I took a trip to Texas for the weekend to visit family and attend a friend's Marine Corps retirement. I landed in Austin and stayed in Hutto with my mom.
After a hearty Texas BBQ lunch, I looked for a local CrossFit box to drop in on. I found CrossFit Hutto on Yelp and called ahead to see if I could attend a class. The man who answered the phone said his name was Lance and was very polite. He told me I could attend either the Friday 5pm and 6pm class. There would be a $20 drop in fee or I could attend the free Saturday morning class. I decided to take the Friday 6pm class because it's really hot in Texas right now and figured it would be cooler in the evening. Plus I have to leave early in the morning on Saturday to attend the retirement ceremony.
I arrived at the facility about 15 minutes prior to class. I was immediately impressed with the size of the property. The 5pm class was still in session and people were hanging around. I walked up to the front counter and put my things down. There didn't seem to be any gym employees there to greet me or check me in. I stood around for a while waiting to be greeted. There were a couple guys sitting on the couches behind the counter on their phones. After a few minutes of standing around, I decided to just go stretch and warm up on my own.
Once the 5pm class ended, one of the guys who was sitting around got up and called the 6pm class up to the front. I followed the crowd to the front where the coach said hi and began to check members in on the Wodify app. I told him I was dropping in and he had me fill out the waiver while he instructed the rest of the class on their warm up drills. While I was filling out the waiver, the woman who was coaching the 5pm class came over to say hi and apologized for not greeting me. I told her it was okay because I know how busy it can be.
After signing the waiver, I jumped into the warm-up with the rest of the class. The coach was preparing us to do strict presses for the skill work. I partnered up with a man of similar height to me named Mo. He was very nice and showed me where things were. This proved to be the theme of the class as the coach didn't really interact with me or many of the members. I felt as if I was on my own. Luckily, I do CrossFit workouts regularly and am a Level One coach.
During the strict presses, I gave my partner a couple tips and helped the ladies on the rack next to me. I made sure not to disrupt the coach's class but I felt obliged to help the ladies next to me. They thanked me and said the tips helped. Afterwards, the coach explained the WOD and did a quick demonstration.
The WOD was fairly simple and was only a 10 minute AMRAP. When I was done, I high-fived the other members of the class. I put my equipment away and asked where the restroom was. When I returned a few minutes later, almost everyone was gone and the coach was already locking up. I thanked him for the class and told him my name since we didn't really get introduced properly. He told me his name was Randy and I followed outside so he could finish locking up.
I made it a point to say hi to him since he never really greeted me. At my gym, we make it a habit to meet every new member or visitor and make them feel welcome. We always have them introduce themselves and share something about themself. So the fact that no one at CrossFit Hutto really took the time to get to know me was a little disappointing, but every CrossFit box is different.
Overall, I'm glad I got a good workout in while on my trip. I wasn't charged a drop-in fee, so that was nice. I checked the clothing rack to see if I could buy a shirt to support them but they didn't have any men's shirts available. The facility was very nice and I liked how spacious it was as well as the cool Rogue barbells.
My only recommendation would be for the staff to be more involved with greeting and checking in members and visitors. The whole time I was imagining if my mom had dropped in as a first timer and how no one would have helped her properly workout. In my opinion, that is a very important quality of a CrossFit gym. You can have all the new and fancy equipment available, but if your staff doesn't engage and teach the members properly, people get hurt or feel unengaged. read more