It was almost exactly a year ago when the CrossFit Games, the Super Bowl of fitness, kicked off what was supposed to be a two-year stay in Fort Worth, as only the third major home of the company’s flagship event at the end of the professional functional fitness season. What followed the anticipation was tragedy during the first event, when a well-known competitor drowned and the weekend was overshadowed by grieving spectators and competitors alike.
CrossFit, both the workout methodology and gyms, have and will endure despite the negative feelings some might associate with the corporate entity. One of those enduring gyms is CrossFit Westwood. Nestled on the Near Southside, the gym has been humming with grotesquely fit people for more than eight years now. Westwood served as the local affiliate headquarters (a CrossFit franchise) during 2024’s CrossFit Games and held workouts and clinics with athletes and influencers who possess large followings in the fitness community. There are many sizes of these boutique gyms throughout North Texas, the country, and the world, but Westwood’s membership of approximately 300 patrons is on the larger side among many who operate out of small warehouses, storefronts, or anywhere they can acquire commercial real estate cheaply enough to keep the lights on in a competitive and often turbulent industry.
Matt Haynes, owner of CrossFit Westwood, has already expanded the space once to accommodate his growing clientele and increase offerings to his members, but it wasn’t until his wife finished her fellowship in orthopedic surgery that he decided to take the big leap of moving the gym.
Haynes, who moved to Kansas with his wife for a year, returned in 2023 with big ideas of how to create a CrossFit space that doesn’t fit the mold of what most garage-vibe facilities have fostered over the last 20 years since the training style started gaining traction. Haynes, a self-described workout addict, spent his year away training out of a large commercial gym, and the insight gelled with some moves he’d already made at Westwood that his clients appreciated.
“The group schedule really didn’t work for everyone, so we started adding more traditional machines to the expanded area and allowed people 24-hour access to fit their schedules,” Haynes said on some of the ways he broke the mold of other group-fitness gyms.
The next step is a huge one in many facets. Haynes has purchased the former Ridgmar Movie Tavern and is turning it into one of the only CrossFit gyms of its kind anywhere. Building a large commercial gym is not unique at face value — most “globo gyms” are large, housed in retrofitted grocery stores, or purpose-built with huge corporate money. CrossFit gyms, though, are usually mom-and-pop, upstart operations that fold all the time for revenue reasons, but Haynes’ proven success at the current location, along with his investors, will hand him sole control of a hybrid gym offering amenities and options not usually available to a crowd accustomed to rolling on chalk-filled horse-stall mats and losing their hearing thanks to the roar of drum fans in sweltering summers with no air-conditioning.
Haynes’ vision is to combine the traditional top-tier machines of modern bodybuilding gyms — along with dedicated space for them (8,000 square feet) — with areas (4,500 square feet) full of equipment for CrossFit classes, HyRox training, or whatever your favorite form of personal-demon slaying is branded. On top of that, CrossFit Westwood’s new home will offer an area for contrast therapy, which for those whose spouses don’t force them to listen to Dr. Andrew Hubermann, are saunas and ice baths. Haynes visited a sauna-focused establishment in College Station and enjoyed it so much that he knew the methods belonged in his new gym, though he’d charge far less as they’re included with all-access membership.
Along with typical amenities offered at high-end gyms (though not usually CrossFit ones), Westwood will lease space to Peak Performance, run by Julian Carreno, a physical therapist and certified orthopedic manual therapist. Additionally, Amy Robbins, a nurse anesthetist who owns Youthful Magnolia on 8th Avenue, offers a full catalogue of aesthetic services but will be more focused on wellness products like bloodwork and hormone therapy.
“You don’t have to run all over Fort Worth to get all your fitness needs met,” Haynes said when expounding on his one-stop body shop vision that he’s hoping to have open for full operation by March 2026.
This vision does come at a cost, though within the realm of or less than what your typical group-class gym would charge. Chains of boutique fitness studios like Orangetheory range from $150 to $250 per month for unlimited memberships, while F45 outlets are similar. CrossFit gyms have a wider range, but typically $150 is the lower end. That can easily eclipse $200 depending on the location and size. With CrossFit Westwood’s new home still under renovation, Haynes is offering foundational memberships to the first 450 members at $199 for 24-hour access along with contrast therapy. After those spots are gone, he expects $250 to be the standard all-access rate, which positions the gym at a very competitive price point for the amenities compared to other group fitness options, with the added flexibility of being able to train outside the constraints of a class schedule.
CrossFit as a company and brand has endured its share of struggles, which were only exacerbated last year during the first-event death of Serbian athlete Lazar Dukic. When the original owner of the brand, Greg Glassman, sold the company in 2020 — driven largely by a self-imposed social-media debacle — it was purchased by private equity firm Berkshire Partners, and a new CEO took the helm. That leader has since been replaced, and Berkshire is searching for a buyer, citing declining affiliate numbers and financial issues. Despite the seeming devaluation of a brand that ballooned from nothing, Haynes retains his affiliation and cites the visibility through CrossFit’s website as valuable for his gym. Many similar gyms have dropped their official franchise status to save their yearly fee, but CrossFit Westwood is one of only four affiliates operating within the 820 Loop, though he’s about to set his apart from anything else within the brand in the region or even the world.
