F45 Franchisee Behind 30+ Studios Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Closes Locations

The ghosts of F45’s rise-and-fall era aren’t quite laid to rest. Mad Fitness Group, which built out F45 Training studios across six states, has filed for bankruptcy and plans to shed its money-losing gyms

A multistate F45 Training franchisee has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, telling a Florida court it intends to close or sell roughly half its studios and reorganize around the boutique fitness locations it believes can pay their own way.

Mad Fitness Group LLC and 31 affiliated entities filed for Subchapter V protection Aug. 9 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida, according to court records. Subchapter V protection is a streamlined form of Chapter 11 designed for qualifying small businesses.

The filings do not involve F45 Training Incorporated, the franchisor, which has not filed for bankruptcy.

The company operates franchised F45 studios — the circuit-training concept with exercise stations and video-cued workouts — across Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Kansas and Missouri. 

At its peak in 2023, the group had developed or acquired 32 studios, according to a declaration. Going into bankruptcy, management identified 16 studios to keep, 15 to close and one, a Kansas City studio, placed under contract for sale.

The group reported about $3.9 million in assets as of Dec. 31, 2025, against some $20.5 million owed to related parties. The declaration lists no secured debt and pegs outside unsecured debt at about $527,584, spread across roughly 59 creditors.

Reported combined gross income was about $11.3 million in 2025 and roughly $6.3 million through earlier this month. In the time before the filing, the studios generated roughly $900,000 in gross monthly revenue against monthly expenses topping $1 million, according to the documents.

The filing attributes the financial challenges to aggressive multi-unit expansion during F45’s rapid growth as a public company, along with operational problems under early leadership. 

Hurwitz stated that a former operating executive recommended building studios 20% to 30% larger than the standard F45 format, raising rent and construction costs, and that the company later found membership-billing failures including members who used studios without being charged and introductory discounts that had been programmed to run for the life of a membership. 

The company installed a new president in July 2024, who cut payroll and corrected member records, according to the filing.

The declaration states the company vacated 15 studios before filing, including locations in Miami, suburban Maryland and metro Atlanta. 

On Reddit, members of several shuttered studios across Maryland, Florida, Georgia and the Kansas City area described the closures as abrupt, with some saying they were given little notice and offered transfers to other Mad Fitness Group locations. 

Athletech News could not independently verify the individual accounts.

The group employs about 156 people and owed no back wages at filing, court records show. It reported being current on payroll and sales taxes.

A status conference is set for Oct. 1, and the deadline for creditors to file claims is Oct. 19.

The timing of Mad Fitness Group’s move into F45’s orbit aligns with the franchisor’s own boom-and-bust. Mad Fitness signed its deal with F45 in May 2021, near the brand’s peak. The franchisor had gone public that year at a $1.4 billion valuation with stated plans to outgrow Planet Fitness and McDonald’s. 

It then quickly cratered — laying off staff, slashing revenue guidance in 2022 and watching its stock drop more than 90% from its IPO price. By August 2023, it voluntarily delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after its shares fell below a dollar and it disclosed material errors in its earlier financial statements. 

That same year, the company brought in a new CEO, Tom Dowd, and fresh financing to steady itself in 2023. Under Dowd, F45 regrouped, rebranding last year as FIT House of Brands and serving as an umbrella covering F45 Training, fusion concept FS8 and Vaura Pilates, on the back of what the company reported as a record year of studio growth.

In February of this year, F45 reached a $10.5 million settlement to resolve a securities class action alleging it misled investors about its growth around the 2021 IPO. A federal judge granted preliminary approval in April, with a final-approval hearing set for later this month.