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Crossfit Gym Under Fire For Kicking Out Members Who 'Didn't Fit Vision'

LEHI, Utah (CBS4) - Two women are crying foul after a crossfit gym in Utah kicked them out because they apparently didn't fit the gym's vision.

Katherine Ashby, who agreed to an on-camera interview this week with Salt Lake City TV station KSL TV, said she and several others got emails notifying them they were no longer welcome at Colossal Crossfit. The gym is located in Lehi to the south of Salt Lake City.

"I asked him why I had been kicked out and he said 'Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to understand, you don't fit with the vision,'" she said.

In a Facebook post, Ashby expressed extreme dismay over the gym owner's decision.

"I have loved all of the ladies that I had the pleasure of working out with. You have truly been a blessing in my life," she wrote in the post.

She also shared the wording of the email she got:

Thank you for being a part of Colossal CrossFit. At this time, we have decided to make large changes to our facility, what it represents, who we hope to help in their fitness and an overall change in Vision. In light of many things that we wish to change and better, we felt your future at our facility would not fit in with our new vision and what we want to achieve. We have decided to let you further your fitness and goals at a facility that can provide what you need and what best suites you. We did not charge your account for this month nor was Gymnastics. If you need any help in finding other facilities we can link you the other local CrossFits.

Dani Warren also spoke to the TV station and said the email came as a surprise, particularly considering she and Ashby had regularly attended the gym and worked out hard as members. She said they "felt like they belonged."

"I mean it's a gym. It's, like, you're going to the gym to work out so I mean I don't know what other vision there is," Warren said.

The gym owner turned down an offer to do an on-camera interview, but he told KSL-TV off camera that he can do as he wishes with his private business and that his facility just won't be able to meet the exercise goals of the women with its new vision.

Colossal Crossfit's website touts the fact that they have a "community that supports each other" at their gym and a recent Instagram post shows dozens of women packed in the gym doing a workout together to help a cancer victim. In the gym's "About Us" section the site shares a mission statement of "Family Focused - Performance Driven - Proven Results." It says the workouts there are an hour long and are "broken into 10 minutes of warm-up/stretching, 15 minutes of strength training, and 35 minutes of heart pounding, sweat inducing, muscle making madness."

Crossfit kettlebells generic
(credit: Getty Images/Sally Stone/Contributor)

Crossfit has been growing in popularity in recent years both as a way to get in shape and as a competitive event. Last month CBS Sports announced they planned to air over 200 hours of programming surrounding the 2018 Reebok CrossFit Games.

Someone who identified themselves as a gym employee responded to Ashby's Facebook post in the comment section and implied that Ashby had been kicked out for saying negative things about the owners.

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