Fitness Acoustics: Can Your Class Hear You?
People go to the gym for attending group fitness classes like yoga, spin cycling, CrossFit, and other activities that are health-oriented. For any successful workout or class it is of course an important factor to listen to the instructor. Unfortunately, many fitness spaces and gyms are extremely reverberant, which makes it difficult – at times even impossible – to clearly hear the teacher.
Hard flat surfaces, found usually in fitness centers, rather than absorbing or diffusing sound reflect it, and these strong untreated reflections produce reverberation and echo, which creates sound interference that is destructive. A student who sits in the last row of a large classroom that is hard surfaced will find it very difficult to understand accurately what the professor is saying in the front of the room, even in a relatively quiet room. The same applies to fitness spaces.
Reducing the Negative Impacts of Noise
While there are unique qualities in every fitness space, all of them face the same bothersome issues of sound if the flat-surface ceilings and walls are left untreated. Yoga studios must be echo-free and peaceful, spin participants must be able to listen to their instructors over the “self-noise” of the cycles and the music, and there should not be any distractions for boxers such as stereo systems and clanking weights.
If an untreated space is left, all the unwanted reverberations in sound will create sound “masking” which decreases speech intelligibility greatly.
For reducing reverberation in your fitness class and enabling crisp, clear sound, some absorption solutions are as follows:
1. Echo Eliminator – This eco-friendly solution which is unique is very common among gym spaces due to its low cost. The recycled cotton material that is of light weight can be mounted as hanging baffles or wall panels to lessen echoes and reverberation.
2. PVC Baffles – The popularity of hanging baffles is for their durability, reasonable cost, and wide color variety, and different types of ceiling structures like beams and girders can be used for hanging it.
3. WallMate – Obtainable in a wide range of fabric colors and styles. The design of these wall systems that are decor-friendly is easy to install for any commercial contractor.
4. PEPP – These acoustic panels are made of porous expanded polypropylene (PEPP). They are water, impact, fungi, and bacteria resistant, and can also be very easily installed and are cost-effective.
5. Fabric-wrapped-panels – These panels are absorbent, versatile over a wide range of frequencies, and obtainable in varied colors and sizes, and look great in upscale environments.
The products of Acoustical Surfaces, India have rectified problems across a wide variety of gymnasiums, exercise rooms, and home fitness centers. Their acoustical products will help your class instructors to communicate more effectively and motivate their attendees.