Our Rubber Gym Flooring Buying Easy Guide
Gym flooring can be an expensive mistake. Often, when you’re setting up a home or commercial gym, the main focus is on equipment or design. Although it may sound like your gym flooring is a simple choice, it’s essential that you get it right the first time.
From the type of material you plan on using to the best thickness, flooring should be at the core of your planning. Considering it’s the piece of equipment, you will use the most; the right gym flooring creates a safe and high-performance base for exercise. Whether you’re decorating an existing workout space or building a new fitness facility, it’s crucial to find out the best solution for your situation. Keep reading this home gym flooring buying guide to help you make the right choice.
In this article:
- What is the Best Material for Gym Flooring?
- Choosing the Right Flooring Thickness
- Benefits of High-Quality Gym Flooring
- 4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Buying Gym Flooring
What is the Best Material for Gym Flooring?
So, what is the best material for gym flooring? This is a pretty broad question, and the answer highly depends on how you plan to use your gym. For example, if you’re building a commercial CrossFit gym, the answer would be slightly different than if you were designing a home yoga and Pilates studio.
One of the most popular gym flooring materials is rubber. This is because rubber flooring is very versatile. You can perform a ton of different exercises on it safely. Whereas, if you choose a softer flooring, such as foam, it’s not suitable for weight lifting and more intense plyometric movements. If you’re looking for complete versatility and a top safety profile, rubber is one of the best options.
Of course, you have a few other materials available that may be suitable for your gym. Here are a couple more gym flooring materials you may want to invest in:
- Turf or sprint tracks - sprint tracks are great for installing in a section of your gym for sled pulling and plyometric movements. It adds a bold statement to your facility and creates a great training spot with plenty of versatility.
- Wood flooring - this type of flooring is ideal for fitness and dance studios. For example, our Sprung SmartFit wood flooring is a high-performance flooring solution with a shock-absorbing layer, suitable for dance and sports professionals.
The majority of gym flooring comes in one of three options: rolls, tiles, or interlocking tiles. For example, with rubber flooring, you have all of these options available. The main difference here is that they are installed slightly differently. So, if you have a large space, rubber fitness rolls are a great option. But, if you have a smaller home gym, then interlocking rubber tiles are ideal. Once you have decided on the best material for your set-up, you want to choose the type of installation process that is suitable.
Choosing the Right Flooring Thickness
The next step in buying your gym flooring is deciding on the right thickness. Rubber flooring is available in a wide range of thicknesses. The correct thickness tends to be dependent on how you intend to use the space.
Home gym flooring can range from about 4mm to 60mm. If you’re doing more light activity, the thinner end will be suitable. However, if you plan on doing heavy weight sessions, you need to make sure the flooring is thick enough to handle the activity such as 50-60mm thick. For any moderate activity, 20mm is perfectly fine. With yoga on the lighter side and CrossFit on the heavier side, you can get an idea of the right thickness for your gym.
For a full breakdown of activities and the right thickness, we’ve pulled together a guide on how thick your gym flooring should be. From this, you can match your type of workout with the best thickness for your flooring. It’s important to note that whenever you add weightlifting into the mix, you need to make sure you have the right thickness and level of shock absorption to handle heavy weights and more explosive movements. This is to protect your equipment, your body, and the subfloor.
Benefits of High-Quality Gym Flooring
High-quality gym flooring has a ton of benefits for your performance, safety, and longevity of your fitness facility. When creating either a home or commercial gym, you’re looking to build something that will last. Premium gym flooring is an integral part of a gym’s ability to last for years to come.
Rubber gym flooring is durable, easy to clean, and one of the most resilient types of materials out there. Considering the naturally sweaty environment that comes with exercise, it’s important to find something that can handle everything from bacteria and mildew to dropped weights and heavy fitness machines.
If you’re thinking about investing in gym flooring when creating your home gym, other benefits include:
- Excellent shock absorption and traction
- Good energy return
- Easy to clean surface to prevent dirt and bacteria build-up
- Noise absorption to reduce sound impact when dropping weights
- Promote safe performance and movement
- Create a professional and seamless finish
There are many advantages of quality gym flooring for both the user and the gym environment. By choosing the right material and thickness, you support the body in the way it moves naturally as well as provide a safe foundation for exercise.
4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Buying Gym Flooring
When buying gym flooring, here are four questions you should ask yourself to help you find the best solution.
What is Your Budget?
It’s essential to consider long-term maintenance costs as well as the initial installation fee and cost of the flooring. While something like foam is a lot cheaper to buy and install, it wears more quickly and will eventually need replacing much sooner than say hardwood or rubber flooring.
Where Do You Plan on Installing the Flooring?
Another important question is where your gym will be. Is it a home gym in a spare room, a garage gym, a commercial setting, or a purpose-built studio space? Think about how much foot traffic there will be and the impact it will face daily.
What Type of Exercise Do You Plan on Doing?
This is one of the most crucial questions when choosing your gym flooring. The type of exercise, gym equipment, and how you will use the space will greatly dictate the best flooring. This applies to thickness as well as the type of material.
How Do You Want it to Look and Feel?
Finally, how you want it to look and feel play a big part in your decision. If you have a large space and want a very smooth and seamless finish, a great option is rubber fitness rolls. However, if you’re looking to add a splash of colour or fancy something a bit different, flecked flooring or a sprint track would be ideal.
Flooring can set the mood and style of a place, so it’s essential to make the best decision for your personal workout space. By installing flooring that is durable, easy to maintain, shock-absorbent, and provides plenty of traction, you can create the safest possible base for your fitness routine.
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