Burn Calories, Not Bridges: Office-Gym Etiquette

Ah, the office. It's like a fishbowl, isn't it? The water-cooler gossip. Phone conversations heard over the cubicle wall. Corporate retreats. All help us see who our co-workers really are.

But seeing them at the office gym? Maybe a little too real.

Sure, a fitness center seems like a great perk for employees. Hooray for that 20-minute lunchtime power session on the elliptical! Work gyms are convenient and cheap, if not free. Of course, they're also inherently awkward.

"It's a little more stressful sweating profusely around people that you are in a professional atmosphere with," says Justin Lucas, 25, a D.C. resident who works for a human resources consulting firm. "Or vice versa: seeing somebody really, really talented sweat all over the place."

Like most office gyms, the one in Lucas's building is small: two treadmills, four ellipticals, a few weightlifting machines, a dumbbell rack and an abdominal bench. Of the two small televisions, one works.

Close proximity makes interaction unavoidable, but Lucas says that he and his boss, who also uses the gym, keep their fitness exchanges brief.

"I already saw you for eight hours today," Lucas says. "That's my professional life. Now I'm just going to work out and be myself."

Those who exercise at work say that they and their co-workers for the most part are respectful of this boundary. They recognize that lifting weights is about building muscle, not business. But even if you're not talking shop, your colleagues see you -- and they may be judging.

At her former job at AARP, Jen Slawson, 28, used the office gym when she was too pressed for time to get to Bally's, where she paid for a membership. While the level of exercise among Bally's patrons was intense, Slawson says, at work it was lower.

For Slawson, who was younger than most of her gymgoing colleagues and liked to work out more vigorously, the disparity made her feel conspicuous.

"It's like performance evaluation on the treadmill," she says, a feeling that unleashed a slew of concerns that she never considered when exercising at Bally's: "How's my form? Am I sweating too much? Do I smell?"

Some self-awareness is necessary at an office facility, where adherence to basic gym etiquette isn't just courteous, it's imperative.