Alabama Fitness Centers

The facilities we equip in Alabama

Apartment and condominium amenity rooms

Putting a gym into a room that was drawn as apartments is the one decision that can move a schedule by months, and it is worth settling in week one. A fitness floor is designed for more than twice the load of living space — IBC Table 1607.1 puts fitness areas at 100 psf against 40 psf for residential areas outside sleeping rooms — so converting existing space upstairs is a change of use your structural engineer has to sign off. We ask that question before we quote equipment, because finding it at delivery is what turns a two-week install into a two-month one. More on apartment and condominium amenity rooms.

Hotel fitness rooms

A hotel gym is a public accommodation, used unsupervised at 2am by a guest who will mention it in a review either way. That raises the accessibility and durability bar at once. ADA requires a 30 by 48 in clear floor space on at least one of each TYPE of machine, served by an accessible route, or 36 by 48 in where enclosed on three sides. ACSM’s 25 to 50 sq ft per station governs the rest, and in a small hospitality footprint the honest answer is nearly always fewer, better pieces. More on hotel fitness rooms.

The rest of what we equip there

Those two are what Alabama orders most, not the limit of what we supply there. The same design, flooring, delivery and installation work covers every other facility type:

• student housing
• HOA and property management
• corporate fitness centers
• health clubs and training studios
• senior living communities
• medical and rehabilitation clinics
• schools and campus recreation
• fire, police and municipal recreation
• YMCAs and nonprofits
• home and private training rooms

What decides the room before the equipment list

Planning the room before the equipment list

Whatever the facility type, the room sets the equipment list rather than the other way round. ACSM allows 25 to 50 sq ft per station on the fitness floor, and ADA requires at least one of each TYPE of exercise machine to have a 30 by 48 in clear floor space served by an accessible route — 36 by 48 in where that space is enclosed on three sides. Drawn to scale, those two figures usually settle the realistic piece count before budget enters the conversation.

Accessibility is scoped per machine type, not per machine

The most common misreading of the ADA Standards on a fitness floor is that every unit has to be accessible. It does not: the scoping requires at least one of each TYPE of exercise machine to have a 30 by 48 in clear floor space served by an accessible route, rising to 36 by 48 in where that space is enclosed on three sides. The clear space may overlap the route and sit in the aisle behind the machine, which is exactly what makes a dense floor achievable — provided the layout is drawn before the equipment is ordered.

Replacing a room that already exists

Most projects are not empty rooms. Where equipment is being replaced we can appraise, buy back and remove what is there, which changes the arithmetic on the new floor and removes the disposal problem — a loaded selectorized stack is not something a property manager wants to arrange a truck for. Planning the swap also matters to residents and members: a room that is out of service for an unplanned week is the complaint that follows the project around.