Do Japanese offices have gyms?

Q: Do Japanese offices have gyms?

A full gym is rare, and it belongs to the very large companies. What spreads instead is smaller and stranger — a climbing wall by the windows, yoga mats in a mirrored room, exercise equipment left out on the work floor.

01 · The short answer

A wall to climb, rather than a gym

Most offices WALL has walked have no gym. What they have is one piece of equipment big enough to change the room. At Amazon Japan in Meguro it is the first thing you see on the top floor.

“On the top floor, 19, the first thing you see is a 3.8-metre bouldering wall — the right half reserved for the company climbing club, the left for beginners, shoes lent on request.”

02 · The full version

Rakuten keeps a gym, a clinic and a nursery in the building

The companies that do build a gym tend to build everything else with it. Rakuten Crimson House has a fitness club and spa with massage, acupuncture and showers, a clinic in the building for anyone feeling unwell, and an in-house nursery — the “life side” of a headquarters that also holds the work.

03 · A mirrored room

Akatsuki keeps yoga mats and a climbing wall on the floor

Akatsuki does it at office scale: a mirrored space used for yoga and stretching, and a bouldering wall running along the windows. No membership, no separate facility — it is simply part of the floor.

04 · Equipment, not a gym

SoftBank leaves the machines where people walk

At SoftBank’s Takeshiba headquarters the internal staircase and exercise equipment on the floors are treated as one health push, alongside walking events on the company’s own app that draw more than a thousand people each time.

Mitsui Fudosan takes the same idea into the tower it occupies: a fitness facility in the building, a meditation room beside it, and a healthy menu at the café.

Exercise equipment and the internal staircase

05 · The opposite decision

ZOZO built no gym on purpose

One headquarters in our archive refuses the whole category. ZOZO calls its Chiba building a ryōiki-gata office — an office defined by territory rather than walls.

“The park is the break room, the gym is down the road, the nursery is the neighbourhood’s.” Exercise is outsourced to the town, on purpose, so that staff go out and meet people.