If you’re an owner or operator wanting to create a new footprint for your business, this could work perfectly in any environment
– Kevin Yates

Bootcamp fitness studio operator TRIB3 has launched a new design concept which will bring mobile gyms to local parks, schools and open spaces across the UK and overseas.

The compact gyms are built within a shipping-style container. At the touch of a button, a hydraulic system opens up the gym within ten minutes, revealing a mini studio with treadmills and workout mats.

The concept was created by TRIB3 and designed in collaboration with architects CODA Studios. The container gyms are equipped by Star Trac and Escape, with lighting by Lightmaster. Additional flooring is available if required, or the gyms can be set up on the grass of a park.

“This is a completely self-contained, secure and transportable workout system,” TRIB3 CEO and co-founder Kevin Yates told CLAD. “It offers local councils, sports clubs and supermarkets the chance to engage the community they operate in by allowing them to utilise their space with no long term alterations to their facilities.

“It’s a real positive for clubs and individual personal trainers or operators who want to expand but don’t have the capacity internally. If you’re an owner or operator wanting to create a new footprint for your business, this could work perfectly in any environment. Leisure operators can also see this as an extension to their social responsibility and parks initiatives.”

The cost of the mobile gyms have yet to be confirmed, but CLAD understands an investment of between £35,000–£55,000 will be required to set one up, depending on whether the equipment is bought or rented.

TRIB3 is currently in negotiations with a major supermarket chain and a number of local authorities, both in the UK and abroad, to install the first mobile gyms. Yates envisions councils moving the equipment between local parks, with interested users booking tickets through a specially-developed app – or potentially even booking websites like Ticketmaster.

He said: “Part of our mission statement is to ‘create world class programming while connecting the community’ and we can only do this through designing something that gives all communities and clubs the opportunity to do exercise in any surrounding.”

Aside from the container gyms, nine TRIB3 franchises have been established in more conventional health club spaces since the model was launched in September 2015. Several more sites are expected to open in the coming year.

Users are not asked to commit to contracts and can pay as little or as much as they like.

TRIB3 is also collaborating with CODA Studios on a multi-use complex in Sheffield, called Krynkl, which will be built entirely from recycled shipping containers. In addition to a TRIB3 health club, the building will also house a bar and restaurant, offices, a rooftop garden and incubation space for start-ups.

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