Everything about Gyms in Pokémon Go

Pokémon Go isn't just about catching as many Pokemon as you can find. Eventually, you'll be able to take your most powerful catches and team them up for battle. Sometimes, that'll be in the built-in PvP mode, but more often, you'll be setting out to challenge the local Gym in your area.

This guide will walk you through everything that you need to know about Gyms, from challenging them to the benefits of controlling one for your team. The fight to maintain a Gym for team Valour, Mystic or Instinct is one of the funnest parts of the game and this guide will help you become the next conquering hero in your neighbourhood.

Gyms function a lot like PokéStops, in that they appear in real-world locations throughout your neighbourhood and can usually only be activated while you're in close proximity. However, unlike a PokéStop's blue-cube appearance, Gyms are massive structures with Pokémon floating on top of them.

Depending on which team currently controls a Gym, it will appear on your map in one of three colours: red for Valour, blue for Mystic or yellow for Instinct. If you tap on a Gym, you can see how many Pokémon currently hold that Gym – up to six at a time – and how powerful they are at the moment.

If you're close enough to a Gym controlled by an enemy team, you can challenge the Pokémon within the Gym by tapping the Battle button on the bottom-right corner of the screen. You can then select a team of Pokémon to take into battle against the team of enemy Pokémon currently holding it.

The battle system for a Gym is the same as any other battle. Tap the screen for your current Pokémon’s light attack and when its energy is filled, tap the Charged Attack icon on the bottom of the screen to unleash massive damage. Once an enemy Pokémon is defeated, you'll move on to the next member of the enemy team until you've faced them all.

Removing an enemy team from a Gym may take multiple runs, as each defeat lowers the defending Pokémon’s power by a specific amount. Once that power reaches zero, however, they will leave the Gym and return to the player that put them there. When the defending Pokémon is defeated, the Gym is ripe for conquering.

When the last defender is removed, the Gym will turn grey, and only Trainers from the same team as yours can claim it for a certain amount of time. To add your Pokémon to the defending team, tap on the Gym, then tap on the icon with a plus sign in the bottom-right corner of your screen. From there, select a Pokémon to defend the Gym and it will appear in the defending lineup.

When you leave a Pokémon inside a Gym, you’ll lose access to it until it’s defeated by a rival player. As such, you will not be able to use it in PvP battles or Raids for as long as it's in the Gym, so keep that in mind when selecting your representative to defend the Gym.

When your defending Pokémon returns to you, however, you’ll earn an amount of PokéCoins – Pokémon Go's premium currency – relative to how long the Pokémon spent in the Gym, with a possible maximum of 50 PokéCoins. You can use these Coins to buy supplies, increase storage and more via the in-game shop.