University of Sheffield Sport & Physical Activity

Positive experience: I tried the gym for the first time. It's small and crowded. Air conditioning does not work properly. Sometimes it is cold as well. The changing room has been closed with unknown restoration time.

Negative experience: Why are the pool and the sauna/steam room closed? Seems that the pool is used for kayaking or something. Surely it's worth the investment to improve the building and open again.

Positive experience: Good high tech equipment, lots of different machines and several of them as well which is good for busier times. I have been to high end gyms and low budget ones and always find that I have to wait about for certain machines but there are plenty of machines across 2 floors. There is also an app you can download to track your workouts, reps, calories, distance etc which is useful for people who have goals and targets. There is also a large variety of free weights. I can't say I saw any staff other than at reception but then I wasn't looking around for them either but the reception staff are knowledgeable and friendly. Changing rooms are large and clean, showers and toilets also clean and spacious. Lockers are available free of charge which is also a plus. Overall glad I joined and look forward to my next visit

Negative experience: The gym membership is used to be £25 for one month flexi which is what I used to get. Now they have raised the price to £37 per month flexi, which is disproportionate for a student gym and for what you get. The swimming pool and the saunas are permanently closed, which limits the membership to only the gym. I appreciate the fact that the monthly membership price is cheaper when you purchase an annual membership, but I don’t want to be tied to a monthly subscription for a year! Not to mention that the gym isn’t 24/7 and it shuts early on the weekends at 5pm. Plus, the showers and toilets in the gym is disgustingly gross, dirty, and uncomfortable as well. I don’t feel comfortable to showering there.

Fantastic experience: Whenever I’ve had an issue the staff have been extremely helpful and attentive. Always polite and friendly. The new facilities/gym are also really good for someone like me that is not the most confident with exercise as it has sessions on most of the equipment that you can follow along to

Negative experience: Very sad that the pool is now permanently closed. Understand this was for safety reasons but still disappointed at the lack of information & consultation. Gym looks good though, but it's not a swimming pool.

Positive experience: The new gym is really spacious with plenty of areas for movement and personal space. It gets busy but usually doesn't feel crowded. There is a good volue of new equipment, with plenty of fixed benches, adjustable benches, squat racks, cables machines, free weights etc. The environment (Air conditioning, cleanliness, state of equipment) is comfortable to work out in. However, everything is brand new so I hope the uni will stay on top of cleaning and maintenance long-term. Seem to be plenty of lockers. Nevertheless, £37 per month is a rip-off for a gym that isn't 24/7 and doesn't have additional features like a pool.

Fantastic experience: The best swimming pool in Sheffield ever, what a shame that it will not open anymore! ! !

Negative experience: Very poor gym experience. Equipment regularly left broken for months at a time. Far too busy and oversold with long equipment waiting times. Zero air conditioning leaving it extremely warm in the summer months, especially upstairs. No effort from staff to improve experience or offer advice to customers with incorrect form. Currently undergoing a "renovation" with a terrible replacement service running and no willingness to offer any partial refund for cancellation.

Negative experience: There just isn’t enough space or equipment for the number of people that use this gym. There are a lot of machines that are out of order or “fixed” with duct tape too. There are always at least 3-4 machines with an “out of order” sign attached. This tells you the state of the machines. I don’t feel safe using equipment that is often out of order. The facilities are really tired overall. The classes are good but very hard to book on to. In response to the reply below: it is well after Easter now and last time I visited the gym there were at least four pieces of equipment that were out of order.

Negative experience: I am writing this review to express my disappointment with the gym facilities that I recently visited. I purchased a day pass for £8.99 with the expectation that I would have access to the pool and sauna facilities until the gym's closing time, which I was informed was at 5 pm. However, upon arrival at 3:40 pm, I was informed that the pool and sauna were already closing at 4 pm. This was highly frustrating, as the limited access to these facilities made the price of the day pass seem exorbitant, especially since I was not informed of these restrictions before purchasing the pass. I would have appreciated it if the gym had informed me of these limitations before my arrival, as it would have saved me the time and money spent on the day pass. Moreover, the early closure of these facilities means that the gym is not providing a comprehensive service to its customers, especially those who work or study late and would appreciate the opportunity to use the pool or sauna after work hours. Overall, my experience at the gym was highly disappointing, and I would not recommend this facility to anyone looking for a comprehensive gym experience. The early closure of facilities, combined with the high price of the day pass, makes this gym a poor value for money, and I will not be returning in the future. Further comments from my partner, who is a membership holder at this gym: I'm sorry to say that this gym has many issues that need to be addressed. The equipment is in decline and often needs repair or replacing. Unfortunately, most machines take a long time to repair, sometimes 1-3 months. The pool has very limited availability, and the sauna and steam room are out of order 1/3 of the time. The gym is very small and very expensive. Memberships are oversold for the capacity, leading to overcrowding during peak hours. It's a common sight to see all machines occupied, or even worse, out of order. People are often on top of each other, making it challenging to get a proper workout in. The gym management has failed to keep up with the growing demand for the gym, and it's clear that they lack a long-term vision. If they had planned for expansion years ago, we wouldn't be dealing with such issues. Despite the high prices, the gym is generally dirty, and there's a lot of mould on the ceilings. It's frustrating to see the gym constantly overselling memberships, and even worse, advertising new years deals despite already being at capacity. Overall, this gym is an absolute disgrace, and it's difficult to recommend it to anyone, especially for the extortionate amount. The staff are friendly, and there is good car parking, but those positives don't outweigh the many issues the gym has. It's clear that the gym needs better management, more space, and more attention to cleanliness and hygiene.

Negative experience: Fix the Lat pull down machine

Negative experience: I feel sorry writing this review as this place has many good things going for it but it clearly suffers from poor management and neglect. Only leaving a review here as the Talkback 360 thing doesn't work. First of all, memberships are oversold for what the gym can actually handle. It's a common sight to see all machines occupied (or out of order) during peak hours. Everyone's on top of each other and you have to organise your workout around what's available rather than what you actually need to do. Go downstairs to the changing rooms and you'll see two (!) changing booths and three showers. Silly for the numbers the gym is handling. I understand this was enough when the gym was built but the demand has been growing for some time and the management failed to keep up. They should have had enough vision to plan for an expansion years ago. Lack of maintenance has been mentioned in many other reviews. Many machines have been out of order for months. One week I could understand, but months?! The steam room had a similar problem some time ago. The classic 'we're waiting for a part from Germany' line has legendary status among gym-goers. Cleanliness and hygiene are also a problem. The place is generally dirty and you'll see a lot of mould formed on the ceilings. This should be a representative University gym but resembles a downmarket fitness centre. Many University gyms I've been to are proper flagships, almost David Lloyd kind of establishments. Sport Sheffield management should aim higher but they seem complacent knowing that the gym will always attract customers. Just to pre-empt the inevitable, please do not reply with the standard "we're really sorry to hear... please get in touch with us so we can...". You have eyes, you know what I wrote is true. It would be great to see something done about it. Thank you.

Negative experience: Easily the worst gym I've ever used. The only lat pulldown machine doubles as the only cable row machine. This means you're always queuing to use either one because they're part of the same machine but it doesn't matter because this machine has been out of order since early November 2022. Staff have no idea when it'll get fixed. The leg curl machine has been out of order for months. One of the cable machines has been out of order for months. The upstairs water fountain has been out of order for as long as I can remember at this stage. In December the only remaining water machine stopped working for about 2 weeks. The vending machine doesn't sell water bottles. The gym doesn't have much space and is very busy unless you go at times when uni students would be in uni. It's massively over-subscribed. This problem is made much worse by the lack of working equipment. You turn up because you don't have a choice because there aren't any closer gyms. If you ask the staff they'll tell you over and over that they will "nudge" the supplied/company to turn up and fix it (which again, hasn't happened in months). The first thing you see when you walk in is that one of the two barriers where you use your card is broken (and has been for months) then the sauna which you pay for and don't use (because you don't have a choice) is probably out of order and the pool isn’t available today. You finally get into the gym where it's sometimes so busy you can barely move around and try and queue up for some equipment (or whatever might be left since everything is broken), only to be charged £30 at the end of the month. The gym is always claiming to have some refurbishments planned, last time this materialised as a few extra benches and dumbbells and addressed none of the problems mentioned above. If you search for other gyms in the city, the most expensive gym is Station Gym at £33 per month for students - and it's probably one of the better gyms in the city - Goodwin is the second most expensive at £30 and definitely the worst gym I've ever used in any city.

Negative experience: Absolute disgrace of a gym. Completely unusable between 16:00 and 22:00 on weekdays - I tried going after uni once at 17:00 and there were so many people you could barely move. Took me over two hours to finish what should have been a 45min workout because I had to spend half the time waiting for machines. And even if you do manage to get a barbell during peak hours there aren't enough weights to go round. To top it all off, despite the fact that they have already given out at least 50% more memberships than they have capacity for, in January they were advertising new years deals!! As far as I'm concerned the people who manage memberships for this gym are thieves and I'm gonna be asking for a refund seeing as it's unusable for 30% of the advertised opening times. And despite all the money they rake in it still takes multiple weeks for them to fix machines and there are always at least two to three that are broken.

Negative experience: Very small. Very expensive. Equipment is on the decline and in need of repair or replacing. Most machines take 1-3 months to repair. Pool has very limited availability. Sauna and steam room are out of action 1/3 times. Memberships are oversold for gym capacity. If it was cheap, it would be fine, but at £35 a month, very poor. Staff are friendly and there’s good car parking.

Fantastic experience: Amazing facility! Highly recommended!

Positive experience: Great pool, 33m length. Booking online or walk in & pay on door. Smallest changing rooms look like newly refurbished, larger ones in need of a refresh but definitely no issues with them for usage. Large array of other activities, classes & gym available but I haven't used them so can't comment.

Positive experience: All Good

Negative experience: I've tried 4 times now to book swimming lessons and no one ever gets back to you. The answer phone messsge says she works certain days and will get back to you on one of those days but that never happens. I've even left messages with the instructors colleagues but still nothing. Obviously swimming lessons aren't lucrative enough. Joke !

Negative experience: Awful awful awful. Sport Sheffield and the Goodwin gym must be the biggest rip-off in all of Sheffield. Firstly, the gym itself is very very small and easily gets too congested. This makes it impossible to plan a workout and sometimes you simply have to go to whichever machines are free. Secondly, lots of the machines are outdated and prone to breaking. There are only one of some machines, the cable row for example. This is a popular machine and you can be waiting to use it for a while or simply not be able to use it in the time you plan for your workout. Same for accessories; handles, ropes, bars. All of poor quality. The free weights are very rarely organised so you have to search the gym for the weights you would like. Additionally, for some of the weights there are only 2 dumbbells for that weight, so if someone is using them, tough luck! Thirdly, the sauna and steam room that are included in the membership are often out of use or closed whilst whatever rubbish is happening in the pool. So why am I paying for them when you prevent me from using them at given times? What's worse, there is not a timetable for when the pool is being used so it is pot-luck whether you can use the sauna/steam room when you turn up. What a farce. You have to call them to find out, and often they do not answer the phone. Lastly, the extortionate cost. You are paying over the odds for a facility that is way under the odds. Absolute money grabbers. Ridiculous clauses in contracts. Considering this is a student gym, one would think they would be facilitating, but no, they seek to drain you of money. Cancelling you membership requires 10 working days? This is a trick they used to secure additional payments as who would think such an archaic system would be in place. The gym closes early at the weekends, 5pm, once again testament to the sub-par experience.

Fantastic experience: Nice place

Fantastic experience: Great value Surya venue including squash firsts and large fitness park

Positive experience: Decent medium-sized gym with two floors. It can get really busy at peak times so you can’t always use the machines you want. There’s a swimming pool which is a bonus! It costs me £33 monthly since I’m not a student and an extra £39 for swimming lessons which is not included in the monthly membership. Very expensive in my opinion, which is why I’ve given it 4-stars but staff are nice and friendly!

Negative experience: if i could give this gym 0 stars i would For £30 a month you get yourself a tiny gym that cant hold more than about 50 people in at a time, and this is supposedly open to not only students, but the public as well. Also for £30 a month, you have extremely outdated equipment, barbell pads provided are broken and taped up, not replaced and theres not enough of the equipment to handle the capacity for such a small gym. The walls around the changing rooms are mouldy and have plenty of leakages through the ceilings. Some of the staff are strange, i’ve had one that will blatantly stand in my way of a lift for no reason and continues to stare for no reason either, not a very comfortable atmosphere I only go to this gym because its the closest one otherwise take your money elsewhere

Positive experience: Generally a pretty decent gym, the sauna and steam rooms can be a little hit and miss.

Negative experience: overcrowded and overpriced especially for a student gym Updated: 1 year after writing the first review and the situation is significantly worse, after waiting months for a refurbishment to replace most of the broken, outdated, or overall lack of equipment the equipment has been moved to the squash courts for what is meant to be an extended period of time, this has only made the issue of overcrowding significantly worse. I have attended this gym for almost 4 years and have seen none if any improvement or investment into the facility which has made any actual impact on quality, arguably one of the worst university sports facilities of all the northern universities whilst also charging more than most other university sports facilities. Honestly incredibly disappointed with the quality of the service and would not recommend this facility to anyone.

Fantastic experience: I really enjoy my Zumba class here. Great place to do exercise

Negative experience: I go to this uni, sport Sheffield facilities and assistance is pretty much no existent

Fantastic experience: Great gym and sports centre at reasonable prices, with flexible plans, that is open to everyone.

Fantastic experience: Decent Gym. Upstairs is cardio and machines. Downstairs is free weights. Friendly staff. Cool people. Would recommend.

Fantastic experience: Excellent venue for swimming and the staff are so helpful

Fantastic experience: Nice pool, kind staff and very good facilities for all kinds of sports.

Positive experience: We went to heely swimming baths, the staff are always lovely and its a nice little pool.

Positive experience: Pool seems small at girst but is a sensible length once in. The gym is very well organised with cardio seperate from free weights, both sections modern and highly maintained.

Negative experience: The pool isn't great. I found a nail. In the pool. And it a bit dirty

Fantastic experience: excellent place

Fantastic experience: Great value for money, unpretentious

Negative experience: Would not recommend joining this gym. The booking system is a mess, you have to book about 3 days in advance to get a 1 hour slot and because of this you have very little flexibility to train, since other commitments such as work or family may come up during your booking which you have not foreseen. Also the booking system means that everyone booked into the session rushes into the gym at the same time meaning all the compound equipment e.g. squat rack bench and barbells are all used up unless you get there 15 minutes early which is a joke. The gym is very small as it is for the amount of members so you're pretty much always waiting for equipment and when you've only got a 1 hour slot to train in having to wait 10 minutes to use a piece of equipment is really a bit of a joke. For £30 a month this is a total rip off considering the lack of equipment and the frustrating booking system. Would recommend you find a bigger gym for half the price in Sheffield where you can actually enjoy your workouts. Something I have not been able to do since I've joined Sport Sheffield and am planning on leaving. Once more, the customer service is pretty poor. I've tried leaving after expressing my issues about the gym and they are refusing to cancel my membership until the 1st January! 3 months! Which is honestly a joke and have stopped responding to my emails. Avoid.

Positive experience: I used to go there. There are variety of machines there. All equipments are working fine. There are 2 problems with the gym that I can point out. 1. The exercise building is old and small. 2. The distance from dcs campus and University accommodation is far. However I enjoyed my time there and meet lovely new people and got friend with them.

Negative experience: Having been part of Sheffield University for 7 years and seeing sports facilities other universities have to offer I can honestly say that this sports centre is an embarrassment. Always over crowded, small in size and with out-dated equipment. I would expect this kind of thing from a run-down gym charging £10 a month but the membership is £30! There are so many better gyms in sheffield for a much lower price. Yes there is a pool but that's pretty small too and about it's only saving grace. Still not worth 30 a month though, thats what EIS charges and they have a much better gym and an Olympic pool!

Positive experience: Steam room never bloody works

Negative experience: 카운터에 앉아계신분 매우 rude! 개 싸갖없음 ㅋㅅㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 인종차별하는것도ㅠ아니고 어학원애들이냐고 그러면서 개씹무시함 ;;

Positive experience: Quality dootie pitches. Also have sports hall. Lockers.

Fantastic experience: Great facility

Fantastic experience: Swim and sauna for £4.50 bloody brilliant. Gym staff great, helpful and knowledgable. Not just for students. Can be busy but diverse people. Love it

Fantastic experience: Absolutely glorious gym, worth the price

Fantastic experience: Sauna

Positive experience: Well equipped with a gym that has all the weight equipment, cardio machines, as well as a swimming pool, squash courts and studios for dance or yoga.

Positive experience: Very average university gym, been to a lot better. The facilities has a wide range of equipment, generally well kept. Staff are not polite, mainly ran by students who appear to have little experience and argue regularly between themselves. Pool is good but not big with only 4 lanes but sauna and steam room are a nice addition, not often found at uni pools. The main problem lies with the cost. Having used other university gyms before this is more expensive then most with a student membership being around £230 for the academic year! When every student is paying £9000 a year it seems a little high.

Positive experience: Good gym, gets a little crowded

Fantastic experience: Brilliant gym. Amazing classes. Always busy here. One downside. The web portal to book classes- is terrible

Fantastic experience: Staff very friendly, a big range of gym equipment. The check in system is easy to use too :) although its slightly expensive for students, it's kinda worth it to say you get everything included and it's in a walking distance from most student residence.

Fantastic experience: Visited whilst on a uni tour. Looked a great facility!

Fantastic experience: I used to go there swimming on Tuesday mornings

Fantastic experience: Great friendly staff

Fantastic experience: School sports day

Fantastic experience: Lovely new football pitches

Fantastic experience: It has everything I need to excercise and it's clean. Kind treatment

Positive experience: Dirty showers!! And the dates to cancel the membership change each month, be carefull with that.

Fantastic experience: Have an international competition swimming pool.

Positive experience: These premises are currently being restored with new buildings for the new sports centre

Fantastic experience: Great pool swim and sauna . On street parking.

Fantastic experience: Clean and tidy

Negative experience: The gym is very messy and cramped and far too busy

Positive experience: 수영장만 방문했는데 수영장은 좋아요 다이빙도 할 수 있을 정도로 깊어요 살짝 무서울 것 같기도 하구욤 일단 전 좋았어요 ㅜㅜ옷 갈아입는 장소에서 사람들이 신발신고 다녀서 씻고 나서 신발 신을 때 수건으로 발을 닦는데 되게 찝찝하네요... 막 흙같이 까끌한거 밟히는데 다들 아무렇지 않은 것 같아요 ㅜ 신발장도 따로 없어요 외국에서 수영장에 간 건 처음이라 완전 당황스러운데 이게 익숙해질 지 잘 모르겠어요 완전 어색해요

Positive experience: Played squash during the Christmas break and the prices were good and no requirement to have a membership. Shower was like a tap which was the only criticism of the place. Would definitely use this place again as a sports centre even though not the easiest place on public transport to get to.

Fantastic experience: great sport facilities and the availability of give it a go sessions as well

Positive experience: Fantastic facility! 33m pool with lanes usually available for swimming. Varied exercise class timetable. Well equipped gym, friendly service from staff.

Positive experience: Expensive and very old facility’s

Fantastic experience: Nice and very comfortable place

Positive experience: Ótimas instalações para a prática de futebol

Positive experience: Good place to exercise. Have many facilities

Fantastic experience: Son trains there every week .with Hallam fc

Fantastic experience: Regular haunt for football

Positive experience: Fantastic local amenities and a great pool. The prices have risen with the pandemic. Hopefully this will not last beyond the easing of lockdown, but it's great to be able to access this location again.

Negative experience: I had a really bad experience in the pool on the first day I joined the gym and asked for my money back. I have tried to get my money back which I was promised, but have experienced delays, phone calls and emails not responded to etc. im at the end of my tether as I prepare to phone again. I’m now with Nuffield gym which I can’t praise highly enough.

Negative experience: Not like it

Positive experience: Good enough. But the infrastructure could be improved in the future.

Fantastic experience: Friendly, efficient and loads of tackle 7 days a week, pool, gym and fitness rooms as well as football pitches

Positive experience: I've used the free weights here regularly, there's lots of space and plenty of variety and you can follow a full strength routine. During university term-time, the place gets really busy though so if you don't like waiting for equipment you need to go at certain times.

Negative experience: Expensive membership, bad opening times, rude online support, dirty changing rooms. Need to give two months notice to cancel your member ship!

Fantastic experience: Great facilities and good long opening times. Have been a member for a year and have not been disappointed, even at peak times.

Fantastic experience: Excellent sport center Everything is available

Fantastic experience: Best

Positive experience: Good gym overall, nice pool with plenty of availability for swimming during the week. One criticism is that the pool isn't open at weekends which is a bit annoying. The gym area is quite big with a range of equipment, free weights and spinning available. Student 6 week membership is £40

Positive experience: Great facilities to do just about ever possible sport

Negative experience: Never been

Positive experience: Very impressive!

Positive experience: Good squash facilities - clean and tidy courts. There is no onsite parking, meaning to you to park on the streets surrounding it which you have to pay for.

Positive experience: Excellent sporting venue.

Fantastic experience: Great sporting facilities, from football, squash, swimming and what not. The gym is very well equipped and the staff members are very helpful. Always emails well in advance in case of any changes in the schedule. Convenient opening hours and plenty of on-street parking are just icings on the cake.

Positive experience: Very nice

Fantastic experience: Swimming pool is a little dirty.

Fantastic experience: Great venue to do exercise regularly

Positive experience: Good quality sports facilities for members of the university of Sheffield

Positive experience: Squash courts are operable

Fantastic experience: Great facilities. swimming pool is good size, clean and too busy. Football pitches are good standard and multiple sizes. Indoor facility equally great accommodating many different sports. Enjoy!

Fantastic experience: مكان رياضي ممتع جدا لكرة القدم

Fantastic experience: I'm a membership of the gym and the swimming pool. I also play football games there every Tuesday evening and go there for bouldering regularlly. Goodwin is a great place providing loads of options while keeping cheap!