Weightlifting flooring: What to look for

Weightlifting is on the rise in gyms across the world. Whether it’s free weights or adding weight training to fitness regimes, the fact is that more and more accessories are being used. This increase in the use of weights not only requires investment in accessories, revision of planned classes, and a refresher course for trainers, but it also demands a rethink of your flooring solutions.

The most popular choices for weight room flooring have traditionally been rubber gym mats and weightlifting platforms. However, both come with their own flaws, resulting in either further investment in the long-term or loss of time and resources.

This is why we’ve developed a specific flooring for weightlifting, designed to meet the demand placed on it by heavy weight sessions and offer versatility like no other product.

In order to understand why our WEIGHTLIFTING flooring stands out, and what type of floor is best for your needs, let’s take a deeper look at the different flooring solutions for weightlifting.

Weightlifting Flooring Options

Rubber gym flooring, a popular choice for Weightlifting.

Rubber flooring, and especially rubber gym mats, are a popular choice for weightlifting areas both in fitness centres and home gyms alike. However, the quality of the rubber is essential to the experience that the product provides. Low-quality rubber will degrade easily; breaking up, leaving marks, and providing very little protection to the sub-floor. Rubber mats and rolls are also near impossible to seal at the edges. This means they leave gaps that trap water and sweat, leading to bad hygiene and odour.

These problems tend to occur with recycled rubber flooring, meaning that the saving made buying cheaper products in the short-term becomes a loss in the long-term when these products need regular replacement. If you’ve got your heart set on recycled rubber flooring, our EXTREME range is made from a mix of recycled and virgin rubber, which along with its hardcore design helps make it as effective as possible for those heavy weight floors.

The durable alternative to rubber rolls and rubber gym mats is virgin rubber flooring. The chemical bonds formed by virgin rubber during the vulcanisation process make the surface extremely durable and resistant to marks and damage. We at Pavigym use vulcanised virgin rubber for all of our flooring for weight areas, ensuring the best quality, damage resistance, resistance to marks, durability, and aesthetics. This method guarantees the best heavy duty gym flooring for all areas, including those where the heaviest weights are being used.

Weightlifting platforms

Weightlifting platforms have recently become a popular solution for gym owners who want to protect their floors. The idea is great in principle; a mobile wooden platform used to lift weights on gives lifters the environment they need to lift effectively and turns any floor into a weightlifting area.

However, platforms are heavy and cumbersome, making dragging them out and storing them once training is over is tedious and time-consuming. They also don’t provide the soundproof underlay that the best weight room flooring should. And, of course, they don’t provide the best aesthetics, especially when they start getting tired and worn.

Our solution to this is our WEIGHTLIFTING flooring. Made from virgin rubber, but imitating the feel and support of wood, it offers the strength and stability needed while keeping noise and vibrations down. It can be used to replace traditional wooden flooring in weightlifting areas – while guaranteeing that it won’t warp or split – or it can be combined with other flooring in order to provide a lifting surface when needed and allowing for other activities the rest of the time.

A multipurpose surface

The benefits of a layout that incorporates WEIGHTLIFTING flooring with other types led us to develop our very own training space and concept, WEXO. The combination of our WEIGHTLIFTING, S&S, and TURF products creates a fantastic multipurpose space for any kind of exercise but more specifically cardio and weight training.

In the same way that WEXO employs a combination of flooring types, S&S and WEIGHTLIFTING flooring can be combined to create your own form of “permanent weightlifting platform”. Installing strips of WEIGHTLIFTING in between the S&S flooring gives you a lifting area that imitates the reliability and stability of wood for your free weight lifters, while the S&S option fills the rest of the space with a resistant flooring solution able to cope with all kinds of activity, from heavy weights to group classes.

There are countless ways that our flooring solutions can be combined to provide the best solution for your needs. Contact us to let us know what you’re looking for and we’ll help you find the best weight room flooring – or any other gym flooring.

Soundproof flooring

Sometimes you need extra support from your floors when it comes to soundproofing and vibration reduction – and the areas that need it most are usually weight areas. Our ACOUSTIC range has been developed to reduce sound and vibration, not only by dampening them but also by dissipating the vibrations and moving the sound out of the audible range. Coupled with our soundproof underlay, this flooring is extremely effective at reducing noise, suitable for any gym but especially those with specific requirements. Of course, again, we can couple our WEIGHTLIFTING flooring solution with ACOUSTIC in any way necessary to meet your needs. Click here to find out more.

The ideal flooring for your needs

If you’d like to find out more about any of our other floors for weight and cardio areas, take a look here, or take your pick from any number of specialist solutions that we’ve created for every area of the gym. And finally, don’t forget to share your new discovery with your friends and colleagues before you contact us for a personalised quote!