Sport Ireland Campus is home to a vast range of world-class facilities, including the National Aquatic Centre, National Indoor Athletic Training Centre, and National Horse Sport Arena. The campus – which has six gyms – is a hub of activity for elite international sport and leisure training.
While it’s Ireland’s centre for elite and international sport, the campus is also a thriving destination for community activity and in 2021, Sport Ireland began working with Technogym to bring its high-performance culture to the whole community, including Sport Ireland Fitness – the public gym on campus – which needed to evolve alongside the performance elements of the site.
Graham Byrne, fitness manager at Sport Ireland Campus, explains how the recently completed renovation has created a world-class public gym.
Performance meets community
“Sport Ireland Fitness – our public gym – is an inspiring place to be,” said Byrne. “It’s above the National Aquatic Centre and members share a car park and a café with our elite sportspeople, which is exciting and inspiring.
“The Sport Ireland Fitness gym was due an upgrade to reflect the performance ethos of the rest of campus and after a rigorous tender process, Technogym was chosen as equipment partner for phase one – when all cardio equipment was replaced and we created two state-of-the-art studios – and phase two, when the gym’s strength equipment was upgraded.
“Our vision was to make Sport Ireland Fitness a five-star facility, with the best equipment possible within our budget,” said Byrne. “Technogym has a reputation for being the leading equipment supplier in the world. It’s helped us transform the gym into a world-class space that reflects our ethos of combining performance and community.”
Adding value to a top-class public membership
Sport Ireland had identified the need to increase its offering to members of the public gym, and the refurbishment allowed it to upgrade the cardio and strength equipment, invest in the fitness studios and offer members more choice.
The creation of the two group exercise studios have enabled Sport Ireland Fitness to nearly double its offering to 90 classes a week.
The brand-new immersive indoor cycle studio has 30 Technogym Bikes and Technogym Group Cycle programming.
The second studio runs Technogym Teambeats which offers instructor-led and virtual options. Unsupervised classes are popular with members who have children using other areas of the campus and with a million people visiting the campus each year, the Teambeats studio is a user-friendly way to fill gaps between instructor-led studio classes.
Optimising gym floor flow
The gym’s new cardio offering is high-tech and packed with digital elements to support performance athletes and leisure users. The equipment includes the performance-focused Skill Line and the content-rich Excite Live equipment which are increasing engagement with their large screens and digital options.
Byrne and his team took note of shifts in training trends, and brought in 12 plate-loaded strength and 10 pin-loaded machines. They also added three new Olympic lifting platforms and trebled the size of their cable machine offering.
The digital transformation of the space allows members to engage with motivating content on the cardio machines and enjoy a fully-immersive experience in the group cycle studio. Teambeats gives members the ultimate flexibility of instructor-led or unsupervised class options.
Every member can access their training plans, use QR codes on equipment and track every element of their workouts on Technogym App.
Supporting growth
The new gym layout means the space can comfortably hold 1,000 people a day, with members able to move freely and access equipment without waiting. Membership has hit capacity with a wait-list now in place.
The Sport Ireland Fitness gym refurbishment is the evolution the space needed, extending the campus’s high-performance culture into its community spaces.
“The gym has been here 20 years and we’re looking ahead to the next 20,” says Byrne. “We’re confident Technogym will help us stay fit for purpose and ahead of the curve as more consumers take an interest in their health and fitness.”
More: www.technogym.com
