Hotel Gym Equipment: 8 Pieces Guests Actually Expect

When purchasing hotel fitness equipment, it could be argued that you have a seriously easy job ahead of you.

This is not because outfitting a hotel or resort gym is hard. Hotels and resorts are generally so bad at getting this part of their facility right that you do not have a great standard to live up to.

You could adopt the same attitude as your competitors and say, "well, if no one else is making an effort, I will not waste my money either." Or you can break the mold and offer something of real substance.

First and foremost, many hotel and resort owners do not realize that shoving a few pieces of 30-year-old equipment into a room does not, by default, make it a gym.

Your guests will know if your gym is a token gesture, and it will get ridiculed on social media. People will mention it as a huge negative on review sites, so it is better not to offer gym services at all than to do them badly.

Typically, any hotel, resort, or hospitality facility that offers a gym is not going to be small. There are exceptions, but offering a gym at all usually means a building of at least moderate size.

That means you have a plethora of guests to cater to and a reasonable amount of space. You can offer a very good fitness suite if you choose to.

Before you shortlist a single machine, it is worth working from a general commercial gym equipment checklist so you know every category a shared room has to cover.

These eight items will leave guests with huge smiles on their faces.

#1 Several Commercial Grade Treadmills

With the number of guests you expect to come through your doors, you cannot afford to cut corners on equipment quality.

Only commercial gym equipment will make the grade, because it has what it takes to endure years of hard work.

The best commercial-grade treadmills feature an array of pre-set programs to keep your guests entertained for hours, plus a sturdy build that keeps users comfortable and safe in equal measure.

Bear in mind that treadmills are potentially the most popular piece of cardio equipment next to bikes, so you will need several if you want to be sure your guests are not queuing unnecessarily.

Every item featured on this list, including the highest caliber treadmills, comes with safety instructions, so you do not have to worry about the lack of an on-site instructor.

That unsupervised room problem is exactly what condo and apartment fitness suites have to solve, and the answer is the same in a hotel: choose machines that are safe to use with nobody supervising.

#2 Some Recumbent Elliptical Trainers

Elliptical machines are a great way to work both the upper and lower body in a low-impact manner.

They are a strong alternative to the treadmill for guests who are less able-bodied, or who simply want to take extra care with their joints.

High-grade recumbent elliptical machines feature outstanding build quality and a comfortable seated position, rather than making the user exercise upright.

This caters to everyone regardless of ability, and it opens the machine up to the older generation, who may feel a little intimidated by the standard upright position.

Elliptical machines are undoubtedly popular, but you can get away with roughly half as many of these as you have treadmills and bikes. To be completely safe, buy enough elliptical trainers to equal about 60 percent of your treadmill count.

#3 An Array Of Upright Exercise Bikes

Bikes are hugely popular because they are so accessible for anybody, regardless of physical ability or age.

A general gym-going audience, especially in a casual setting like this, would typically prefer a recumbent bike. Because the elliptical trainers on this list provide a similar movement, you should outfit your suite with a series of fully upright bikes.

Some of the best varieties feature many resistance programs and an incredibly hard-wearing build that will last for years.

The comfortable seats also mean you will not field complaints about glute ache, which can be a prominent feature with lesser quality machines.

Bikes are very close to treadmills in popularity, so it is probably wise to match their quantities exactly. You could also stagger your cardio numbers according to popularity.

If you take that staggered approach, 10 treadmills would require roughly 8 stationary bikes and 6 elliptical machines to keep the mix even.

On a smaller scale, 6 treadmills require 4 bikes and 2 elliptical machines. It all depends on how much space you have and how much you have to put into the project.

#4 A Very High Quality Dumbbell Set Going Up To At Least 50 lbs.

Get this part right. The people who train on holiday are either casual fitness enthusiasts or very hard-core, experienced trainees.

You are going to have such a mixed bag of guests using your fitness suite that you have to cater adequately to all of them.

The dynamic changes with a resort gym, and you will be looking at more of an even mix: half casual users, half seasoned ones.

Your dumbbells need to suit anyone from a novice to an advanced lifter. They also need to be of immensely high quality to take the battering that some of the bigger guys and girls out there are bound to give them.

Commercial-grade urethane dumbbells are more than adequate thanks to their superb build quality. They will last for years and will please veterans and newbies alike.

You need a set that reaches an intermediate weight level at minimum, and it is worth extending the array up to 100 lbs. to cater to everyone.

Strongmen, powerlifters, professional bodybuilders, and other athletes like to go on holiday too. They will appreciate the effort you have put into your dumbbell array.

#5 A Combined Smith Machine / Squat Rack

Smith machines are a fantastic way to perform barbell exercises with the safety of a guided bar. Add a squat rack and you have everything you need for an all-encompassing strength workout.

If you are weighing the two formats against each other, our breakdown of a Smith machine versus a power rack explains which one suits a shared, unsupervised room better.

Your guests will appreciate that you have included this strength staple as part of your resistance array, and you get peace of mind knowing users can train with a low risk of injury.

You will need to pair one of these units with a high-quality bench to get the most out of it. That is a small trade-off, given you will not have to buy a separate squat rack.

#6 A Universal Gym System

Instead of buying several separate resistance machines the way a dedicated gymnasium would, consider a well-built universal gym system to cover your guests' every machine-based resistance need.

Some of the best options feature eleven or more machines in one frame and let users cover every area of the body. Without doubt, they represent the most cost and space-effective solution for delivering resistance training.

Before you commit to a unit, check the footprint. Our guide to how much floor space a multi-station gym needs shows whether the model you like will fit your room once you allow for user clearance.

You will be highly satisfied with the build quality of a commercial-grade version of one of these machines. They withstand the onslaught of endless users, year after year of hard training.

Make sure your chosen unit includes leg training options so you do not have to purchase a separate leg press. That is far more cost-effective overall.

With a stack like this in place, you will not need to worry about whether you have enough machines to cater to your guests.

Most multi-gyms are of inferior build quality compared with separate machine units. Commercial-grade universal gyms are the exception, offering both variety and build excellence in one package.

#7 A Commercial Grade Cable Machine

Training with cables gives the user a new dynamic: an array of unique exercises that place constant tension on the muscles and assist with toning and strength.

Cable machines are a fantastic low-impact means of performing free-weight exercises with far less associated risk, because the pulleys snap back into the frame when they are dropped.

Cables also target the body in a manner that free weights cannot quite replicate, which gives guests a training experience they may not get at home.

We have included these machines because cable stations are immensely popular, and the older generation will certainly appreciate performing free weight exercises in total safety.

Insist on serious build quality so you are not spending extra on frequent service calls and replacement parts.

#8 Sundries

This section is dedicated to all the little things: the benches, the bars, and the plates you need to complete your fitness suite.

First, you will need a seriously high-quality, versatile series of adjustable benches built to withstand a tremendous level of use year after year.

For that reason, a bench that features all three positions (incline, decline, and flat) may not be the best choice, as the build quality can be compromised.

Instead, go for something with a seriously dense frame. High traffic and varied user types mean you need a bench that is hard-wearing and comfortable for bodies of all sizes.

Grab three or four to be on the safe side, and do not forget that you will need one for your Smith machine.

For a versatile Olympic option, look for a combined bench and rack combo with a bench that can be set to all three positions.

The decline position on the included bench also covers everyone's decline needs, which removes the need to buy more benches separately.

As a bonus, a set like this means you will have a second power rack. That can only be a good thing.

Last but not least, you will need a pair of great quality Olympic bars and plates to equip your power racks. Look for competition-grade bars and rubber-coated plates, as these protect your floors and walls while standing the test of time.

You may want to add one more weight set to be certain you have enough to cater to everyone.

The Room Count Method: Sizing Hotel Cardio Without Guessing

Most hotels size a fitness suite around whichever room was still free after the meeting spaces and the back of house were assigned, then buy whatever fits along the walls. The question that actually decides whether guests queue is a different one: how many of them will walk through that door inside the same morning window.

Here is the arithmetic we run when a hospitality buyer asks how many cardio machines to order, written out in plain text so you can substitute your own figures.

Peak simultaneous gym users = room keys x occupancy rate x guests per occupied room x share of guests who use the gym x share of those users who arrive in the peak window.

Then take the share of those peak users who head for cardio rather than the weights, and divide that number using the staggered cardio mix this article already recommends. Ten treadmills to eight bikes to six ellipticals reduces to five parts, four parts, and three parts out of twelve, so treadmills take five twelfths of your cardio stations, bikes four twelfths, and ellipticals three twelfths.

Now the honest part. Every input in that formula is an assumption, not a measurement.

We are not aware of a public hospitality data set that reports gym attendance by property type, so we are not going to cite one and we are certainly not going to invent one. The figures below are WorkoutHealthy planning inputs, chosen because they are round enough to reason with, and you should overwrite each one with numbers from your own front desk before you place an order.

• Occupancy rate (assumption). Use the rate you run on a strong week rather than your annual average, because you are sizing for the busy morning and not the quiet one.
• Guests per occupied room (assumption). Assume 1.5 if you do not track it, and use your real figure if you do.
• Share of guests who use the gym (assumption). Assume 1 in 10 as a starting placeholder. This is our planning default, not a measured hospitality benchmark.
• Share of gym users inside the peak window (assumption). Assume half of that day's gym users arrive inside the same 90 minutes before checkout and the first meetings.
• Share of peak users choosing cardio first (assumption). Assume two thirds, which reflects the way this article weights cardio in a shared room where nobody is supervising.

Worked example, using a 200 key property and every assumption above.

• 200 rooms x 0.8 occupancy = 160 occupied rooms.
• 160 rooms x 1.5 guests = 240 guests on property.
• 240 guests x 0.1 gym use = 24 guests who use the gym that day.
• 24 users x 0.5 peak share = 12 people in the room at the same time at peak.
• 12 people x two thirds cardio = 8 cardio stations in use at once.
• 8 stations split five, four, and three twelfths = 3.3 treadmills, 2.7 bikes, and 2 ellipticals, which you round up to 4 treadmills, 3 bikes, and 2 ellipticals.

Rounding up on every fraction is deliberate, because the spare station is what stops the queue forming, and a queue is the thing guests write about. Note that the answer lands close to the smaller staggered mix given earlier in this article, which is a reasonable sign the method and the rule of thumb agree.

Change one assumption and the answer moves fast. A resort where guests stay a week tends to spread gym visits across the whole day, which raises the share of guests who use the room at some point but flattens the peak, so you often need longer opening hours and the same station count rather than more machines.

An airport hotel running one night business stays does the opposite, compressing almost everything into a narrow pre-departure window, so the same 200 keys can justify more treadmills than the example gives even though fewer guests visit overall. If your peak share assumption moves from half to three quarters, your machine count moves with it by roughly the same proportion.

This is a WorkoutHealthy planning estimate and nothing more. It is not an industry standard, not a hospitality benchmark, and not survey data. The value here is the sequence rather than our placeholder numbers: count the keys, take a share, compress that share into the peak window, then divide by the cardio mix and round up.

So, there you have it. This list of equipment, combined, gives you everything you need to deliver a hotel gym that soars above the rest.

If you are limited on space, remember that everything is scalable. You could get away with one universal gym machine and one of each type of cardio. The quality of the equipment will speak for itself, so nobody will accuse you of a half-baked effort.

Equally, you can go all out and provide a full gym for your guests if your space allows. Use this list and you are sure to keep receiving positive reviews from your visitors.