have to present to my university finance board tomorrow regarding the rebuilding of our weightroom. Basically their plan was to buy a ton of hammer strength equipment (ex. - iso-lateral bicep curl machine). I am trying to convince them to ditch 75% of the machines, and would appreciate any easy to understand articles and research that I can present to the board (who know next to nothing about lifting).
We have a fairly decent budget (DIII by the way)- and my equipment proposal so far is -
3 Hammer Strength Power Racks with Platforms - anyone have experience with platforms attached to power racks? ok or not?
That’s all I have right now. Again, looking for advice on
people’s experience with items listed
any other items needed
3.how I can convince my school not get pec decks, leg extensions, leg curls, iso lateral triceps and bicep curl machines, weighted ab machines, etc… and spend the money instead on the above
I work out at a University full kitted out in Hammer Strength equipment. Most of it is quite good. We’ve got the Power Racks & Squat Racks with the attached platforms and I think they’re pretty good.
The one thing I do think is poor with the HS equipment is the Lat Pulldown machine. I like a stack just attached to a pulley basically but this one has a more fixed plane of motion which I don’t really like.
Other than that it’s all pretty solid stuff. We’ve some crazy machines I’ve never used or even seen used but that’s the way gyms are right
Is this for all students to use, or is it just for sports teams? If it is for all students to use, then you have your work cut out for you trying to explain why free weights are better.
The problem is too many stupid people use the gym. There are a lot more ways to hurt yourself using free weights than machines.
I’d stick with your plan, but be willing to compromise (having an Oly lift platform and 2 squat racks in a gym for the general student population isn’t too shabby).
How many pairs of dumbbells are you proposing to buy? It’s a good idea to have several pairs of the smaller weights if a whole team is training at the same time.
concentrate on getting specific equipment you will want rather then changing the whole shebang.
if its a general weightroom for everyeone, it will be hard to get rid of some of that equipment. however, getting them to buy a specific equipment will be more beneficial.
You’ve put together a gym the average t-magger would love to work out at.
That said, the average gym goer would walk into that weightroom and say, “They don’t have anything! This stinks! Blah Blah”
I’d suggest having a list you keep to yourself on which you rate on some kind of scale(1-5 or whatever) which equipment you need to get in there the most and be preparted to lose a decent chunk of your list in favor of pointless, yet popular equipment.
Have only one dip/chin station
Have only four adjustable benches
Get bands not chains if you really want something
No reverse hyper
No sled
Get a plain decline bench for situps and such
You have to remeber that this weightroom is not just for you. It will most likely be used by the entire school, this is assumption based on my D3 school. There will be both males and females in there, and women often feel uncomfortable on the freeweights, especially if men are around.
Remeber also that machines are not really that bad a thing, they get people who would normally not lift weights doing some kind of strength training.
Imagine you are a 140 pound kid who has decided to start going to the gym to get bigger and stronger. Would you want to use the weights that the football players are using and have to lift with them? I wouldn’t and I doubt you would. I would want to go over into the machines and lift with them until I got a good base of strength.
Remeber: you are going to have to present this as seeing it from different viewpoints. There will ikely be women on the commitee that you are presenting to and they are going to wan tto know what you are doing to accomodate other women. They are not going to be impressed when you present soemthing that is almost entirely freeweights which many women feel are only for men.
Also remember that not many people are going to use some of the peices of equipment that you have suggested. The two biggies that I noticed are the sled and the reverse hyper. If there are only going to be a few people using them, most liekly less than ten at a D3, the school is not going to want to shell out the money, especially for the reverse hyper because it is expensive.
The moral of this long post is that you should get the stuff that is cool for you but at the same time remeber that you are not the only one that is going to be using the gym. Try to look at it from different viewpoints of gym goers as well as those on the committee.
