Originally Posted by
OUTraveling
I would think that adding gyms would cause more problems that they are worth. A few issues that I can see are space and the increased demands for showers. With the construction of a gym, their must be additional showers constructed or we will run into a multitude of problems. Imagine one emerges from a hard workout session on a spin bike or treadmill and that person is covered in sweat. They try to use the showers but discover the ones that are currently part of the lounge are being used.
A certain number of these individuals will emerge from the gym in sweaty workout clothes to be peckish around the buffet or lounge around on the seating until the showers are available. Next thing we know their are a few more posts a week about people in sweaty gym attire, comments about a funny smell coming from a persons carry on's in J or F (once the sweaty clothes get ripe on a long haul), sitting down on a nice leather chair only to find damp sweat on it, and worsening stains on chairs.
I think that you make a good point about the increased need for showers, but there is one nuance. The showers are already utilized unevenly during the day, e.g. really heavily in the morning (as people connect from overnight flights) and much less from about 12pm on. Thus, there is plenty of shower capacity for the afternoon and evening even w/ gym-goers adding on to the usage. Now, in terms of the mornings, I think that most travelers who have all but a very short connection try to use the shower anyways, with or without a workout, that's why there is often a queue for the showers. Thus, having these same people also do a workout before the shower would not really require much additional shower capacity.
Now, what would need to be done is a "post-workout" / "shower queue" zone with some post-workout food, drinks, tea/coffee, etc. For the large lounges that occupy several thousand square meters and already have multiple food bars, drinks/coffee stations, etc. this is actually not much to ask for, just re-configuring some of the spaces for the gym and the post-gym lounge. And, last but not least, many of these lounges could actually use more showers for that "morning rush" even without gyms. For example, I'm sitting here in IST right now with a 50+ minute wait for a shower, with no gym in sight
