While it is always nice hitting your local fitness centre and enjoying a solid sweat session or two, you want to have the confidence to leave the bulk of your belongings in the change room, where they will be safe and free of theft. The reality is that while you might choose to keep your mobile phone on you because it acts as a music player to strap to your arm, too, you will want to leave things like your car keys and your wallet in an area that is next to the circuit. You don’t want to – and you might not be allowed to – carry those sort of items with you to leave on the floor next to the exercise machines.
Accountability
Encouraging your fitness centre of choice to relatively constantly upgrade their gym lockers is the prudent thing to do as a paying member. It is important to hold them accountable as to what they should be doing on a regular basis to improve the overall experience for the males and females that attend the facility on a regular or infrequent basis. This kind of upkeep must extend beyond the circuit and the studios, to the other amenities like the change rooms and the showers, the car parking lot and the other surrounds.
Security
A major factor any and everywhere, security should be tight at a facility used by strangers and friends alike. Lockers are a relatively cheap and easy way of ensuring this sort of safety, effectively then leaving the onus on its users to employ it properly, with lock and key or coded device with a digit memory for the day or week. Manual or automated, these sorts of devices are handy to have in your gym bag, ready to be used at a moment’s notice, on a locker that is evidently and obviously equipped for such an appendage – full- or part-time.
Length of stay
A peculiar subject, but one that needs dealing with regardless, one can’t effectively overstay their locker welcome. It is a contraption for short-term use, not for overnight stays for your luggage and shaving cream. Most gyms won’t actually allow anyone to leave several belongings in a locker for a long time, but you really should not be trying to do so anyway. The convenience is a quick fix, yes, but the morality and practicality of it comes into question. So if you are forgetful or just after a quick fix for your stuff, don’t go down this track – rather suck it up and bring your contents back the next day, or the next week you visit your local fitness centre.
Cleanliness
The rotational nature of lockers, even if you like to pretty much stick to the same one, require you to keep in mind that you want to have it left as you would like to find it. Make sure you clean it out properly, perhaps even a cursory sweep of the hand over its surfaces would work for that odd piece of shirt fluff or sock lint. You’ll be doing your fellow gym goers a solid help there.
