Recent years have seen a wave of student accommodation construction. Let’s look at the landscape for incorporating high-end student gyms in both new-build student accommodation and retrofitting gyms into existing facilities.
Today’s student accommodation is highly specified. If you are going to incorporate a gym, it’s important to ensure your student gym designers have the end-user’s needs as the core design pillar. A survey conducted by Mystudenthalls.com, found that students rate a good gym above a great student bar and being near nightlife as prerequisites for their ideal student halls accommodation.
But how do you make sure that your state-of-the-art gym is designed to meet the requirements of your members once they’ve enrolled? There are several challenges specific to university gyms that student gym designers need to address.
Backgrounder – why incorporate a gym in student accommodation?
Taking maximum advantage of the university gym may not be high on all students’ priority list but it could well prove to be their best friend. Regular exercise has been proven to have a whole host of health benefits, and can really help you to make the most of time at uni.
Most colleges have on-site student gyms available to use throughout the degree. And more and more Unis are electing to build student accommodation gyms. The main benefits are the convenient location, the relative low cost, and of course, that it’s a gym specifically designed for students! This usually means a welcoming environment coupled with a carefully selected range of essential workout equipment and on-trend classes to take advantage of.
Student wellbeing
The physical health benefits of regular exercise are widely understood. People who exercise regularly have a lower risk of developing many long-term chronic conditions, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and some cancers.
What’s less well-known is that studies have also shown a link between being physically healthy and a strong academic performance. This is because low-intensity exercise can give energy levels a much-needed boost, crucial when completing a difficult assignment or revising for an exam.
Mental health benefits
The benefits of exercise aren’t just limited to physical wellbeing. We now know that one in four students suffer from mental health problems. Research shows that physical activity can boost mental health by helping to elevating self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy, as well as reducing your risk of stress, depression, dementia and even Alzheimer’s disease.
Exercise has in fact been found to treat mild-to-moderate depression as effectively as medication, without any of the side effects. Aerobic exercises like walking and running have been found to be of most benefit along with yoga.
Research shows that just 20 minutes of exercise before studying can improve concentration and help you focus learning. Intense physical activity causes blood to flow to the brain, which then fires up your neurones and promotes cell growth. Taking advantage of the student gym before you study will help charge your brain and get you in the right frame of mind for learning.
Students agree: Anthony, a student at Kingston University said:
“University can be overwhelming at times, particularly in the run-up to assignment deadlines and exams. Going to the gym regularly has not only made me fitter but improved my general wellbeing.”
Anthony – Kingston University student
Fit with friends
But perhaps the best benefit of the student gym is the opportunity to meet fellow students, doing something they love.
Many staff working in student gyms are themselves current or ex-students. They will be able to tailor an exercise plan to students’ personal needs and even introduce them to other students with similar goals.
Classes are often incredibly wide-ranging and can include spin, martial arts, HIIT, dance and many more. Classes are often included as part of gym membership.
“A large part of anxiety and stress for new students is making friends and building up a social life,” says Nick Sadler, Director of motive8. “Exercise in the gym makes those barriers disappear and it’s easy to find people who have something in common, whether they both like cycling or weight lifting.”
Nick Sadler, Director, motive8
Student gym equipment
A well-designed student gym will include treadmills, spin bikes, cross trainers and rowers are all great for getting a thorough cardio workout. They should be used in rotation to keep the workout interesting and well-rounded.
To improve your muscular strength, kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells and medicine balls can all provide a great muscular strengthening and toning workout. There are lots of strengthening exercises you can do without weights such as pull ups, press ups, and bench jumps.
“It’s important to try everything and mix it up,” says Nick. “Go there with a mind set to try absolutely everything out. That way you won’t get stuck in a rut.”
Nick Sadler
Both in terms of physical and mental wellbeing joining your student gym could well be one of the best decisions you make at university.
At motive8, we consult, design, install and manage gyms for hotels, businesses, student and private residential accommodation – click here to learn more.
Quick turnover of members
By their very nature, students who have moved into halls of residences to study in that town or city, are unlikely to remain with your gym for more than 3 or 4 years, depending on their course. But that’s no reason not to try and engage with them, make sure they get a perfectly tailored workout and provide the encouragement to establish a fitness habit that could last a lifetime.
Your student gym designers will think about the latest gym equipment that allows users to connect to fitness tracking apps such as Endomondo, which keeps up the momentum along with the fun factor. And of course you could use social media or group discussion boards to establish a supportive network of like-minded exercise enthusiasts. Dip in to offer them advice on exercise and nutrition, thereby helping them achieve a holistic approach to fitness.
Expectations for cutting edge equipment
Generally speaking, students and users of university gyms will have a fresh and inquisitive outlook, inevitably influencing what types of exercises and gym equipment they’ll want to to try. Athletic students in particular will suffer if they can not have access to the latest apparatus. Some universities who are renowned for their sports courses make sure they include technology such as anti-gravity treadmills to give their gym-goers a fighting chance in achieving their sporting goals.
Catering for the latest fitness trends
Here’s our summary of the latest student gym design trends and our recommendations on how to incorporate these into your gym.
We have previously explored the expectations, particularly of young people, that their student gym has cutting edge equipment. Arguably this is even more important if the university has prominent sports clubs or popular sports-related courses. The first step should be to have a dialogue with both lecturers and representatives of student bodies such as the Student Union to make sure their basic needs are covered.
There are new classes and fitness techniques coming out every year. Sifting through these fashions and selecting the ones that will go the distance and provide long-term benefits to both your customers and the gym’s bottom line can be a never-ending process. For instance, power Pilates has established itself as a very effective and popular activity with all age groups. But is it worth the investment in the bulky specialist equipment, in terms of both the purchase cost and the room on your gym floor?
New trends and ideas
Here are some ideas on how to adapt your space to include the latest student gym design trends.
Take a leaf out of London’s Gymbox who feature DJ’s and nightclub style lighting and decoration to spice up their aerobics sessions. Put a call out to budding young DJ’s and offer them the opportunity to practice spinning their disks in your gym.
Another space-efficient idea to draw in the student crowds is to install large screens and show popular movies or TV shows. Students might enjoy watching a film while on a cross-trainer or running machine, but a more versatile situation would be in a separate studio that is used for a variety of reasons. More on this later.
One design consideration is how to set up the reception desk. How do your gym goers enter the gym? Do they swipe their card? Is there a manned entry gate? Some students choose unusual study and exercise patterns. Allowing around-the-clock entry like Manchester’s 24 hour Pure Gym could be just the ticket to increase usage and provide the best service possible to your University.
One of the best things you can do when designing your gym is to make sure you have at least one, large ‘free-form’ studio area. This allows the flexibility to accommodate:
- Circuit training and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
- Non-traditional mindfulness activities such as meditation
- Beauty treatments and relaxation therapies such as massage. In this new age of social media and aesthetics, more young people are seeking beauty treatments. If your university offers qualifications in beauty, again you could offer keen students a way to practice what they’re learning, this could even extend to internships. In addition, massage can provide some much needed relaxation after a full-on study session
- Allowing Student Union meetings and other club meetings in your gym is another way to bring in students and maximise off-peak usage.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has been popular for a while now, and gyms are responding with special created areas that allow people to swiftly move on to the next ‘station’ without allowing their heart rate to drop.
Also, now that the myth of weights leading to Arnie-sized muscles has finally been dispelled, more women are weight-training. This of course leads to the necessity for more room to be allocated to the free weights area and weight resistance machines.
“One of the big trends in training these days can be done with just body weight. The old school ways are coming back into fashion! Pull ups, press ups, jumps off a bench into a squat are all great things to do whilst waiting for equipment,” explains Nick Sadler, Director of motive8.
Constant use of the space and the need for affordable durability
Student gyms can be in near constant use. Students naturally have plenty of free time between lectures when they’re not studying, allowing student gyms to maximise their capacity all through the day. Therefore all equipment will need to be as durable as possible. Working with a professional gym design company will ensure that the machine choices factor in the need for equipment that is simple to program and use and situated to also ease the flow of traffic on the gym floor.
Accommodating a diverse range of users
University gyms have to accommodate the widest range of users. From the stressed student attending once or twice to blow off steam, to the local non-student choosing the campus gym over the big-name chain, to the athletics student who is at the peak of physical fitness and heading for a national team. The design of the gym must be carefully thought through to adapt to any and all requirements.
“A large part of anxiety and stress for new students is making friends and building up a social life,” says Nick. “Exercise in the gym makes those barriers disappear and it’s easy to find people who have something in common, whether they both like cycling or weight lifting.”
Nick Sadler, Director, motive8
Creating a design for your gym that caters for all five of these criteria is of course achievable if you have the luxury of long lead-times and room for a bit of trial-and-error learning. Or you could benefit from our student gym designers’ years of expertise for a short-cut to the best solution. Talk to our expert design team now about the future and design of student gyms.
See also:
- Student gym design
- Our gym design service
References
http://universitybusiness.co.uk/Article/surprising-results-in-student-accommodation-survey
