Ever consider your workout surface? Maybe you should. Fact is, the right flooring can be as important as the equipment itself. Proper flooring ensures the integrity of your joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons; The wrong floor can completely negate the benefits of your workout shoes, and expose your body to undue stress and possible injury.

Getting the right flooring for your gym is a sound investment—it’s quite literally the foundation for your fitness center, training studio or home gym. What’s more, choosing the wrong flooring (or not caring for it properly) comes with long-term costs. Many, many options are available, but I’m particularly impressed with recycled rubber flooring from Everlast Sports Surfacing with Nike Grind.

First, Everlast flooring is durable, easy-to-clean and looks great. It absorbs shock, muffles sound, and time-and-again proves to be an ideal surface to support the cardio machines, loaded free-weight racks and high-impact usage our clients demand. Plus, the ‘Everlast’ name is appropriate, since it’s manufactured to resist abrasions and UV damage.

Second, Everlast sports flooring can meet the need of any facility. The unlimited color and size options help hide traffic and wear patterns. Plus, it’s available in rolls, 36-inch tiles, and interlocking tiles.

Finally, Everlast gym flooring is totally eco-friendly—reflecting an important fitness industry trend. Then again, ‘going green’ is nothing new for Everlast, which has been using scrap tires in its flooring for more than 20 years. Now the company’s products also include Nike Grind material, made from shoes recycled via the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program and Nike manufacturing scrap. By adding Nike Grind rubber to its athletic surfaces, Everlast diverts over 300,000 pounds of rubber from landfills each year (equal to the outsoles from nearly 700,000 pairs of sneakers). Looking for LEED credits? Everlast surfaces can help you get there.

As for installation, Everlast makes that easy, too. You can do it yourself, or have professionals do it for you. (Hmmm…good time to mention that Gym Source expertly installs athletic flooring?) One helpful hint: Most manufacturers recommend affixing athletic flooring surfaces with glue.  But here at Gym Source, many of our clients have found clear advantages to using double-sided tape. Moving soon? With tape, take up your flooring and reuse it at another location. Or, in cases of flooding, tape enables you to remove, clean, dry-out and reuse the same material.

With the right installation—and proper care and maintenance—Everlast fitness flooring will provide a practical and attractive surface that you can use (and reuse) for your fitness center for years to come.