Summit Strong — Local services in Denver

I've been a member for nearly three years now. It used to be a solid gym at the old location, I enjoyed it and had very little to complain about. It was recommended to me by friends, the freeweights equipment was good and they had mats if you wanted to hit bags or actually train martial arts. After three months using the new location, I honestly have to say it has not even laterally met that experience.

First off, the AC at this location doesn't work. It has not worked at all since they've opened. It is consistently 85 degrees or more in here regardless of the time of day, and i've seen it as high as 90. They brought in swamp coolers to help and it actually made it worse by significantly raising the humidity in the space. I understand "breaking a sweat" but good lord this place is a MRSA outbreak waiting to happen. It doesn't help that the locker rooms reek of mildew at the moment. It's been three long summer months, let's get this taken care of already!

I liked to kickbox at the old gym, but now those mats are gone. They do have some room to work but the rubber floors are meant for weights to fall on and will absolutely tear up your feet. A lot of the boxing and MMA equipment they used to have has disappeared; they used to have stuff like a cobra bag, an extra large heavy bag and a speed bag that hung from the ceiling and I haven't seen it since. They also put the remaining bags on a sliding rail system that in theory is a great idea, but the sliding fasteners have no rubber mounts to them and they make a ton of noise. At the very least rubber tires should be set under the long bags; this is very common in muay thai gyms and it works!

You can't safely do olympic lifts here anymore either. Now that they've moved to a second-story location with no platforms or adequate sound dampening I was told I had to use drop pads for the barbell to land on because the neighbors complain about the noise. The owner told me it would be temporary until they had some hearing with the Beauvallon ownership but it seems like this is just the rule now. I'll argue all day that it's not nearly as safe as just dropping a barbell with bumpers on the padded floor, especially when trying to use any significant amount of weight because if you miss the pads by a few inches the barbell will roll off into another direction and possibly hit someone. I had a barbell roll back into my shins and got an awesome bruise because I missed these stupid pads from the overhead position. So olympic lifting seems out of the question here.

The gym itself is fine. It's more or less the same equipment from the last gym. They have a lot of things to use. It's also nothing you can't find at a 24 Hour fitness for half the price. They have a cold tub and a sauna, and that's all fine and good if you believe in their merits but I don't see another $70 a month in value there on top of the membership fees. This honestly should have been folded into our existing memberships at no charge for the delays and inconveniences we've been dealing with over the last six months, but that's just me.

I waited three months for this gym to finally reopen from the mediocre temporary location they had across the street (after several delays and at full membership cost), and I only renewed my contract because of the hype they built as they promised the equipment and use of the space would be at least the same, if not better.

For the record: the staff members and trainers are great people, and I don't believe they're responsible for my gripes. But I'm also not surprised to see almost identical reviews to this one. It's completely understandable that we would be frustrated with not getting a free contract release due to this transition not meeting our expectations, and we've only been met with excuses and defensive statements about "paying what we agreed to" which is an incredible cop-out considering the lack of communication from their end about these legitimate complaints.

Needless to say I'm currently weighing my options but it's not likely I will stay...

Not a review writer truly ever!!! If i don't like something I usually just mind my own business. But jumping on the band wagon of other disgruntled paying members so that others can be warned. I joined this gym in December under the guise of moving into a "new and improved" location within two months- lie number one. They then sold me by telling me there would be a recovery room INCLUDED in the membership (sauna and cold plunge) which was lie number two. It does not take a genius to know it is extremely misleading to say these things, and promise things that are not reality. There are even videos on their instagram saying that we would be moving into the space in February (wildly inaccurate). Fast forward many months later- not only were we all paying full price during a temporary location with no locker rooms and one single toilet for the entire facility, but they refused to discount our membership and were rude during this process. Total lack of respect for customers that are trying to support you during a transition. Now finally in mid May they moved into their new facility and it is a total down grade, not to mention the recovery room is almost an additional 100 dollars which I have no words for as this was explained as an included service initially. SO- When I kindly inquired about my contract/cancelling my membership I was met with someone who could care less about their paying customers. They were extremely curt and did not try to talk to me on a person to person level at all. I did not come for them or their business just asked them to right their wrong.

As a business owner you have a responsibility to deliver a service. When you mess up- you take accountability and rectify the situation. Not gaslight all your paying customers/drive away all future business.

SIDENOTE: The actual employees are lovely and kind. It is clearly messed up money hungry management that will probably doom this business.

update as a response to the business owner: Kinda weird that there are multiple of us that were told misleading information...? Does not seem like its a mistake on my end when I sign up for something and then do not...

I initially posted this as a 1 star review, but was so impressed by how this business handled this issue after the fact that I decided to change it to reflect the situation. Below is the original review and account. Roughly 30 minutes after I posted this review, I received a voicemail from the general manager in question, in which he apologized for coming off as rude, and offered me a free week-long trial period at the gym (something they aren't currently offering because of COVID, so this is an exception). He explained that he hoped this would give me an opportunity to have a better experience at the gym. When I returned the next day for my second trial class, another manager, Geni, was consistently very kind and helpful to me. After my class she not only set me up with my free week trial, but she apologized to me personally and told me that she had spoken to the manager I had the initial interaction with concerning the issue. She also said that the owners of the gym were aware of the situation and that they had quickly taken steps behind the scenes to address this issue within their staff to prevent this scenario from happening again in the future. She expressed that she was happy to help me in any way she could to improve my experience there. While this is a very brief synopsis of what was a longer and more thorough conversation, I want to emphasize that I felt it was a genuine and sincere interaction and I left feeling heard and cared about. This gym has earned back my respected, and they've shown me that they're willing to go the extra mile to resolve issues - something that can be rare and honestly surprised me. Also, Mark's strike class was awesome. His energy made me feel super welcome and better about my experience even before my conversation with Geni.

ORIGINAL REVIEW IN PHOTO (due to...