GymEquip: September 2015

Thursday, 17 September 2015

6 Tips for Buying the Right Fitness Equipment for Your Gym

You’re well on your way to starting your gym – you’ve found the perfect location and the space is coming to life. However, an important component is to determine the fitness equipment that is right for your gym. Here are some tips to help you decide on the kinds of equipment you need to outfit your facility.

Analyse Your Space

The first step is to analyse the amount of space you actually have to work with. A gym isn’t just a square room with rows upon rows of equipment. Rather, there are locker rooms, bathrooms, lobbies, offices, group fitness rooms, studios and the like that end up taking up a lot of space.

A good figure to keep in mind when considering your space is a 60/40 rule. A 2009 IHRSA report quantified that 60% of your gym’s space will be areas for strength and cardio equipment. The remaining 40% will be used for the other areas. If you’re opening a franchised gym, your corporate company will have specifics on how much space is required per function.

Visualise The Areas

By this point, you’ve probably walked into the empty rooms of your facility and pictured how each room is going to be laid out. But now that it’s time to actually fill those rooms, you should use any available resources and seek out the help of experts.

The Precor Space Planner can help you accurately fill your space. Through this planner, you can create a layout by entering your facility’s approximate dimensions and browse through the variety of Precor strength and cardio equipment to discover the most efficient layout for your gym.

Choose Your Mix

The IHRSA research also helps you out in determining which type of equipment you should offer. They state that in fitness-only gyms the space tends to be split up between three major areas—strength equipment (47% of the space), cardio machines (33%), and group exercise space (20%).

Franchised gyms tend to have a bit more specificity built into their facility’s layout from their corporate partner. Franchisors have rules that state how much space is needed for cardio machines, strength equipment and group exercise areas.

Decide Whether to Network

Networked fitness is growing in popularity and the Precor Preva networked fitness technology is at the forefront of the movement. Offering your gym members this technology not only enhances their workout experience, but will also benefit you as the operator. You can monitor equipment functionality while your members can track their workouts.

Providing your exercisers with the Preva technology will encourage them to keep on track with their fitness journey and motivate them to continue coming to your facility.

Determine the Price

You can’t think about fitness equipment without thinking about price. You and your gym will have unique needs and you’ll have to determine whether leasing fitness equipment or buying it outright is the best choice for your situation.

Leasing equipment will provide you with flexibility in the machines you offer and allow you to ‘upgrade’ to new equipment every few years. But buying equipment makes the equipment an asset and means you can sell it when you decide to do so. When making this large financial decision, it’s best to talk to a sales rep and a tax advisor to provide insight into which option is best for your gym.

Consider the Upkeep

Regardless of whether you lease or buy your equipment, it will be a big investment and you want to make sure it will last as long as possible. This means investigating maintenance plans and warranty options.

The majority of gym equipment manufacturers do offer warranty packages that cover replacement parts and service technicians. Be sure to ask your sales rep for options.

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