The Otago Rugby Football Union’s new gym for its players at floor 2A at the Forsyth Barr Stadium is set and is being used by players.
The gym was kitted out inside four days over the festive season by a team of the union’s staff and players and it now had nine weight platforms for the players to get through their programmes.
Otago strength and conditioning trainer Karl Bloxham said the area was small and did not have the amount of machinery of a lot of other gyms.
But that meant the players could concentrate on the particular exercises and the gym did not need to have a lot of weights to put on machines. It also meant hardly any weights would be idle.
Part of the gym would be laid in turf over the next month, creating an area where speed and agility exercises could be carried out.
The underlay for the weights area came from a recycled rubber conveyor belt which had been used by Oceania Gold at the Macraes mine.
He said everyone has chipped in and made it look good. Players were working in it and enjoying new surroundings already.
Forsyth Barr Stadium now has four gyms on its property.
There is the Otago union’s new gym, World Fitness has relocated its gym to the same floor, the Unipol gym is at the west end of the stadium and the High Performance Sport NZ gym is behind the north stand.
There is also a gym in the Sargood Centre, just a stone’s throw away at Logan Park, while Harbour Rugby Club has a gym at Moller Park, not far from the stadium.
Bloxham said the union wanted its own gym as it had been struggling to get time in the well used High Performance Sport NZ gym.
Most provincial unions had their own gym. The union would put in new meeting rooms and staff offices as it located its Mitre 10 Cup team’s base to the stadium by the union’s office.