Crunch Fitness was founded as a small gym in a basement studio in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1989.
As of February, it announced the opening in San Angelo, Texas, of its 400th location.
Crunch operates in 34 states and the District of Columbia, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and Spain.
Crunch is expanding across the U.S. and internationally, with ties to Jacksonville.
Craig Pepin-Donat is executive vice president and co-founder of Crunch Franchise, a role since 2009.
His LinkedIn profile says that in Jacksonville, “he built and manages the operational infrastructure for the second largest fitness franchise in the world.”
On April 4, Crunch Franchise announced the launch of its first comprehensive National Training Center at the Harbour Village gym in Jacksonville that opened in January.
The release said the Crunch National Training Center is part of Crunch University, which offers onboarding and educational programming.
Crunch University has been part of franchise training since 2011 but evolved with the opening of the training center in a gym location that offers hands-on engagement.
It is the setting for multiday, in-person classroom and in-gym training sessions for franchise owners, executives, general managers, member service representatives, trainers and cleaning staff.
It also offers education on gym operations, planning, presale, construction, marketing, sales, operations, group fitness and personal training.
“This fully operational gym brings classroom training to life with real-time, hands-on training in a gym environment,” said a news release in April.
Pepin-Donat said the investment in the National Training Center “has dramatically elevated the support we provide to our franchise partners and their teams.”
“Our goal is to create as many training ‘touch points’ as possible from the moment they sign a lease, move into pre-sale and build-out, and then into a fully operational gym.”