I was observing a group exercise class at a club that is part of a major health club chain a while back. As one class wrapped up, participants for the next class were filing in. As they came in, they all grabbed a mat and put it down to establish their territory. Then, many of them went to the weight rack to grab dumbbells, which they then tossed onto their selected spot.
Yes, I said tossed. From waist high and about five feet away, they landed soundly on the expensive hardwood floor with a thud.
I couldn’t believe it—these folks were literally throwing 10 lb. hex head weights onto the hardwood floor! I wondered, half-aloud, how they would feel if I walked into their living rooms and tossed a couple of these weights down onto their pretty hardwoods. My bet was that not too many would be happy about it if I did it once, not to mention grabbing twenty of my friends and having them also repeat this exercise several times a day.
As you can imagine, even though it had been installed only a very short time, this floor was pretty beat up.
Participants will do what they do, and you can only control so much of that. You can try to ask them not to throw the weights in the group exercise room, but instructors shouldn’t have to act as the police. And really, it should be common courtesy not to toss pointed heavy objects onto a hardwood floor.
But, there are a couple of things that you can do to alleviate this. One is to trade in those hex head dumbbells for, well, almost anything else. A hex head dumbbell will tear up any surface over time—even thick rubber flooring and cement floors. If you ever find the need to tunnel out of somewhere, I hope that you’re equipped with a hex head dumbbell. You should be out in no time.
The same companies that manufacture hex head weights also manufacture rounded dumbbells that have no obvious disadvantages. Better yet are the rounded dumbbells that are urethane or rubber coated. You can’t prevent people from tossing weights, or even just dropping them, but you can make it easier for your floors to withstand them.