Designing a gym or training facility is more than just filling a room with various pieces of equipment. With the health and fitness industry in constant growth and more and more people committing to improving their health by being more active, creating an attractive and effective training area suited for its users is key to attracting new customers and retaining members. Hence, gym design and the process of creating optimised training areas, like any other specialism has a set of key principles that should not be overlooked.
Know your users
This might sound obvious however many gyms are focused on the products rather than on the people that will be using them. In that sense, identifying who will be or who is using your gym and what their aims are is key. For example, if your gym is mainly a circuit-based facility purchasing one of our Strongman Yoke will not effectively compliment your training space. On the other hand, creating a circuit focused area with specifically designed flooring and adding one of our ERA-FIT sleds could offer multiple new training solutions.
Consequently, if you can understand your customers/users, their training and aims, and provide them with the equipment and guidance to develop and enjoy their training experience then your facility is on the right tracks. Hence, getting feedback from your customers and discussing what they feel may be missing or what types of training they would like to engage with can be a great way to start developing your facility.
Think Functional
With the stereotypes surrounding weightlifting, strongman, CrossFit and powerlifting slowly disappearing such types of functional training are all on the increase. Users have, overall, become more knowledgeable and more comfortable using free weights, Olympic bars and lifting platforms which cater for a wide range of exercises and movements. Additionally, with the assistance of knowledgeable coaches who can guide users further, the “People don’t know how to use it” excuse for sticking to sometimes more expensive resistance-based machines should be eliminated.
Hence specialist spaces for lifters such as the ERA-FIT VIRTUS Full Rack offer several benefits when compared to traditional CV/Resistance based gym designed facilities:
- Flexible spaces which allow for a multitude of exercises.
- Space saving, whereas traditional machines can take up large spaces and only offer one training exercise functional solutions can be created to suit your training facility, optimising the space available.
- Customisable, with ERA-FIT you can fully customise your racks to include storage and various other add-ons even down to the branding. Long lasting and robust, the lifespan of a well-maintained lifting space will generally be longer than one of a resistance-based machine, more prone to breaking.
Less is More
It is common to meet gym owners that feel they need every piece of kit available on the market to make their space stand out from the competitors. However, this has the tendency to merely crowd the training facility limited the amount of space available for the users, there’s nothing worse for a gym-goer to feel stuck between a crowd of machines not being able to simply stretch out on a mat. Incorporating bespoke solutions to your gym design is a great way to look at making the best use of the space available in your training area. Sometimes including less pieces of kit can offer more training possibilities for your users and create a better experience.
The key to effective gym designs, can often be recognised in a few important aspects:
- They meet the users’ training requirements.
- They optimise the available space whilst not crowding the various areas of the facility.
- They provide environments in which the different types of users all feel comfortable to train in.
As a result, identifying the aim of your facility and who will be training there should be the priority for any gym design. At ERA-FIT we offer free non-obligatory advice and are happy to discuss any gym design solutions, contact us at info@erafit.co.uk to discuss any project or any queries you may have.
References:
1.Smithers, R. (2015). UK gym membership spending up by 44%. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/18/uk-gym-membership-spending-up-by-44-per-cent [Accessed 1 Nov. 2019].
2.Pedragosa, V. and Correia, A., 2009. Expectations, satisfaction and loyalty in health and fitness clubs. international journal of sport management and marketing, 5 (Pedragosa, V., & Correia, R. (2009). Expectations, satisfaction and loyalty in health and fitness clubs. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 5 (4), 450-464. http://dx. doi. org/10.1504/IJSMM. 2009.023371), pp.450-464
