Health Club Chain Restricts Use of iPod Nanos with Video
9:18 am, September 22nd, 2009, Nicole Martinelli
If the older iPod Nano had video, she could shoot your grunts from the treadmill. @Pioneer Press: Richard Marshall
The impulse to immortalize locker room nudity or wiggly-jiggly at the gym is leading at least one large gym chain to limit use of the new iPod Nano over privacy issues.
Health club chain Life Time Fitness has restricted use of the new Nano in its 84 facilities in 19 states, saying that it fears gym goers may shoot videos of people working out or in locker rooms.
The chain also forbids cell phone use in locker rooms to avoid nude or compromising shots of patrons making their way to the Internets.
Spokesman Jason Thunstrom admitted that discerning whether someone is taking video or just fiddling with a playlist can be difficult.
Gym goers at Life Time can still use their iPod Nanos in the work out room, however, as long as no one catches them capturing fellow participants grimacing through that last squat or revealing an eyeful of cottage cheese bottom.
It’ll be interesting to see how they manage to enforce it as video and photos become more common features; the same gym chain reported a couple of years ago that 60% of gym members used iPods or MP3 players to work out.
My gym would face a revolt if it tried to ban cell phones — more or less a permanent appendage in the locker room and weight room and most of those phones now have video and photo capabilities, so it seems a little harsh to single out the iPod.
Via Twin Cities
Posted by Nicole Martinelli in News, iPod | Comment on this article
This is all smoke & mirrors. I work out at a Lifetime Fitness, and I’ve never seen the “no cell phones in the locker room” rule enforced. I frequently see people come in from their workouts, or even more hilarious/disturbing naked out of the showers, open up their locker and make a call on their cell phone. These people are obviously not using their photography/video capabilities while talking on the phone, but the policy is a blanket ban on all devices with photographic/recording capabilities, not the use they’re put to. The policy is in place more to appease peoples’ fears than restrict usage. I know at Lifetime the entire facility has ample staff coverage, and I don’t think it would be that difficult to have a staff person tactfully intervene when there’s a suspicion that a camera is being used. Is the policy a bit stiff? Absolutely. But I think it will be lightly if at all enforced and serve more as a deterrent and warning, rather than having sharp eyed employees skimming over the crowds searching for improper iPod or iPhone use.
Todd, on September 22nd, 2009 at 9:46 am