My name is William Crowder. I’m a gym owner, an equipment collector and an equipment dealer, and for the most part they’re all intertwined. I independently own and operate 5 gyms throughout Virginia, with no partners and no investors.
To summarize how Iron Mothership came about: I wasn’t happy or fulfilled at my old job, and like many regular gym goers, the highlight of most of my days was going to the gym after work. I worked for the state and felt the timeline to move into a position I’d be happier with was much longer than I wanted, regardless of my effort or how hard I was willing to work. With limited immediate promotional opportunities until I had more years in, I figured if I wasn't going to be making much money, I at least wanted to do something that made me happy to get up and go to work every day. And what better place to go to work than where I looked forward to going to whenever I could when I wasn't at work?
In January 2016 I had a SLAP repair on my right shoulder that took me out of work for several months. I used that time to research my pipe dream of opening a gym in my small hometown of South Hill, VA. The Fit Club opened about 8 months later on August 1, 2016, although it looked a lot different than it does now. I basically lived in the gym those first several years, and thankfully it exceeded what anybody thought it could do, including myself. I was able to buy the building in 2018, and then I focused on the next goal: opening my second gym.
I spent the next couple years prioritizing that new goal and was ready to open in the spring of 2020. I had already bought all of the equipment for the second location, and then the COVID pandemic hit. The forced government shutdowns soon followed and I was worried I'd lose everything. My wife and I had recently had our first child, and my new family’s only source of income was shut off almost overnight. Out of necessity, I pivoted into selling the equipment I’d bought in preparation of opening the second gym. As the "two weeks to flatten the curve" turned into two plus months of not being allowed to even open the doors to my small business I had poured every dime I had into, I ended up selling much of what I had in my first gym too. Everybody wanted equipment immediately, and unfortunately due to the forced shutdown, I had time to get more equipment in before I was allowed to reopen. I used that time to significantly upgrade my gym, and I basically haven’t stopped since. I went on to open three more gyms on my own (The Fit Club in South Boston, Danville, and Kenbridge), then bought into and eventually bought out my 5th, American Iron Barbell Club in Newport News, VA.
My first gym in South Hill and my second in South Boston are about 45 minutes apart, and the small town of Clarksville sits right in between. Ever since I opened The Fit Club South Boston in the spring of 2021, people kept asking me to put one in Clarksville, since it would connect the two and members can use all locations. With a growing family, I wanted to stay closer to home, and I decided my “last” gym would be the ultimate passion project.
The original plan for the 33,000 sq ft warehouse was to use the back 13,000 sq ft for equipment sales and storage and turn the rest into my “final” gym. I wanted to fill the other 20,000+ sq ft with the best collection of equipment I could get my hands on. I knew it would be extreme overkill for such a small area, but I saw it as my personal collection, plus it would give me the storage space I’d desperately wished I had for years to more easily upgrade my existing gyms. For several reasons, one being that I went way faster down the equipment rabbit hole than ever expected, the vision changed. The whole building filled up with equipment pretty fast, and I soon realized it wasn’t big enough for even the equipment sales and storage, much less my dream gym.
I’ve never really been one to stick to a set plan. I simply try to seize the right opportunities as they come. The new vision is a smaller 6,000–8,000 sq ft gym in the front of the Clarksville warehouse. Then, in time and when I’m able, I’ll build the real Iron Mothership the right way from the jump, but it needs to be in a much bigger building and a much bigger city, with the goal of making it the most well-equipped, collector-oriented gym in the world.
I’ve built some great connections and partnerships with several manufacturers over the past 10 years, and getting the warehouse space really helped build on that. I’m constantly buying, selling and trading used equipment, and I also became an authorized dealer for some of the best equipment manufacturers, such as Atlantis and Nautilus, among others.
When you deal with Iron Mothership, you’re always dealing with me directly: someone who not only has built multiple gyms from scratch, but is also the same person who finds the machines, does all the buying and does all the selling, and is as passionate about equipment as most anybody you’ll find. I’m a small-town guy who was lucky to turn his hobby into a career. Thankfully it worked out well the gyms, so I doubled down and did it again with equipment. The Iron Mothership is a direct result of that.