying to have people call a number to cancel instead of comig in to cancel, why make people come in to get a card with a phone number to cancel. Very Redundant. This young man actually put us on hold to "go ask someone if he could do that"???? He came back and advised he could give us the phone number. So, he gave us the number. We asked if we could freeze/ suspend since the number cannot be called over the weekend and our next payment was due the next week. He literally had no idea how to directly answer the question which relates to poor mgt. training him. We just ate the next payment and have cancelled. The really sad thing here is we actually enjoyed this gym very much for the years of membership, loyal since it first opened and much time was spent there. Not really any other complaints. I think that should be the most frustrating thing for you, the owner. That a loyal patron for years could have such a sour taste in their mouth from a very adverse discussion with someone representing your brand. You don't manage to accumulate the absolute abundance of reviews stating exactly the same thing we have said if your cancellation policy is clear. One or two people... might be a fluke. As many bad reviews for this as you have, it's not by mistake, it's by design. Wishing you all the very best in your future endeavors.

Believe every single review you see about them being a predatory gym! All these reviews are NOT lying to you! They are predatory in the difficulty they put you through to cancel your membership. Only people who are predatory in business affairs will make it to where you have to jump through hoops to be able to keep your OWN money that indeed does NOT belong to them when you are NOT under a contract. Go...