A Few Things to Know about Showering at Health and Fitness Clubs
There’s nothing like hot refreshing showers to cleanse your skin and relax your muscles following health club workouts. If you plan to take those revitalizing showers utilizing health club showering facilities, however, you may discover that making the most of health club facilities sometimes takes patience and creativity.
How Well Showers Work
Showering at health clubs is slightly better than showering at school gyms in that health clubs at least provide curtained stalls which school showers usually do not provide. Although health clubs may be slightly one up on the stall provision, however, they are sometimes below the line when it comes to water output. Water flowing from health club shower heads is often slow, and sometimes flows closer to the walls than the center of the stalls where the users stand. Despite modern technology that provides for shower head adjustments to enable individual use, health club facilities tend not to have these features. Another thing that may hamper water output is clogged shower head holes. Users can tell holes are clogged by observing the streams of water coming from shower heads. Clogged shower heads reduce water output by slowing or completely stopping water from flowing through the holes.
In order to make the best of water deficiencies when showering at fitness clubs it’s a good idea to turn on the water at a stall of your choice to checkout its flow ability before entering the stall for showering. If the water flows well enough you might want to use that particular shower whenever it’s vacant after your workouts. Check other stalls in the same way so you can figure out which stalls have the best and which have the worse heads. This way you can make mental notes of which stall you will utilize when another preference is unavailable. This whole thing may seem trivial, but trying to rinse lather from your skin after bathing and especially trying to rinse shampoo from your hair can be problematic when shower heads don’t provide sufficient water output.
Bring Your Own Showering Supplies
Another thing about making the most of health club showering facilities is that while it’s nice that fitness clubs do provide showers, the showering supplies they offer may be limited or insufficient to your liking. For this reason, when planning to shower at these facilities, you may need to bring your own showering supplies including your own towel. That’s right… your own towel. All health clubs do not provide towels for their members. In addition to your own towel, you may want to bring basics such as soap, shampoo, facecloth, or loofah sponge to use when showering at health clubs.
When it comes to cleansing the body, hand bathing may be acceptable to some while showering at gyms. Those preferring to soap their cloths or the like and then to use those items to cleanse themselves might want to check out club facilities in advance to find out if body washing materials are provided. Odds are they won’t be and members would need to bring their own in order to partake in this preferred type of body washing pleasure.
Bring Your Own Soap & Shampoo
Although health clubs do provide soap in their shower stalls, the stuff they offer is often the same type of liquid soap public bathrooms provide for hand washing. Thing here is health club operators often expect members to use this liquid for showering and shampooing. When in a bind, one may venture to use the thin, often pink, stuff provided by clubs rather than use nothing at all. When planning to shower at a particular facility, however, it may better to bring your own soap and shampoo. One thing about the plain pink solutions clubs provide is they don’t really suffice as descent body washes and washing your hair with those liquids could mean disaster for your hair. As stated above, however, there may be times when one would be better off making the most of health club provided soap, for example after exiting a chlorinated pool or Jacuzzi and having no supplies of your own.
Use Shower Stalls When Dressing
Another way to make the most of health club showering facilities is to utilize the stalls for dressing booths. Some people, in particular women, do not feel comfortable undressing and redressing in large open rooms where any and everyone passing by can take in full views of their birthday suits. Utilizing shower stalls to undress and then to redress before and after showering allows for that well needed privacy. This tactic could be vital to the emotional well-being of the more conservative health club members.
Report Problems to Management
While making the most of health club showering facilities, whether for showering or for dressing, just remember, when and if you run across annoyances, that health club facilities may not be at home showers, but with a bit of preparation you might make them feel a little more like home. Most of all, if showering facilities ever seem to lapse too much, even for fitness club standards, you can always report problems and make suggestions to the management.
