How to Tell If Your Fitness Lesson Is Too Loud
When I go to the local bike studio, the music sounds at a level that is easy to talk about. But as soon as the instructor walks in, the volume rises sharply. Sound fills your ears, so you can’t hear the person next to you breathing heavily. You feel inside the song, which helps you to truly feel its energy. Perfect volume, right?
But depending on the studio (and how close you are to the speakers), the sound may be too loud. Too loud. As Julia Bellouse writes in Vox , cycling classes sometimes exceed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health standards for safe noise exposure levels. Acceptable levels :
- 85 decibels (dBA) over an eight hour work day
- 88 dBA in four hours
- 91 dBA in two hours
- 94 dBA in one hour
- 97 dBA in half an hour
- 100 dBA for 15 minutes
For comparison: a quiet room is 20-30 dBA, a conversation is 60 dBA, and a nightclub with music is about 110 dBA. Decibels are logarithmic , so a small increase in the number means a large increase in volume. Measurements here are in A- weighted decibels , which are adjusted according to how our ears pick up sound.
A 2016 study of noise levels in cycling showed that the average 45-minute session was nine times the legal limit for an eight-hour workday, which sounds a lot, but goes up to 94 decibels, which is a limit of one hour. It’s okay for people to just take the activity and leave, but if the instructor (or multiclass riders) is present for multiple sessions, they risk hearing damage. And since this is an average, some classes are even louder.
To see how loud your fitness class is, you can download the app. Your phone is n’t as accurate as a dedicated calibrated noise meter , but it can give a pretty good rough estimate.
I have two favorites: the NIOSH Sound Level Meter (free, iOS), which calculates how the sound you are measuring compares to the safe levels listed above, and the Decibel X Pro ($ 2.49 on Android , $ 4.99 on iOS ) which can create Instagram-ready images summarizing noise data and where it was collected. There is also a free version of Decibel X, which simply measures unweighted decibels (dB, not dBA).
Try these apps if you want to know if your class is really too loud. I measured the sound level at 86 dBA in the first half of the lesson with one application and 78 dB in the second half with the other. It’s loud, but unsafe. But yours can be louder: download the app and see for yourself.