What Are the Best Fitness Equipment Mats?

Fitness Equipment Mats

High quality gym equipment mats are the key to athlete safety and comfort in a gym. Whether you're creating a home gym or need to outfit a professional commercial gym, you'll want to invest in the best flooring that you can afford. The most important consideration when choosing flooring is to ensure that the equipment will be properly supported by the flooring. This is a harder task than it can seem at first glance.

Why You Need to Carefully Choose Your Gym Equipment Mats

You can put a lot of thought into finding the perfect flooring for your athletes, but that doesn't mean that it will also be the perfect flooring for your gym equipment, like treadmills, ellipticals and other heavy machinery.

Finding the perfect flooring for athletes often times does not mean that it’s also the best flooring for gym equipment. Treadmills, ellipticals, and other heavy exercise equipment require unique flooring consideration. Gym flooring for athletes is often cushioned, shock absorbing and forgiving. It helps to minimize the impact on their bodies, especially from repetitive exercise. This flooring is safe for athletes, as well as comfortable for long periods of time, making it the prefered flooring for athletes.

As gym flooring is typically softer, particularly foam flooring, it isn’t always rigid enough to support the significant weight of gym equipment.  When you put a heavy piece of equipment on this softer flooring, the equipment can cause indentations. If the equipment is left in place for long periods of time, the indentations can become permanent.

Although this seems like a dilemma, Greatmats offers a variety of gym equipment mats that are designed to be a forgiving exercise surface that protects athletes, but is also strong enough to properly support gym equipment.

Gym Equipment Mats Suitable for Use With Heavy Equipment

For durable flooring that can properly support treadmills and other exercise machines, consider one of these great options.

Exercise equipment mats

Foam Mats

Foam mats are typically too soft to give the required support to exercise equipment, but our Gym Floor Foam Tiles are the exception. A super high density EVA foam is what allows the Greatmats Gym Floor Foam Tiles to be able to support the weight of exercise equipment. The pebble top surface texture helps to maximize traction, keeping athletes safe while preventing slips.

Our Gym Floor Foam Tiles include a pebble top surface texture that allows for maximum traction on the foam tile, thus keeping athletes safe by preventing slips. The tiles themselves are lightweight, but they're highly durable and are suitable for use both in home gyms and in commercial spaces that see high traffic. These mats are so strong that they can actually be used as portable horse stall mats!

gym equipment mat

Double sided for longer life and easy to install, each mat comes with two border strips for a clean, finished exterior edge. These gym floor mats are waterproof and are simple to clean, thus making them a great treadmill mat, elliptical mat, or for use in any place where there might be sweat or water on the mats.

Cork Flooring

Cork is a flooring material that offers several benefits that make it an ideal option for gym flooring.  It's forgiving and comfortable, thanks to its honeycomb-like construction. Cork is also highly durable and even offers thermal and acoustic insulation, so it can make your gym a more comfortable place to be. Cork is an eco-friendly flooring material because when cork is harvested it's taken from live trees, which then continue to product more cork bark.

rubber mats for gym equipment

FlexeCork Interlocking Cork Rubber Tiles offer all of these benefits of cork, combined with the strength and durability of rubber. The tiles are made of a cork and recycled rubber mix, allowing the interlocking tiles to be low odor and be suitable for gym use. They can withstand extreme use and abuse, which includes the weight they'd need to support when used as a stationary bike mat, stair climber mat, or mat used to support other heavy gym equipment.

In order to be able to fit a variety of needs, these tiles are available in various thicknesses, patterns, and colors. The tiles interlock together, so there's no adhesive needed for installation. The tiles are non-skid, wear resistant, and shock absorbing, all of the features that are crucial in a gym floor.

rubber mat for gym equipment

Rubber Flooring

Rubber flooring has the widest selection of fitness machine mats, and is the most popular flooring gym flooring material. Rubber gym flooring is highly strong and durable, and most rubber products can easily support the weight of heavy equipment without incurring any damage.

Rubber is a popular gym flooring material because it both provides some shock absorption, while also being a long lasting floor that can withstand the demands of a commercial gym. It's an economical choice, and is available in tiles, mats, and rolls, so you can choose the product that's just right for your needs. Plus, rubber provides sound and thermal insulation, thus making the gym environment more enjoyable for everyone.

gym equipment mats

If you need fitness machine mats that will cover a large area, such as an entire room, then rubber flooring rolls may be the way to go. Greatmats rubber flooring rolls come in a range of thicknesses from 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch. This highly durable rubber has the strength needed to serve as a treadmill mat, elliptical mat, or as flooring beneath any other gym equipment you may have.

When exploring rolled rubber flooring options, keep in mind that the thicker the rubber, the more shock absorbtion it provides, thus giving further protection to the subfloor. These flooring rolls have a non-slip surface that makes them ideal for gym settings, and are even available in custom colors. The rolls are also available for purchase in custom lengths.

Rolled rubber is an economical option, but you'll need the help of multiple people to install it. Greatmats' flooring experts reccomend a glue-down installation for flooring installations over 1000 square feet.

If easy installation is an important factor, rubber interlocking tiles may be the right choice. These tiles are more conveniently sized, so transporting and installing them is a bit simpler. These rubber tiles are great for smaller gym flooring installations and DIY home projects.

The Geneva Interlocking Rubber Tiles measure 3x3 feet and is an affordable solution for gym equipment mats. The interlocking design of the tiles allows for adhesive free installation. Customers love these rubber mats for their durability and low odor. Because the tiles are larger than the 1x1 foot tiles, they result in fewer seams in your finished floor.

best mat for under treadmill

Looking for colors that will make a powerful visual impact? Our Color Plus Rubber Tiles are available in 9 brilliant colors, so you can create striking patterns with your flooring. These rubber tiles are designed with extreme wear resistance, allowing them for years of use in commercial gyms. The top texture design of these tiles is unique, and is four times stronger than most other rubber products on the market. These tiles are designed to withstand the test of time. They’re suitable for use in weight rooms, beneath gym equipment, and any other place in a gym where durability is crucial.

The interlocking design means that you don't need adhesive for the installation, and the tiles result in a flooring that looks seamless. As an added safety feature, the corner and border tiles are designed with edges that ramp down, allowing for a smooth transition on and off the tiles.

Additionally, we offer a number of rubber mat options that can be used independently, without connecting them to other flooring. Our durable rubber gym floor mats can be dry laid on top of existing flooring to provide additional protection and shock absorption to the floor beneath.

Greatmats rubber gym floor mats are a durable option that can be dry laid directly on top of existing flooring to protect the floor beneath the gym equipment. These gym mats are flat on one side, and feature an anti-skid, wire mesh texture on the opposite side. These mats help to give athletes the traction that they need. The mats can be cleaned with a neutral pH cleaner, and both sides of the mat are non-porous. They're economical, easy to install, and are a great way to get the extra protection you need under gym equipment that sees heavy use. These mats are a great choice for use under treadmills, ellipticals, and more.

Our rubber gym floor mats feature smooth sides and can be laid independently, or laid up against additional mats to create a larger surface.

Fitness Equipment Mat

Choosing Your Gym Equipment Mats

Make sure to consider these factors when choosing mats for a gym facility:

- Size of the area to be covered: Keep in mind the area that the flooring needs to cover. If you just need flooring beneath a machine or two, a singular mat may be appropriate. If flooring for an entire room is needed, than rolled rubber flooring or rubber tiles will likely be the better choice.

- Installation method: Our gym flooring can be installed in many different methods, some of which you can handle on your own without professional help. Take into consideration whether the flooring is going to be installed temporarily or permanently, and if a professional installer is going to be used for permanent flooring.

- Ideal features of your flooring: Think of what features are most important for the flooring to have once installed, whether it be traction, ease of maintenance, shock absorption, comfort, or any combination of those. Not only should the flooring be strong enough to support gym equipment, but it needs to be safe and appropriate for athletes, too.

Exercise equipment mat

Greatmats' customer service representatives are always available to help answer any questions during any stage of the buying process. We're always happy to help you choose the product that's right for your needs.