How to Use Gym Equipment

Cardio | Strength | Lifting | Functional | Junior

Walking into the gym for the first time – whether that’s ever or for a while – can be a little overwhelming. The music. The lights. The array of apparently complex equipment. Don’t worry, however. We have put together this guide to help you become more familiar with the gym equipment you’ll find in our centres and how to use it.

Whether you’re unsure of cardio gym equipment, strength training kit or functional equipment, we break down how to use the kit and how to get the most out of it. We’ve also put together a junior gym equipment guide, too.

Cardio

How to set up and use cardio gym equipment

Your local Everyone Active centre’s gym is packed with a variety of state-of-the-art cardio equipment. This is designed to help increase your heart rate and thereby improve your stamina. This kit includes treadmills, rowing machines, cross trainers and so many more. Here, in these videos, we’ll show you how to properly setup and use these pieces of kit, allowing you to get the most from your cardio workout.

Strength (pin & cable machines)

How to setup and use pin and cable strength training gym equipment

In the gym, you’ll find a range of pin and cable strength training equipment. This includes leg extension machines, the seated row, the bicep curl machine and the chest press among many others. Here, you’ll find videos showing you exactly how to use these pieces of gym equipment properly, thereby ensuring you get the most from your workouts, as well as helping to ensure you avoid injury as much as possible.

Lifting (free weights)

How to setup and use functional gym equipment

If you want to include functional fitness in your gym workout, then it’s important you know how to use and setup the variety of functional gym equipment we have. These include resistance bands, battle ropes, weighted sleds, medicine balls, slam balls, suspension trainers and so much more. To help you avoid hurting yourself while using this equipment and in order to get the most out of your gym sessions, we’ve put together the below videos.

Functional

How to set up and use free weights and lifting gym equipment

If lifting and free weights are more your thing, rather than cardio or resistance training, then your local Everyone Active gym has you covered. All our gyms have dedicated free weights areas and it’s important you know how to use these pieces of gym equipment properly in order to get the most from your workout and in order to help you avoid injury. That’s why we’ve put together these videos to help you understand how best to use the free weights and lifting equipment.

Junior Gym

What gym equipment can younger members use?

Although we encourage our younger members (aged 11-15) to use and enjoy our gyms, there are a few restrictions on what equipment we allow you to use. This entirely for your own safety, as your body is still developing at a rapid rate. Almost all the equipment is open for your use, with most of the cardio machines, some resistance equipment, certain weighted items such as core bags and medicine balls, dumbbells up to a maximum of 5kg and core training equipment such as BOSU balls all available. The full list is as follows:

Gym Equipment All Aged 12+ Can Use

Once you reach the age of 12, your options widen a little bit. As well as all those mentioned above, you can also start to use the Watt Bike (as long as you are 4 ft 11 inches tall or above), as well as pin-loaded weights, with the exception of the lateral pull down machine and cables which are only suitable for age 14+.

Gym Equipment Only for use by those Aged 14+

At 14, your options expand further. As well as all those above, you can also use the lateral pulldown machine, any cabled machines, as well as plyometric boxes and steps. Be sure only to jump onto these, however.

Gym Equipment not to be used by anyone Under 16

Although that’s a fairly comprehensive list of gym equipment that anyone aged 11-15 can use, there are a few bits of kit that we do ask you not to use until you are 16 or over. This is for your own safety as these pieces of equipment can often feature heavy weights that can injure you either when loading them onto the rack, or in the process of doing the workout itself.

The equipment we ask you not to use is as follows:

Follow the instructions above to find out how to best setup and use this gym equipment.