24 new machines.
New Bunker Room.
Diggers Gym just got serious about strength. 24 brand-new Hammer Strength & Life Fitness machines across two floors — plus our new downstairs Bunker Room, a dedicated home for glute and lower-body work. Built the way locals actually train.
Six machines.
One job.
Most gyms throw a hack squat into a corner and call it lower-body training. We disagreed.
The Bunker is a separate room downstairs at Coogee Diggers Gym — six plate- and pin-loaded Hammer Strength machines, one focus: lower-body work that actually moves the needle. Hack squat. Linear leg press. Hip abductor/adductor. Seated and standing calf raise. A second plate-loaded Smith machine for hip thrusts, split squats and Bulgarians.
No queuing behind someone's bicep day. No music that doesn't match the lift. No watered-down circuit set in the middle of the main floor. Just a quiet, focused room built for the work that builds glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves that hold up at 40, 50, and 70.
The name is a nod to our heritage — Diggers has been an RSL home since 1935. A bunker, in that tradition, is a fortified position, a place to do quiet serious work. Downstairs at Diggers, that's what this room is for.
Three reasons
we built it.
Focus, not friction.
Lower-body work is loud, deliberate and time-consuming. Putting it on the main floor means queues, distractions, and lifters cutting sets short. A separate room means you train the way the work demands. Walk in, walk to your machine, lift.
Built for how locals train.
Glute development. Runners' knee prevention. Post-pregnancy rebuilding. HYROX sled prep. The 55-year-old who wants to keep getting up off the floor at 75. This is what our members actually train for — so we built the room around it.
Premium gear, real prices.
Hammer Strength & Life Fitness — the machines you'd find in a $40-a-week chain. At a 90-year-old community club, with a $15 schnitty upstairs. Diggers doesn't think serious strength training should require a serious membership fee.
Six new machines.
Glutes, quads, calves.
Every machine downstairs is a brand-new Hammer Strength or Life Fitness unit, chrome and yellow trim, plate- or pin-loaded. Below: what each one does, and what to use it for.
Plate-loaded Hack Squat
Hammer Strength · Plate-loadedHeavy quad and glute development with the spine supported. The safest way to load 200kg through your legs without needing a spotter or a perfect squat groove. Foot position changes everything — high stance for glutes, low and narrow for quads.
Linear Leg Press
Hammer Strength · Plate-loadedHigh-volume lower-body conditioning. Stack the plates, set the depth, push hard. The work-horse of any serious lower-body session — ideal for finishing sets, single-leg variations, and progressive overload without spinal load.
Plate-loaded Smith Machine
Life Fitness · Plate-loaded · Smith #2The Bunker's second Smith — dedicated to lower body. Hip thrusts at any load. Bulgarian split squats with depth control. Reverse lunges with a stable bar path. This is the machine that builds glutes you can actually see.
Hip Abductor & Adductor
Insignia Series · Pin-loadedThe most underrated machine in any gym. Abduction builds glute medius — the muscle that stabilises your knees and hips on every step. Adduction trains inner-thigh strength most people ignore until they tweak something. Both, both, both.
Seated Calf Raise
Hammer Strength · Plate-loadedSeated targets the soleus — the deep calf muscle that handles endurance and ankle stability for runners. Heavy load, short range, controlled tempo. The unsexy work that pays off at kilometre 18.
Standing Calf Raise
Hammer Strength · Pin-loadedStanding loads the gastrocnemius — the bigger, more visible calf muscle that contributes to vertical jump and sprint power. Pair with seated for full calf development. Yes, train calves. Properly.
And 18 more
upstairs.
The main strength floor — pin-loaded selectorised machines, plate-loaded Hammer Strength isolators, and two dual-adjustable cable stations for everything you can think of doing with a handle and a rope.
- Dual Adjustable Pulley × 2 Signature Series · Cable
- Smith Machine Plate-loaded · Upstairs #1
- Pin-loaded Chest Press Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Shoulder Press Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Tricep Extension Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Bicep Curl Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Seated Row Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Fixed Pull-Down Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Seated Leg Press Hammer Strength Select
- Pin-loaded Leg Extension Hammer Strength Select · ×2
- Pin-loaded Leg Curl Hammer Strength Select · ×2
- Pin-loaded Seated Leg Curl Hammer Strength Select
- Plate-loaded Iso Lateral Row Hammer Strength · Plate-loaded
- Plate-loaded Iso Lateral Incline Press Hammer Strength · Plate-loaded
- Plate-loaded Iso Lateral Shoulder Press Hammer Strength · Plate-loaded
Built for everyone
who turns up.
Whether you're rehabbing a knee, prepping for HYROX, building glutes for the first time, or just trying to age well — there's a use for every machine in The Bunker. A few of the people we built it for:
The runner with weak glutes.
Hip abductor work and single-leg press are how you stop your knees collapsing inward at km 8. Calf raises — both kinds — keep your achilles from quitting before you do.
The post-pregnancy rebuild.
Hip-thrust work on the Smith, gentle progressive loading on the leg press, adductor strength for pelvic stability. Coached or self-directed — you set the pace.
The HYROX athlete.
Sled push prep needs heavy unilateral leg drive — Bulgarian split squats on the Smith, walking lunges with the rack. Hack squat for the lunges, leg press for sled-position conditioning.
The 55-year-old who wants to age well.
Two of the best predictors of independence at 75 are leg strength and balance. The Bunker is set up to train both, safely loaded, with no spinal compression required.
Why we
called it the Bunker.
"A bunker is a fortified position. A place to do quiet, serious work — held in reserve until it counts."
— Coogee-Randwick RSL Sub-Branch, Est. 1935
Coogee Diggers was founded in 1935 as an RSL sub-branch — a home for returned World War I servicemen and their families. The club has lived at the corner of Byron & Carr Street ever since. The name "Diggers" comes from the Australian soldier tradition; "the Bunker" comes from the same place.
We liked the word because it carried two meanings at once: the historical sense — fortified, focused, prepared — and the literal sense — downstairs, basement, dedicated. A room set apart from the main floor so the work that happens inside it can be done properly, without distraction, without apology.
Ninety years of community work behind us. A new room downstairs for the next ninety. Built in 1935. Built for you.
See it, lift it,
try it.
Tour the new floor. Walk the Bunker. Use one machine, use all of them — your first workout is on us. No price sheet, no pressure. Coogee locals first.