Design & Equipment Tips for Making Your Gym Beginner-Friendly
Beginners are one of the most important audiences to attract with your gym. Here’s how to design a fitness space that caters to beginners.
A key audience to attract to your gym is the “beginner” demographic. But for people just beginning their fitness journey, the gym can be intimidating. If you want to bring newcomers to your gym or commercial fitness center, making it friendly and welcoming to beginners is crucial.
Often, newcomers don’t know exactly where they want to start. There’s cardio, strength training, weightlifting, and even functional fitness exercises. With so many options, it can be easy to slip into decision paralysis, making it even harder to keep up with regular visits to the gym. The first thing to do is make your gym easy for beginners by designing it accordingly.
The first thing to keep in mind when it comes to designing a gym is: how easy is it to use? For beginners, who may be starting fresh when it comes to fitness or coming back after a long hiatus, the gym must be intuitive.
Start by having clear sections for each kind of activity. Cardio equipment, strength training machines, free weights, and functional fitness should each have their own designated areas. Space them out properly to give users plenty of room to do their workouts. Be sure to organize accessories like yoga mats, resistance bands, and other tools in spaces that are easily accessible.
Consider adding design elements to clear up any confusion. Use signs, lighting, or flooring that clearly defines the space. Add a designated spot for warming up or cooling down to let users know where they can go when they need to stretch. Branding and design can play a huge role in how accessible your gym is by offering users clear indications for what to do and where to go.
At ASF, we work closely with our clients to design their fitness spaces. We take into account dimensions and space, target audiences, location, and more. For every project, we tailor our design plans to accommodate the client’s exact goals.
The Right Kind of Equipment for Beginners
As with any gym design, it’s important to have a mix of equipment types. You should give your users plenty of options to choose from, along with adequate empty space to perform stretching, free weight and functional exercises.
At first, a beginner probably won’t know exactly what they’re doing. That’s OK, because your gym is going to make meeting their goals easier by providing them with the following kinds of equipment.
Cardio
Cardio is a great place to start on your fitness journey. Precor Cardio offers a variety of top-tier cardio machines that will perfectly complement any workout.
Their Experience Series includes three different tiers: the 600, 700, and 800 lines. Plus, you can mix and match your cardio equipment with unique consoles to help them track their workout and stay engaged.
Strength
When it comes to strength training options, we recommend offering a mix of stationary strength machines and free weights like dumbbells, power racks, and lifting bars with weight plates. At first, beginners may favor using traditional strength training machines over free weights, because unlike free weights, these machines show you exactly how to use them to train specific sets of muscles.
The Precor Resolute Selectorized strength products are ideal for beginners. You can select from a wide variety of machines, all targeting unique muscle groups. Their sleek design looks good in any space, and you can customize their upholstery and frame color combinations.
Once they begin building strength in their muscles, your gym users may move on to plate loaded strength products. Durable and designed for long-time performance, the Precor Discovery Series line of plate-loaded strength equipment is easily accessible for beginners.
Eventually, your beginners will graduate to free weight training. For this part of your gym, Precor benches and racks are a great option. Outfit your fitness center with adjustable benches, power racks, dumbbell racks, shoulder press benches, and more to give users the workout of a lifetime.
Interactive Equipment
For beginners, what’s better than a guided workout on an immersive fitness machine? That’s why we recommend equipping your gym with the Peloton Commercial Bike. Featuring a 21.5” immersive HD touchscreen and multi-user software, the Peloton is perfect for beginners. It includes access to expert-led classes that will guide beginners through their workout. Most importantly — it’s fun! It will keep users coming back again and again.
With Peloton, live and on-demand classes are available 24/7, and the sleek design and brand recognition allows these products to double as selling points for your fitness space.
For Beginners and Beyond, Rely on Advantage Sport and Fitness
Whether you’re designing for newcomers or professionals, we have the expertise necessary to design the ideal gym. Our highly skilled team of designers and installation professionals combined with our industry partnerships with leading manufacturers make us the perfect addition to your team.
As with any gym design, it’s important to have a mix of equipment types. You should give your users plenty of options to choose from, along with adequate empty space to perform stretching, free weight and functional exercises.
Once they begin building strength in their muscles, your gym users may move on to 
