I’ve wanted to write this article for years when I was a member at Spiece Fitness so I’m finally doing it. This applies to about any gym. Some gyms have background music playing overheard in their exercise areas. This was adequate for me and most of the time I didn’t really notice the music because I was concentrating on exercising.
I’ve noticed at gyms today you will see two kinds of people: the headphone/earphone people and the rest of us. The headphone people are listening to something in their headphones (I hope). It’s hard to speak to them because I don’t want to interrupt their music or whatever they are listening to. I tried listening to my smartphone with headphones a few times, but it was an annoyance and I never continued.
The headphone people are kind of isolated and in their own world. Sometimes they forget the rest of us can hear them and they start singing out loud to their songs. There was one lady one time at Spiece who sang fairly loud when she was on her headphones.
You can wave Hi to them and sometimes they remove the headphones to speak and other times they don’t They’re not as approachable as non-headphone people when you want to ask if they’re using a weight machine or not. I like to be able to talk to the people I know and the headphones interfere.
An embarrassing situation can arise when you start a conversation with them assuming they hear you and they don’t. When it’s their turn to respond, there is awkward silence. And if other non-headphone people are nearby, they can feel your pain. I make sure they see me attempting to speak them by waving my arms in front of them before I start speaking. You never know how loud the volume is on their headphones.
I think I may be in the minority now because I was touring a new gym this week which had no background music. The director of the facility explained most people nowadays have their own music and headphones and background music is unneeded. Oh well- Maybe I can just talk to myself at the gym.
