“There has been a shift in the fitness industry over recent years that has resulted in gym owners adopting the ‘third’ rule,” explains John Lofting, Commercial Director at D2F Fitness. “Places for People were looking to adopt this rule allocating a third of available space for cardiovascular equipment, a third for traditional modular strength training equipment and then a third dedicated to functional training and small group exercise.”
Sarah Roberts, Fitness Operations Manager at Places for People Leisure explains the process that they went through to find a supplier; “We wanted to find a functional fitness supplier that we could develop an ongoing partnership with. A company that would work with us and provide us with expertise and guidance not someone that would just fulfil a kit list. After going through a rigorous 
procurement process last year, we found our perfect partner in D2F Fitness.”
Since engaging with D2F Fitness, Place for People has redeveloped functional spaces at twelve of its gyms across the UK with plans to update a least six more before the end of May. “The team at D2F have been excellent to work with,” says Roberts. “I really like the consultative and proactive approach that they take to each and every project which ensures that we get maximum benefit from the space allocated to functional training. It’s really refreshing to work with a supplier that challenges our ideas and isn’t afraid to help us look at our gym spaces in a different way.”
The majority of Places for People’s new functional spaces include a Tesseract functional training rig. “It’s very tempting to make the rig the centrepiece of a functional training space and build everything else around it,” continues Lofting. “However, we like to take a more calculated approach and often recommend bespoke or modular rig designs to really get the best out of the available space. This means that as well as using the rig and attachments for group or personal training sessions, the space underneath or around it can also be used to run suspension training, kettlebell or HIIT classes.”
