Our sports and fitness surfacing specialist, Jason Lewis-Lamb, representing TVS Group, was recently invited to visit one of the finest luxury hotels in Lancashire; the Crow Wood Hotel and Spa Resort, Burnley.
As part of a multi-million pound refurbishment project the purpose of his visit was to survey the private members fitness club with the aim of offering to the client a robust mix of aesthetically pleasing, practical and functional floor coverings for the existing and newly built fitness spaces within the club.
Having established a comprehensive understanding of the project brief with Oliver Brown, a Director at Crow Wood Hotel and Spa Resort, discussions about the advantages, disadvantages, features and benefits of a broad range of possible floor finishes were held.
Short-listed products were then presented, appraised and ultimately evaluated by Crow Wood’s project design team and other key stakeholders who were directly involved in the project. Through this consultative approach, everyone within the team were confident in selecting the correct products for the intended application, opting for safe, high performing and cost-effective floor finishes that are designed to withstand the physical demands of the various user groups and activities.
The interior designers were also pleased with the options as they were able to choose from an exceptionally wide range of finishes, selecting floor coverings which would best complement the overall look and feel of the broader refurbishment scheme.
For example, in both exercise studios, an attractive, low-profile, sprung engineered oak flooring was selected. This flooring system, with high shock absorption, great resilient strength and uniformity was considered an excellent fit for a wide range of physical activities, but particularly yoga and highly choreographed movements set to upbeat music.
Conversely, in the strength and conditioning area of the club, where people are expected to drop weights such as dumbbells, kettlebells and barbells, repeatedly, the physical characteristics of the floor finish needed to be very different from the studios, and the substrate requires ongoing, long-term protection.
To accomplish this, 40mm-thick, heavy-duty, inter-connecting rubber gym tiles were identified as a suitable solution for this space and TVS Group went on to source, supply and then install the well-known SPORTEC Style Tiles.
Furthermore, the impact-absorbing nature of this specially designed, modular, rubber floor tile, consisting mainly of recycled rubber granules, is considered advantageous in environments like this and helps to reduce structure-borne impact noise and vibration whilst offering a stable and grippy surface to suit any free weights areas, both from the perspective of the gym operator, and the gym user. In fact, elastic floor coverings like this are considered the ideal flooring solution for these types of settings.
Additionally, from an environmental perspective these rubber tiles, which are made mainly from recycled rubber car tyres, are also 100% recyclable when the product lifecycle comes to an end. Throughout the rest of the club, including cardio, fixed resistance and functional areas as well as general circulation spaces and stairwells, a low maintenance, water-repellent and highly resilient vinyl floor covering, containing bacteriostatic and fungistatic treatment, was preferred.
This flooring is available in an ever-increasing range of customisable colours and finishes to achieve the desired aesthetic, in this instance a polished concrete design was selected to best suit the overarching scheme of the refurbishment.


