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Cork Flooring in an Exercise Room
In the new construction of a large private home |
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Daria Clarke, an A.C.E.-certified personal fitness trainer, agrees, saying "Cork tile and plank floors offer the firm, smooth surface support that's necessary for exercise, and at the same time they will flex and absorb shock. No other material is as satisfactory." Cork exercise floors provide important thermal properties and respiratory benefits as well. "Tiles, concrete and industrial carpet over concrete offer no resilience, and can be uncomfortable and potentially unhealthy. Cork is a pure material, it doesn't outgas or shed microfibers, and it doesn't store mites and particulates which become airborne during impact while you're ventilating deeply directly above carpeting." Particularly with clinically recovering clients, with older clients, and for young persons who train hard, carpet can be a serious problem in an exercise room. "When people install exercise equipment in a room which is carpeted like the rest of their house, it is both inconvenient and hazardous. Industrial and indoor/outdoor carpets, which a lot of people mistakenly install for exercise, provide no protection against the concrete surface underneath. There is no flex, and no forgiveness. And they accumulate dirt and particulates." "On the other hand," Clarke says, "good residential carpets are too soft, there is no stability, even with a good shoe. The foot can pronate (out) or supinate (in), and you'll use your ankle or knee to compensate when the floor isn't where you expect." Carpet can also be an inconvenience. "I have a number of clients who've put exercise machines in carpeted rooms, and the machines have sunk down into the carpet, and you can't get the attachments and inserts into them at floor level. For example, the piece that needs to slide in for seated rows, and has to be removed for leg extensions, just won't go in or out if the machine isn't level with the surface of the floor." The problems with firm surfaces other than cork are more obvious. "You need a floor that will flex and absorb shock, not transmit it back into your body. That's self-evident. And from a practical standpoint, you don't want to crack a tile, or for that matter chip the chrome off your dumbbells: on ceramic tile you have to set them down like they're eggshells." Gruenhut at Special Hardwood Products says that installation of the floors is quite straightforward. "The planks are glued together, and the floor floats directly over the concrete slab. The plank is supplied prefinished with a U.V.-cured acrylic, providing a solid, smooth, resilient surface." |