A NEW women's gym at Brunel University has been praised for giving its female members a safe place to feel comfortable while doing their workouts.
The gym opened Tuesday 15th of March and operates alongside the normal gym from 7am to 10pm on weekdays and 9am to 7pm on weekends
While being a university gym, it is open to all women who want to join. It has all the same facilities as the mixed gym does, including its own cardio section.
Richard Ashe, Brunel’s Gym Manager, explained that lack of space previously held back plans for the gym, until they found a room to clear out for it.
“We are aware of the positive correlation exercise has on both physical and mental health so we felt that introducing a women’s only gym may help us inspire more females to become active," he said.
“I believe it gives our current female gym members who use the mixed area an alternative space to use particularly for those female members who may feel a little intimidated by our large functional area in the main gym. It also is a space for female students to use who had not joined the gym perhaps due to cultural barriers or the fear of being judged.”
The new gym is seen as a fantastic opportunity to allow more women to feel confident enough to workout in their own space.
Synne Frydenlund, a 26-year-old personal trainer, has noticed a rise in the number of women signing up to a gym contract since the women's only gym opened up a few months ago.
“We have got a lot of good feedback. I have a lot of clients that I train in here. A lot of them are beginners and the feedback I got from them is that they feel a lot more comfortable starting when everything is new," she said
“I think the main benefit is that it's quieter here. The other gym is quite male dominated and I think for some people that can be quite intimidating especially if you're not used to being in a gym environment.”
For women who really want a safe environment to train, the new women only gym might be a great experience to work out and make new friends.
Cesar Evora, a 21-year-old personal trainer at Brunel Gym thinks the women’s gym is great. She said: “The difference between this gym and the other gym is this one seems a lot more social. A lot of the women who feedback from using this gym say that they've made a lot of good friends here and they feel comfortable coming to train in here. We saw a great increase in numbers especially when we did a free week trial, we saw a lot of women coming to use it and since then, a lot of members have joined too.”
While the personal trainers may love the women's gym, members who have begun to regularly use it have found it much more beneficial than the mixed genders gym.
Amber Dunkley, a 22 year old Brunel Gym member, shares her thoughts about the women’s gym. “I think the women’s gym is a necessity. I am so grateful to have it here, but you really don’t see it a lot. Personally, it is a motivation to go to the gym because it’s just such a nice environment. When they opened a women's only gym here, I signed up with my friend straight away and we have been going quite continuously. I definitely feel more comfortable doing any sort of work out in the women’s gym.”
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