Gyms and Schools. What should you consider when setting up or upgrading a gym at your school?
One of the greatest mistakes authorities make is in the building itself. They try to fit the school gym into an existing classroom or a room designed for something else. These are almost always too small and are often not built properly to accommodate a gym and gym equipment. The space and design are often both totally inadequate. I have been guilty of this when I was teaching, but not by choice, as a disused classroom, the old library or a disused storage shed were the options given.
Flooring: Flooring is the big one as flooring can and often is, the biggest cost in setting up a school gym. To bypass this cost, schools will often use their current flooring, which is usually, a hard concrete floor, sweat seeking carpet, or a combination of all. Additionally, rooms often have pillars / dividers or small off shoot rooms and are invariably not high enough to fit taller machines such a Smith Machines and Lat Pull Downs. These rooms are invariably not electrically wired to support a variety of cardio machines, especially treadmills that require bespoke wiring. They are usually poorly ventilated with inadequate lighting. Finally, they are not designed for movement but for sedentary activities. Not sweating, dropping weights, running, jumping etc and have no mechanism for temperature control either cooling or heating. Cooling is a huge problem in Queensland summers.
Space: Not enough room. Almost always. What does this mean. There is an actual formula that designers use: square metres by the number of potential users. An old classroom, using this formula can support only about 10-12 people. Not even enough for a team or squad. What happens then is that way too much equipment is ordered and it becomes overcrowded and often dangerous to use. Any free areas, which are essential in a gym design, gets used up by too much equipment. The importance of free space. These areas have several / multiple purposes:
- Warm/Down Area
- Stretching /mobility
- Prehab/Rehab
- Priming area
- Bespoke area for boxing, wrestling, yoga ,dancing etc. Also an area for abs / glutes plus an area for any skills activities.
- Circuits
- Battle ropes
- Sled push/pulls
The solution to the above is get in early and negotiate an area bigger than what you need. Don’t worry, you will use it. Try and get a new area not an existing one so that you can have input into the interior design and also into the potential interplay between inside and outside the gym. This is really important if you are designing high-performance activities so that an outside court or field can be used concurrently for both skills and fitness activities.
Gym Design: Apart from workplace health and safety rules there are several common-sense rules that should be followed:
- Don’t overcrowd the floor plan
- Have designated walkways inside and outside the floor plan so all equipment is safely and easily accessible.
- Differentiate between weights and cardio areas
- Where possible give the cardio area an outlook like a window.
- Have specific power points for treadmills and enough space behind and next to each machine.
- Keep access to doors and exits clear at all times.
- Demarcate areas in the gym for specific activities e.g. lifting platforms in specific areas and all leg exercises in the same spot.
- Make sure you have plenty of free space
- Install and budget for water fountains
- Budget for fans and other cooling devices
- Budget for proper flooring that can be vacuumed, mopped and swept
- Provide plenty of cleaning materials.
Equipment Selection: Arguably the most important consideration. Please consider the following:
- Try and purchase all equipment from the same supplier, especially the cardio equipment. This helps tremendously with any future warranty work
- Agree early and budget for a regular maintenance schedule.
- Make sure all equipment is cleaned after every session
- Select equipment that is suitable for the entire school population. Get plenty of dumb bells and multiples of commonly used weights. Get a range of Olympic bar, not just 20kg.
- Don’t just buy what the supplier suggests. Buy what your school wants and needs
- Have a good range of TheraBand tubing for the younger population and also for rehab/prehab
- Make sure all ability levels can do a homeostatic program, not just the elite.
- Lastly get the students in early. Don’t wait until Grade 11. Get them used to following programs in Grade 7 and use light dumbbells, T Band and body weight. They are all forms of resistance training.
I see some or all of the above considerations neglected every day and in a lot of these in places where they should have known better. I’ll finish with my 3 Classics:
- A Brisbane GPS boys school where a magnificent multi level complex was built with an indoor pool, indoor courts, class rooms a huge gymnastics area and a weights room that was way too small and couldn’t even fit a rugby team all at once.
- Another GPS Boys school where I prescribed programs for several years. A benefactor gave them basically an open chequebook and a huge complex was built. Huge basketball area, gymnastics and a reasonably sized gym with a very poor equipment selection catering nearly solely for the rowing program as the sports master was also the rowing coach and he helped design it. They had about 30 x Concept 2 rowers and about 6 x prone pull stations but not enough actual weights for a rugby team to lift effectively.
- A girl’s private school in The Darling Downs. They built a huge complex with 2 indoor pools, a gym that boasted 3 basketball courts and multiple indoor volleyball and badminton courts. They asked me to design a weights facility. They gave me an old storeroom on the side that measured 8m by 4m. A joke. They did see the error of this, and I helped design a beautiful High-Performance Gym that exists today.
I trust that these annecdotes will help when you are tasked with setting up a gym at your school.
Find out more here – Certificate III and IV in Fitness | Personal Trainer Course / Fit Education