Gyms in Lubbock

Occupations Code Chapter 702, the Texas Health Spa Act, covers most membership gyms: any business selling memberships for exercise instruction or use of facilities. It doesn't cover tax-exempt nonprofits, member-owned private clubs, dance- or aerobics-only studios, rehab providers or school programs. If your gym is covered, it needs a separate registration for each location, renewed every year for $100.

Your contract must include that registration number, and the certificate has to be posted where members can see it. The contract must also state your cancellation and closure rights in conspicuous 10-point type. Members can't waive these rights, and breaking the Act counts as a deceptive trade practice.

Ask each Lubbock gym for its full price in writing. Nationally, Forbes Health cites Statista's $28.58 average monthly membership for 2021, with a range of about $10 to $300. Fixr's January 2025 figures put basic gyms at $15 to $40 a month and well-equipped gyms at $50 to $100.

Look past the monthly rate to the term. Texas caps membership contracts at three years and financed contracts at five years of payments. Add up initiation fees, annual fees and the monthly price over the whole term to compare gyms. The Texas gyms guide has more.

Ask for a copy of the contract to read at home before you sign. Check the renewal terms, how a bank draft is stopped, and whether a freeze is allowed for travel or injury. If a gym is unusable for 30 days or more because of something beyond the owner's control, such as a natural disaster, Texas requires it to extend affected contracts by the same length of time.

Registration and security

The Secretary of State's online health spa search shows whether a gym is registered and whether it has posted security, and a PDF list of registered locations is updated every Wednesday. Unless exempt, a covered gym must post $20,000 to $50,000 of security per location, by surety bond or certificate of deposit, scaled to how much members have prepaid.

Exemptions exist. A gym that never requires contracts or prepayment beyond 31 days, financing, automatic bank drafts or initiation fees can skip security, and so can an established gym that swears every three years to assets over $50,000 per location, five years under substantially the same ownership and no closure complaints. Any gym claiming to be "bonded by the state" is breaking the Act.

New gyms selling presale memberships

A gym that sells before opening must keep that money in an FDIC-insured escrow account until 30 days after it opens, unless exempt. If it doesn't open within 180 days of its first sale, or doesn't stay open 30 days, prepaid members are generally owed a full refund.

A new Lubbock contract can be undone for a full refund: mail written notice and proof of payment by certified mail to the gym's home office before midnight of the third business day after the contract date. Later, you can cancel for a partial refund if the gym closes without offering a site within 10 miles, moves more than 10 miles away, or stops providing advertised services. A member who dies or becomes totally and permanently disabled can cancel and get unearned payments back.

If a gym closes, members have 90 days from the closure notice on the SOS website to claim against its security by mailing their contract and proof of payment. A gym planning to close or relocate must post notice inside and outside each entrance at least 30 days ahead and tell the Secretary of State (the notice isn't required when fire, flood or an act of God forces the closing). The Secretary of State doesn't police how gyms do business, so take a complaint about a Lubbock gym to the Attorney General at (800) 621-0508. See our Lubbock guide for local services, or compare gyms in Midland.