cronereport.com

I’ve been going to a gym or pool pretty much consecutively for about 30 years, but tonight was the first time I had to leave in less than 10 minutes because I was becoming physically ill.

The booming bass from the spinning class at the downtown YMCA was so loud that I couldn’t take it even though I was halfway across the room in the cardio area. Granted, I’m extra sensitive to odd things like feeling my sternum vibrating from the force of sound waves—one of the joys of migraine. I didn’t stay long enough for a headache to take full hold, but nausea set in almost immediately.

I complained, and the staff was very nice, and explained that “they like the loud music because it gets them going.”

Or, because the instructor decided to crank up the music and nobody asked her to turn it down. The step class seemed to be getting a good workout without needing to shake the walls to get going.

It’s a well-known fact that loud music causes permanent hearing loss. Poking around the web, I also read descriptions of not only nausea and migraine, but epilepsy (a cousin of migraine), raised blood pressure, even ruptured lungs. So why is this allowed in a facility whose mission is to “promote good health?”