HOME COUNTIES’ BEST

Client: Stoke Park
Supplier: Star Trac

With a reputation as Europe’s leading five AA Red Star hotel, spa and country club, Stoke Park offers an unparalleled immersive guest experience. When the time came to upgrade the fitness facilities late last year, the challenge was therefore clear: to create a fitness centre befitting the Stoke Park reputation as a worldwide sports and leisure destination.

And the newly refurbished 370sq m (4,000sq ft) gym doesn’t disappoint. There’s a clear commitment to innovation and elegance across its cardio, strength and Spinning offering, paired with other amenities like tennis, swimming, golf and a full-service spa.

Star Trac was selected to equip the gym, with its product range offering open platform technology to accommodate other third-party technology suppliers and fitness wearables. The manufacturer provided a consultative approach encompassing design and layout, equipment selection, programming, flooring and service.

The gym features E Series CV equipment with 39.6cm embedded HD television screens and USB connectivity for maximum member engagement. As a hi-tech touch, the E Series E-TRxe offers the Star Trac Coach virtual personal trainer, with more than a million unique workouts to motivate members to achieve their fitness goals.

Stoke Park also selected the TreadClimber by Star Trac, which combines the motion of a stepper, treadmill and elliptical into one low impact workout, and the StairMill for a true-to-life stair climbing experience.

A new high intensity interval training (HIIT) area offers plyoboxes, sleds and battle ropes alongside the BoxMaster, a complete boxing system with spring-loaded pads that offers a safe workout for users of any size or ability.

To address a growing member demand for functional training, the strength area features the wood-trimmed HumanSport circuit, which is designed to reflect human body mechanics for maximum core stabilisation and multi-planar movements.

Rounding out the fitness facility is a complement of benches and racks from Star Trac, as well as the Max Rack 3D Smith machine.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the gym refit,” says Jules Baker, head of fitness at Stoke Park. “Not only does our new equipment offer a far better user experience for our members and guests, but the interface behind the equipment will also allow us to embrace new technologies that are hitting the market, such as fitness apps and cloud systems.”

For further information, visit: www.startrac.com

The newly-refurbished gym also features a HIIT training area

CLOUD TECHNOLOGY

Client: Harlow & District Sports Trust
Supplier: Technogym

Operated by Harlow & District Sports Trust, Harlow Leisurezone is a leading leisure centre in the Harlow community. As part of its commitment to give members the best training experience, in May 2014 Harlow Leisurezone migrated from the Wellness System customer management platform to mywellness cloud, Technogym’s open online platform.

Wellness System data from all users, including their workout history and current programmes, was migrated to the mywellness cloud platform. The centre immediately saw a difference in member engagement: total member log-ins to mywellness cloud increased by 322 per cent year-on-year compared to Wellness System log-ins.

Fourteen per cent more members now track their workouts on mywellness cloud compared to the Wellness System, with over 9,000 activities logged online to date, and in June–July 2014 members accessed their mywellness accounts 4,241 times via the website and 3,412 times via mobile phone.

Kimberley Cowler, health and fitness manager at Harlow Leisurezone, says: “The new modular mywellness platform is flexible, accessible and intuitive enough to keep pace with current training methods and needs. The training was delivered in a way that got huge buy-in and engagement from both the team and our members. It has also resulted in overhead cost savings of more than £2,000 a year.”

Members check in to their personal mywellness accounts via multiple channels – through their TGS key, QR code or password entry – to access all their training history and preferences and automatically track each session in the gym. They can also track their physical activity via third-party apps such as Runkeeper and MapMyFitness, allowing the facility to stay connected with members beyond the gym walls.

Cowler adds: “Online tracking is becoming the norm, and mywellness is allowing us to stay part of that trend. The synchronisation of third-party apps means we get a wider reach of people using the system.”
Harlow Leisurezone also uses mywellness cloud-based professional applications to personalise and optimise the member journey. As part of the induction process, each new member takes the Aspiration Finder, a simple web-based questionnaire, to establish their training motivations. Based on each customer’s Aspiration profile, trainers then use Prescribe to create and edit online training programmes for members to access whenever they log in to my wellness.

Members who prefer to exercise on their own can use the Visioself pedestals to select a preferred workout from a predefined library of programmes, while the Challenge app allows trainers to organise regular digital challenges for all members, motivating them to train harder to win a prize. Participation in challenges has grown from 20 to 150 people per challenge.

Cowler concludes: “mywellness has really made a difference to Harlow Leisurezone, enhancing how we relate to and communicate with our members instantly, without the need for appointments. By giving them a personalised, interactive experience, we’ve been able to grow member retention and keep people engaged.

“Feedback has been phenomenal and we’re confident that this technology has future-proofed our facility.”

Details: www.technogym.com

Members can check in to their Technogym mywellnesscloud accounts via TGS key, QR code or password entry

LONDON LUXURY

Client: Limehouse Marina Elite
Supplier: Safe Space Lockers

When London’s latest luxury health club opened its doors in December 2014, it set out to deliver an incomparable experience and premier service as standard. The club has capped its membership to make sure this level of service isn’t diluted, ensuring an optimum experience for all members, from the changing rooms to the gym.

Situated between the two financial hubs of the capital – the City and Canary Wharf – Limehouse Marina Elite (LME) is owned by the Mayfair Sporting Club, which is best known as a boxing events organiser and promoter. Mayfair Sporting Club is in turn owned by the directors of business services company OISG, allowing them to indulge their love of sport – and boxing in particular.

The new health club is designed to give members the best service in London, whether they are new to fitness or a professional athlete. Alongside the fitness centre is a sports medical centre and a pro boxing gymnasium – a total wellbeing offering that caters equally for professional boxers through to professional people working in the local area who want to lose weight and improve their everyday fitness.

Meanwhile the changing rooms are fresh, light and modern. The contemporary, white, high-gloss lockers – part of a £45,000 fit-out by Safe Space Lockers – are top of the range. These two-tier bespoke lockers have also been fitted with the Ojmar OCS digital lock for extra security and ease.

The fresh, modern feel continues with the vanity units, used towel cabinet, cubicles and wardrobe finished in contemporary, high-gloss white.

The high quality finish of every detail helps reinforce the club’s high-end status, from the corian surfaces to the clever use of uplighting that gives a soft edge to the changing space.

Changing room expert Safe Space Lockers carries out an in-depth consultation with every client, making sure that from beginning to end everyone has the same vision and everything is perfect.

As standard, Safe Space offers a free 2D and 3D interior design service. This provided LME with a precise graphic of its high spec changing rooms after the first consultation. Within weeks, a fuss free fit-out was carried out, and the result is an innovative and inspirational space.

Details: www.safespacelockers.co.uk

The luxury changing rooms feature corian surfaces and soft uplighting

Lockers are fitted with Ojmar’s OCS digital lock

The white, high-gloss lockers are part of a £45,000 fit-out