Bucked Up Fitness

I joined Bucked Up Fitness in April 2022 and it is one of the best in the area. They offer a variety of memberships from day pass to options of monthly, 3 months, 6 months and 1 year memberships as well. It’s great that they are the main tenant which allows gym members to use the second floor and plenty of space including turf, kettlebells, dumbbells and 2 aerobics rooms. For those that are looking to rehabilitate injuries Bull City Physical Therapy (Cary, NC) is located on the top floor.

First off let me say I don’t review often. I was very excited when I got offered a 7day free trial. My girlfriend and I went in for a chest day and were pumped to go try it out. First off I’m a bigger dude and so there was little to no plates bench press. I know not everyone uses a lot of weight but it was a struggle to find enough plates for my top set(385). I found myself walking clear across the gym to only find one more plate. I only found enough for 315lbs but that made me feel like I was screwing over everyone else cause I was having to take their plates. For guys that bench over 315 good luck finding weight for you. Second, lots of the machines are either broken or severely used. My GF was doing a Back day cause her shoulder started hurting and she couldn’t even find a decent working lat pulldown. That should be a staple piece of equipment in a gym. Finally, the vibe is TERRIBLE! The music they play is for a college twerk party (red nose, ayyy ladies, gas pedal). I’m not very picky when it comes to gyms but when you don’t have the essentials you kind of force my had to leave a bad review. The only good thing about this gym is the dumbbell selection and the free pre workout you get daily. Honestly I’d rather recommend planet fitness over this heap of garbage of a gym. For 50 a month I’d rather become obese then train here. I’m also a personal trainer and I would be embarrassed to bring a client to bucked up fitness. Overall I’m disappointed in a huge name branded gym having such poor equipment.

Been at this gym for a few months, and I loved the staff. They made gym feel like a family and I loved talking to them at the desk after my workout. Now that the staff has been fired for no real reason, I have no reason to stay. The gym itself was bad. The equipment is frequently broken and the water bottle fountain filter status is always red. When I say the equipment is broken, I mean out of the 6 cables, only 3 work on any given day. The lat pull-down machines also broke every few weeks. Instead of fixing the current equipment, Bucked Up got new equipment like the pendulum squat. Which was fun, but not a staple like the other pieces. Multiple lights in the women’s locker room have been out since December when I first joined. There are so many other issues I overlooked because I had friends who went to this gym and the staff, but now that the staff is gone, most of the current members are switching gyms.

I’ve been a member at this gym for about a year and half and I’ve watch it go completely down hill. When I first signed up I was super excited to become part of a powerlifting based gym. The community was amazing and the workers were incredible. Within the last couple months however, I’ve highly considered cancelling my membership and becoming a member at another gym. This place is FILTHY. There is dust and dirt everywhere and covering everything. There’s never any wipes to clean equipment and there are no longer any towels. They finally cleaned the water fountains but there was pink mold growing on them… Multiple machines have been broken for months and I don’t find it reasonable to pay $60/month for equipment I can’t even use. The previous manager, Lee, was beyond amazing, but for some reason they decided to fire the only superior that members actually liked. The owners/upper management only seem to care about making money and bringing in new members to replace all the people who have left due to feeling the same way I do. If you’re charging that much for a membership, I know full and well there is enough money in the budget to stock cleaning supplies and to hire a cleaner. Start actually caring about your members instead of making enough money to buy yourself a fancy car. Edit: I would like to add that there is now a meme account for the gym basically calling them out for how bad they run the gym and I overheard them talking about how they’re gonna sue the creator of said account. If you have the money for lawyers, use it to FIX THE EQUIPMENT. Absolutely pathetic. Highly recommend checking out another gym. They’re also giving out T-shirt’s to people who give 5 star reviews so they can drown out the honest, bad reviews👎🏻

Oh boy where to start. See this gym WAS great. The former staff were awesome, introducing new fun equipment, fixing equipment semi-regularly, hosting events, keeping shelves stocked with new supps, cleaning up, and strongly encouraging people to put weights away properly IN THE RIGHT PLACES. Then all of them disappeared. Since new management took over a month-ish ago it’s been on a steady decline. Water filters are all bad and never changed, moldy water fountains, dust galore, supps are mostly expired or clumped up (iykyk, like who tries to sell EXPIRED stuff???), never restocked, cables ALWAYS broken and never fixed, and Oak City Open 2024 there got canceled (moved elsewhere). A lot more high schoolers in crocs and sweatpants going there just to mess around, gets on mine and many other serious lifters nerves often and we’re slowly leaving one by one. New staff and the owners are doing nothing about poor gym etiquette and people leaving plates on equipment for others to deal with. Also fun fact: they’re not associated with BuckedUp (the supplement brand), they just got the rights to use the name. They were associated but separated shortly after the gym opened. To the owners: You guys really need to get your act together and communicate with your members more. You need to fix your equipment and get NEW supps in instead of being cheap and trying to sell off expired goods. The vibes have changed here and I’m not really enjoying it as much and don’t feel as motivated. I never even see someone going around cleaning the place anymore, like did you fire her too? It’s unsanitary.

Before I bash this gym, it has/had an amazing community of other members, which they unfortunately probably won't keep for long. This gym used to be an amazing place but has gone downhill exponentially. Firstly, their cable machines take FOREVER to "fix". It took them over 4+ months to get new cables, and then they broke within a few weeks, and one of the cable machines is completely broken, AGAIN. The owners blame it on the cables being "custom made" and "supply chain issues". If that's the case, any competent owner would buy multiple cables and keep them ready as back up, so they could be quickly replaced while you order more. Next, the gym is pretty filthy. I know you don’t go to the gym to be clean, but the amount of dust collected around the nooks and crannies of and around the machines is gross. Machines such as the leg extension, lat pull down, and other cables are frequently broken. There isn’t that many plates either for the amount of squat racks they have. They only have like 2-3 inclinable benches, everybody has a tripod and is recording, and the amount of inconsiderate high schoolers hogging equipment can be an annoyance. They don’t have any towels either (anymore), and half the time there are no wipes to wipe off sweat on machines. They have either fired or lost most of their amazing staff members, including their former manager, Lee, who was loved by almost every gym-goer, with no notice, for no real reason. The owners are incompetent on how to run a business, and are usually just in their offices lounging around, napping, or blaming others for their issues. I’ve never seen them actually do any work. Instead of buying a 100k Denali or a C8 Corvette, maybe get some better cables or machines. Honestly, this is no longer a $50-75/mo gym. There are gyms around the same price that are much superior all around than this gym. Lastly, almost all of the recent (early October 2023) 5 star reviews were because they bribed their members with free t-shirts (which goes against googles policies for reviews)