How to Design a School Gym: A Guide to Strength & Conditioning Facilities

A good school gym is about more than fitting as much equipment as possible into a room.

It needs to work for the students and staff who are actually going to use it. That could mean PE classes during the day, strength and conditioning sessions for sports teams, small-group coaching, lunchtime training and students with very different levels of experience all using the same facility.

That is why we generally start with the space, the number of students who need to train at once and what the school wants to use the facility for. The equipment comes after that.

Little Bloke Fitness is based in Melbourne and has been supplying gym equipment since 2009. Over that time, we have worked with schools on everything from relatively small weights-room upgrades through to complete strength and conditioning facilities.

This guide covers some of the main things worth considering if you are planning a new school gym or looking at improving an existing one.

What Should a School Gym Be Designed to Do?

The first question is how the gym is going to be used.

A facility built mainly for athlete development can look quite different from one that needs to accommodate general PE classes. In a lot of schools, the same room needs to do both.

That may include:

• PE classes and curriculum-based training
• Strength and conditioning programs
• School sports teams and athlete development
• Small-group coaching
• General student fitness
• Before-school, lunchtime and after-school programs

One of the biggest things we look at is how many students need to train at the same time.

There is little point fitting a room with a great range of equipment if only six students can use it properly during a class of 20. In a school environment, the number of usable training stations is often more important than simply having the biggest possible equipment list.

How Should a School Gym Be Laid Out?

A school gym needs enough equipment to be useful without making the room difficult to move around or supervise.

It can be tempting to fill every available square metre, particularly when a school is investing in a new facility and wants to get as much as possible into it. In practice, that can make the gym less useful.

For larger classes and training groups, we generally look at creating clear areas for things such as racks and strength work, free weights, cable or machine training, conditioning and open-floor work.

Equipment also needs enough room around it to be used properly. Students should be able to move between stations without creating bottlenecks, and staff need reasonable visibility across the room.

Storage is another thing that should be designed into the room from the beginning rather than worked out once everything else has been installed.

For LBF fitouts, we work with you from an existing floorplan or room dimensions to develop an equipment layout before the project goes ahead. We map out your floorplan not only to make sure the equipment will fit, but also that it is functional.

The aim isn't to fit the most equipment into the room. It is to make the available space work properly.

What Equipment Does a School Gym Need?

There isn't a standard equipment package that suits every school.

A small weights room used by senior students has very different requirements from a larger strength and conditioning facility used by PE classes and multiple sporting programs.

For most secondary-school facilities, the equipment tends to come from a combination of the following categories.

Racks, Rigs and Training Stations

Racks and rigs are often the backbone of a school strength facility.

A properly configured rack station can be used for squats, bench press, overhead pressing, pull-ups, landmine work and a range of other exercises without taking up the footprint of several separate machines.

In contemporary systems, integration of cable systems and storage systems are common and we offer a modular system with over 60 different components, allowing us to build bespoke solutions for all spaces.

For schools training groups of students at once, multiple rack stations or a multi-cell rig can also make programming much easier. Students can rotate through consistent stations rather than waiting for one piece of equipment.

Barbells, Weight Plates and Benches

Barbells, weight plates and benches provide a lot of training options for the amount of space they use.

The quantities and sizes matter, though.

If four rack stations are going to be used together, there needs to be enough bars and plates of the appropriate sizes and benches for those stations to actually function. This sounds obvious, but it is easy to spend part of a budget adding more types of equipment while leaving too few of the basics for a class to train efficiently.

Dumbbells and Free Weights

Dumbbells, kettlebells, medicine balls and other free weights are useful because they can support strength work, circuits, conditioning and smaller-group training.

They can also be moved around the facility as required.

The downside is that they take up more space than people sometimes expect once storage is included. A good dumbbell or kettlebell range needs somewhere sensible to live when it isn't being used.

Cable and Strength Equipment

Functional trainers and cable systems work particularly well in school gyms because they offer a large number of exercises from one relatively compact machine.

They also complement racks and free weights well rather than duplicating them.

Depending on the facility, selectorised or plate-loaded strength machines can also make sense. They can give students more exercise options and provide guided movement for exercises where a school prefers that style of equipment.

View our strength machine range here.

Cardio and Conditioning Equipment

Bikes, rowers and SkiErgs, treadmills and other conditioning equipment can be used for warm-ups, fitness testing, conditioning and general PE.

How much cardio equipment a school needs depends heavily on the purpose of the room.

In a dedicated strength and conditioning facility, we will often favour a smaller number of versatile conditioning machines and keep more floor area available for racks, sleds and group training. A general school fitness centre may need a larger conventional cardio component.

Functional and Open Training Areas

Some of the most useful space in a school gym is space with nothing permanently sitting on it.

Open areas can be used for warm-ups, mobility work, circuits, bodyweight exercises, plyometrics and group instruction.

Turf can add another training area for sled work, movement drills and conditioning without requiring permanent equipment across the floor.

Again, the aim is usable training capacity rather than maximum equipment density.

Can School Gym Equipment Be Customised?

Yes, and this is something that can make a big difference to the finished facility.

Little Bloke Fitness can supply custom-branded commercial equipment for school projects, allowing the equipment to tie in with school colours and branding rather than looking like a collection of generic gym products.

Depending on the equipment and project, customisation can include:

• Custom frame colours
• School logos and branding
• Custom upholstery colours
• Branded weight-stack shrouds
• Branded plates
• Branded flooring
• Branded racks, rigs and machines
• Custom equipment configurations

For larger projects, this can turn the gym into a facility that feels like part of the school rather than simply a room containing gym equipment.

It also doesn't mean every item needs to be customised. Often it makes sense to customise the major pieces in the room and use standard equipment for products where branding adds little value.

Does School Gym Equipment Need to Be Commercial Grade?

For the equipment that gets used heavily, generally yes.

School gyms are shared environments. A rack, bench, barbell or cable machine can be used by multiple classes and sporting groups across the same day, often by students who aren't going to treat the equipment quite as carefully as somebody would in a home gym.

That puts a lot more demand on equipment than the number of operating hours alone might suggest.

We look particularly at durability, stability, adjustment systems, ease of use, equipment compatibility and whether spare parts and support are going to be available if something eventually wears out.

That doesn't mean a school needs to buy the most expensive version of every product.

If the budget is limited, we would rather put more of it into the equipment that will take the most abuse and be used every day, and spend less in areas where a lighter-duty product will still do the job properly.

What Flooring Is Suitable for a School Gym?

Rubber gym flooring is the most common option for school strength and free-weight areas.

It gives the room a durable training surface while helping to protect both the equipment and the floor underneath.

Little Bloke Fitness supplies rubber flooring in 15mm and 20mm tiles, along with lifting platforms, inserts and turf options.

Different surfaces can also be combined within the same facility. For example, a strength area may use rubber flooring while a separate turf lane is used for sleds, conditioning and movement work.

We recommend treating flooring as part of the fitout design rather than something to work out after the equipment order has been finalised.

View our gym flooring range here.

Storage Is Part of the Fitout

Storage isn't particularly exciting, but badly planned storage can make a good gym frustrating to use.

Plates, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, bands, balls and other accessories all need somewhere to go, particularly when one class is finishing and another is coming into the room.

Where possible, we like to make the equipment itself do some of the storage work.

Integrated plate storage on racks can remove the need for separate plate trees. Modular storage can consolidate smaller equipment, while wall-mounted storage can use space that would otherwise be wasted.

The objective is simple: equipment should be easy to get to when it is needed and easy to put away without filling valuable floor space with storage racks.

How Much Space Does a School Gym Need?

There isn't a minimum room size where a school gym suddenly becomes worthwhile.

We have worked on smaller facilities where careful equipment selection was far more important than having a large floor area.

In a smaller room, that generally means concentrating on versatile equipment, compact stations, wall or integrated storage and leaving enough open space for the room to function.

A larger facility gives you more options, but it also doesn't need to be filled simply because the floor area is available.

The more useful question is what the school needs the space to achieve.

If you already have a floorplan, that is usually enough for us to start looking at what could realistically fit and how many students the room could accommodate.

How Much Does a School Gym Fitout Cost?

There is no fixed price for a school gym fitout because the scope can vary enormously.

The major factors are the size of the room, equipment selection, number of training stations, flooring, storage, delivery and installation.

A relatively straightforward upgrade to an existing weights room may involve keeping most of the existing equipment and replacing only the areas that are limiting the facility. At the other end of the scale, a new strength and conditioning centre can include flooring, racks, rigs, cable and strength machines, cardio equipment, storage, customised equipment and installation.

As a general planning guide:

Indicative budget	What the scope might look like
Under $50,000	A focused upgrade or compact training space built around core strength equipment, free weights, flooring and storage.
$50,000-$100,000	A broader school gym or strength and conditioning fitout with more training stations and scope for cable, conditioning and additional strength equipment.
$100,000-$150,000+	A more comprehensive facility with greater student capacity, a broader equipment mix, larger flooring areas and more specialised training zones.
Larger projects	Larger or more specialised facilities can extend well beyond $150,000 depending on the floor area, equipment mix, customisation and installation requirements.

These aren't fixed packages.

Two schools spending the same amount can end up with very different gyms because one may already have suitable flooring or equipment while another is starting with an empty room.

If the school already has an allocated budget, that helps us decide where it will have the most impact. If it doesn't, we can start with the room, intended use and number of students and work backwards from there.

Can an Existing School Gym Be Upgraded?

A lot of our school projects aren’t starting from scratch but instead start with a review of existing equipment with the aim of repurposing where possible.

Sometimes the existing racks and free weights are fine but the room needs better flooring and storage. In other cases, the problem is that there aren't enough training stations, or the equipment mix no longer suits the programs being run.

An upgrade might involve:

• Improving or replacing flooring
• Increasing the number of training stations
• Adding cable or strength equipment
• Replacing ageing equipment
• Improving storage
• Changing the layout
• Adding conditioning equipment
• Adding equipment for new programs
• Incorporating custom-branded equipment

We are happy to work existing equipment into a new layout where it still makes sense.

School Gym Fitouts in Practice

The easiest way to show why there isn't one standard school gym is to look at some actual projects.

Little Bloke Fitness has worked on school facilities ranging from compact rooms of around 20 square metres through to dedicated strength and conditioning spaces of more than 200 square metres.

William Ruthven Secondary College

At approximately 20sqm, William Ruthven Secondary College had a relatively small area to work with.

The solution was to concentrate on versatile equipment: a commercial rack, bench, barbell and bumper plates, functional trainer, air bikes and functional training equipment.

Rather than trying to squeeze a large number of specialised machines into the room, the equipment was selected to give students as many training options as possible from a compact footprint.

[View project]

St Monica's College

At approximately 100sqm, St Monica's College had enough space to create a dedicated strength and conditioning facility with multiple training stations.

The fitout included four commercial rack stations, rubber flooring and turf, benches, barbells, bumper plates, dumbbells, sled work and functional training equipment.

The additional rack stations allow more students to train at once rather than relying on a single central strength station.

[View project]

Box Hill High School

Box Hill High School engaged LBF to fit out a new 110sqm weights room from scratch, creating a purpose-built training space for students and staff.

The project involved establishing the facility from the ground up, with the equipment selection and layout designed to maximise the available space and accommodate larger training groups. The fit-out included commercial squat racks with integrated plate storage, benches, barbells and bumper plates, creating a practical and versatile strength training environment for the school.

The project is a strong example of LBF delivering a complete weights room fit-out for a new training space, from an empty room through to a fully equipped facility.

[View project]

Mentone Grammar

Mentone Grammar had considerably more space to work with at approximately 240sqm.

The facility was designed to support both PE classes and athlete development and included commercial flooring, a dual-lane sled track, compact multi-cell rig, functional trainer and storage systems.

Importantly, we didn't try to fill all 240sqm with equipment. A substantial amount of open training space was deliberately retained because it made the facility more useful for group work, movement and conditioning.

[View project]

Keysborough College

Keysborough College is another example of an existing gym being upgraded rather than completely replaced.

New cable systems, benches, barbells, bumper plates and modular storage were incorporated while suitable existing equipment remained in the facility.

[View project]

These projects are all school gyms, but the solution in each case was quite different.

That is why we don't start with a standard school package. We start with what the room needs to do.

Planning a School Gym Fitout with Little Bloke Fitness

You don't need to have the whole project worked out before contacting us.

You might have an old weights room you know needs updating. You might have plans for a new building, a budget that has already been approved, or just an empty room and a rough idea of what you would like students to be able to do in it.

We can help with equipment selection, layout, flooring, storage, custom equipment, delivery and installation, and work through the project based on the students, staff and programs that will actually use the facility.

Little Bloke Fitness is based in Melbourne and has been supplying gym equipment since 2009.

If you're planning a new school gym or looking at an upgrade to an existing facility, call us on 03 9462 3943, email info@littleblokefitness.com.au, or visit our Melbourne showroom.