UEL offering students free gym memberships

Published

06 October 2022

The University of East London (UEL) is offering students free off-peak gym membership to its state-of-the-art facilities in SportsDock.

The sports complex underwent a £500,000 refurbishment over the summer, including upgrading the equipment in the gym, strength and conditioning area, and indoor cycle studio.

Hilary Lissenden, assistant chief operating officer (sport and active campus) at UEL, said, "Creating healthy and accessible spaces for people is a huge part of the East London Global Sport Strategy. We know that regular exercise helps with physical and mental well-being, and it can also build confidence and improve concentration which has an impact on an individual's learning outcomes.

"By providing all University of East London students with a free gym membership option, we hope we can remove some of the financial barriers that often stop someone from joining a gym or becoming part of their local sports community."

As part of the free off-peak gym membership, students can take part in a range of fitness classes such as dance, yoga, HIIT and spin.

Off-peak access is between 6am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, and 9am to 8pm on weekends. SportsDock includes:

250 pieces of exercise equipment with a cardio area, functioning rig and free weights room
100+ exercise classes
Access to the TRAKK fitness app to monitor and improve workouts
Indoor cycling studio
Functional fitness area
Multi-use studio for dance and holistic exercise classes

UEL students will have the option to upgrade to a full membership for just £100, giving them access anytime access to SportsDock during opening hours.

SportsDock also has bookable courts and pitches for football, badminton, basketball, netball, futsal, volleyball and table tennis, plus arena space to hire for a various sports and events.

The University regularly puts on free sports classes and activities across its campuses in Docklands and Stratford to introduce people to sports and exercise in a fun and engaging way.

Since opening in 2012, SportsDock also has built an impressive sporting legacy. It was used as a training base for Team USA during the London 2012 Olympic Games, with the likes of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony training at SportsDock. The first lady of the United States at the time, Michelle Obama, also gave an inspirational address to the USA athletes at SportsDock ahead of the iconic Games.

Over the past decade, UEL has risen to become one of the fastest-growing universities for sports in the country. The UEL high performance sport scholarship programme now has over 150 student athletes.

So far, 15 Olympians and Paralympians such as Adam Gemili, Bianca Williams, Gemma Gibbons, Lawrence Okolie and Vanessa Wallace have gone through the sport scholarship programme at UEL and have used the facilities at SportsDock.