People walking on treadmills in the gym

[crinklechips]

OK to start with I know I'm being a bit U but I need to have a mini-rant.

I use currently use the gym mainly for running intervals and speedier sessions which are easier to manage indoors.

Every time I go in all the treadmills are taken, and mostly by people walking.

Now I can totally understand that people have different fitness levels, might be using the treadmill to warm up or for recovery and that's absolutely fine.

But there seems to a growing number of people (actually, exclusively younger women in my observation) just using the treadmills for a gentle stroll while messing around on their phones.

I ended up next to a young woman last night who spent the entire half hour I was on the neighbouring treadmill walking at 3kph, no incline, while scrolling instagram. I can barely call that exercise, it's below a normal walking pace. If that's how you want to kill time then I guess it's up to you but it just seems selfish when there's a queue of people waiting for a treadmill.

Nah, you’re not being unreasonable. If it’s literally as you described, and the reason you can’t do your running exercise is because of people slow walking on the treadmill so they don’t hit lampposts while out for a gentle scroll/stroll.

Honestly coming to hate the modern world.

Don’t appear to you to be meaningful exercise!

Which of course is irrelevant.

Much as I love sticking to a training plan, I have learnt over the years that being consistent with my training sometimes mean being flexible. This doesn't need to be a negative where you're left feeling frustrated, as you were, but an opportunity to try something different, mix things up a bit and get a bit of a new stimulus. I tend not to go to the gym during busy periods but in your case, I'd have seen the treadmills were all in use and challenged myself with a Watt bike interval session which is actually really good cross training for running anyway and would have torched some calories whilst working my leg muscles in a different way.

I hope you can see from this thread that the vast majority of people will absolutely not care what speed you go at. Most people are so wrapped up in what they're doing they won't think about you at all, and if they do, they will just think good for you.

@crinklechips i think perhaps it is the choice of walking - fast walking on an incline is as effective as running but just in slightly different ways - for my knees and preference for endurance I would always choose the former over the latter

what they may have seen id that actually incline walking is better for fat loss than running they just missed the incline and need for it to be fairly speedy and not just a stroll!

Why don’t you just run outside? Why not do your weight routine in your house? People come to the gym for all kinds of reasons. You’re unreasonable and a snob. Most gyms have signs up asking people to give up their treadmills after 20/30 mins when it’s busy. You’re not more deserving of a machine than someone walking.

I know I'm being U for presuming to assume anything about about what anyone individually is able to do based on their appearance.

But I might be surprised if the demographic of people using blue badge spaces shifted significantly to people in their 20s and (in so far as I can stretch the analogy) this is this shift that's happened in the gym.

It's not for me to judge what any one person is or isn't doing on the treadmill but I've been asking myself the question "why are there now so many people using the treadmills for prolonged periods of very slow walking?". When I last used the gym regularly (which is well over a decade ago!) it wasn't the case.

Why is the OP's running more important than someone else's walking?

If someone was using the treadmill to run for half an hour, the OP still wouldn't be able to use it, so what difference does it make whether the person on the treadmill is walking or running? Yeah, the walkers could walk outside instead... but the OP could also run outside instead.

If you use a gym, you have to accept that other people will exercising there and that sometimes, they will beat you to the equipment you fancy using. What they're using it for is neither here nor there. A treadmill is for walking and running, just like machines with weights can be used by people who lift very heavy and people who lift light.

I actually had someone tell me off for exactly this. I was rehabbing an injury and entertaining myself while I did so. What was I supposed to do? Walk slowly (as fast as I could!) for 30mins and just stare into space?

Just for info, I can tell you why I walk on treadmills. It's because it gives me the opportunity to walk safely on a flat surface, an opportunity is entirely lacking in the hilly area, plagued by uneven pavements, where I live. My knee can't manage hills any more so the treadmill is a life saver for me.
Having said that, that set of circumstances probably doesn't apply to every single young woman in your gym, so I agree that the way they are using the machines is irritating, and believe they would get more benefit from walking outside without their phones.

Sure they are. They're moving without going anywhere - that is the purpose.

Maybe gyms aren’t for people like you, OP. Get your own treadmill if you aren’t good at sharing.

I'm doing interval training at the mo to build my fitness back up and I'm already paranoid about people thinking I'm a waste of time loser for daring to use the walking setting at 3km between my 6km jogging bits. I was going faster a month or so ago but I injured my hip and have been forced to start slow.

Lots of people at my gym also use the walking setting, many of them on a mad incline. We're all on different fitness journeys with different aims and plans and physical conditions.

As a woman I would like to do more of my jogging and eventually running outside in the real world BUT the time of day I can do my workouts it's dark and it's not safe in my area to go for a run outside. I can walk my dog in daylight but I spend longer in the gym or post jog/run because I'm also weight training. Safety, or the lack thereof, is a reason why someone might choose to walk on a treadmill.

I also use my phone in the gym, to log my lifts, to time myself, to check my progress, to skip to a better song on my playlist.

Walking could be part of their warm up or cool down.

Or, here's a thought, it's actually none of your business.

I will often use the treadmill (particularly in winter) for LISS workouts. I’ll even watch a show on my iPad. But I pay my membership so I’m entitled to use the equipment to meet my fitness & workout goals. You can easily do interval training in a park 🤷🏻‍♀️

You're being so judgmental and obviously unreasonable to think other people in the gym must adhere to your timetable. They have no less right to be there than you do.

When I used to go to the gym I would use the treadmill for walking, often a fast walk in an incline. I don’t run and I believe running in a hard surface isn’t great for you. It’s my choice to walk, I don’t see it as an issue. I think often we are made to feel lesser because we don’t use the gym the same as some people do, this is why a lot of people are scared to join 🙁. Everyone has their own journey and their own idea of exercising, be that having a gentle stroll or row or having a fast run and lift some weights.

Stick to what you do and we will stick to what we do.

You have absolutely no idea why anyone is walking on a treadmill, and it is none of your business. FYI, when recovering from cancer treatment - with no outward signs to warn off judgemental busy bodies like you - this is what I did - walk slowly on a treadmill at the gym - that I was paying for - because that was all I could manage.

I've injured my knee and can't walk outdoors due to how uneven the ground is. So I use a treadmill to build up strength in my knee without damaging it further. I have just as much right to use the treadmill as you do.

But I might be surprised if the demographic of people using blue badge spaces shifted significantly to people in their 20s and (in so far as I can stretch the analogy) this is this shift that's happened in the gym.

The unworthy 20 something gym users of today are the middle aged and older women of tomorrow who swim a snail's pace breaststroke, two or even three people wide, with perfect makeup and styled hair that must not get wet at all, while chattering away. Or the middle aged and older men who sweat over everything and don't wipe it down or sit in the jacuzzi for absolutely ages so nobody else can use it.

Whats it to you? They pay their money.

How about you focus on your own work out and mind your own business?
(And I say this as a very fast distance runner whose treadmill sessions would leave you lying on the floor)

@crinklechips I should probably have called this thread something other than "people walking on treadmills" as I've got nothing against walking on treadmills in general, it's hogging the gym equipment for things that don't appear to be meaningful exercise for that person. You still don’t get it do you 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

This is the exact reason I haven't joined a gym, despite desperately wanting to. The judgement.

I have a couple of hours to myself 2 or 3 tines a week, I drop dd at school, the gym is right beside it, yet any exercise I am able to do after cancer and a stroke wouldn't look 'meaningful' enough to some who are there to do a 'proper' workout.

It's not for me to judge what any one person is or isn't doing on the treadmill

Yet... here we are. A big thread of your judgement.

I think the issue here is that you want to use everything you want in the gym in your short time frame
Maybe you need a private gym instead where other people can't get in your way?

Fast and modest 😉

It's because it gives me the opportunity to walk safely on a flat surface

Maybe that’s the same for the people OP is talking about?