West Wood Club, one of Ireland\u2019s biggest gym franchises, sent out a warning to members about a lapse in etiquette.<\/p>\n
Among the new rules it enforced in February was \u201ccarrying a towel during your workout and using it to wipe away your sweat\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also asked members to refrain from \u201cunnecessary grunting and shouting\u201d and to make sure to wear \u201cappropriate and fresh gym attire\u201d.<\/p>\n
Failure to adhere to the new guidelines could lead to immediate termination of membership, it said.<\/p>\n
A West Wood spokesperson said the email warning appeared to have had the desired effect.<\/p>\n
Member experience manager Luke Heapes said that \u201cas a shared space, people should be respectful of that\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked what prompted the email about the gym\u2019s rules, he said there was a consensus among members that \u201cstandards in general were falling\u201d.<\/p>\n
It had become particularly problematic after Covid and the email was sent to remind members about what behaviour was appropriate.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t promote any filming in our gyms<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some gyms, it\u2019s OK for the guys to take their tops off during their work-outs, that\u2019s part of the brand, but that\u2019s not the case in West Wood,\u201d Mr Heapes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few people were not happy after the email went out and were not willing to follow the rules and a few members cancelled [their membership], but we had nothing major.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was more of a mutual understanding with most people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chain, which has six gyms in Dublin, experiences a little bit of a \u201ckick-back\u201d, particularly in relation to members having to carry a towel in the gym.<\/p>\n
But generally, the message has been well received and has led to an improvement in standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason we did it was really down to member feedback. That\u2019s what prompted it,\u201d Mr Heapes said.<\/p>\n
There was also an issue with people filming themselves during work-outs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome gyms are happy for members to set up a tripod and film themselves during work-outs. We don\u2019t promote any filming in our gyms,\u201d Mr Heapes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are also GDPR issues there.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n
Established in 1994, West Wood reported profits of more than \u20ac730,000 in 2024 and saw turnover grow 11pc up to \u20ac32.5m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Wood Club, one of Ireland\u2019s biggest gym franchises, sent out a warning to members about a lapse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,898],"class_list":{"0":"post-414970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}