Gymnasiums pack a lot of sound into a small space. Sometimes, all these sounds form a wall of noise that makes conversation impossible. This kind of pulsating noise can affect people’s mental well-being. Some people even feel physical pain inside gyms with uncontrolled noise. Indoor athletic venues and facilities that reach this unhealthy sound level usually lack the right kind of sound panels.
Why Sound Shaping is Difficult in Gyms
Gyms make shaping sound difficult. They create unique challenges for sound designers because of their:
Crowd sizes: There aren’t many other places where thousands of people can assemble in one room and for one purpose.
Multiple purposes: The same indoor venue may host a concert one day and a sporting event the next. Or it may host a yoga class one morning and a banquet later that same afternoon. Treating the space for only one source of sound won’t always help when the building is reconfigured for its next event.
Flat, concrete walls: Many small and medium-sized gyms have high, flat walls, often with exposed concrete.
Other hard surfaces: The playing surface itself, along with any empty seats, can reflect and amplify sound.
Arrangement of crowd: For large events, people sit on all sides of the space and face each other, creating an environment where high sound levels from one side of the room trigger even higher sound levels across the room.
Excitement levels: Competition at any level generates a buzz that’s hard to match, especially when the home team is winning. DJs and live music ramp up the energy and the noise even more.
With so many challenges in play, some schools, civic centers, and other gym owners give up. They decide managing sound is a lost cause.
Gyms Are Loud. So Why Bother Shaping Sound?
Gyms of all sizes and configurations benefit from the right sound absorption system. For example, our FSorb 2-inch panels can shape sound without dampening the excitement of these indoor spaces.
Shaping sound the right way brings a variety of benefits to athletic venues:
Minimizing Stress: Studies show that people exposed to a cacophony of sounds experience stress, especially when the exposure lasts for hours. Shaping the soundscape of an indoor space better organizes sounds, helping create a calmer environment and reducing the negative effects of prolonged exposure to extremely loud noises.
Increasing Productivity: People attending exercise groups, yoga classes, and team practices in a gym can focus better when they’re less distracted by extraneous sounds.
Improving Communication: When properly installed, FSorb panels do more than turn down the volume. They create atmospheres that allow conversations without curbing the overall excitement in the space.
Adding Visual Appeal: Sound panels exist to shape sound, but they also affect the visual aesthetic of the space. Panels can display colors, patterns, and even logos that enhance the appearance of an indoor environment.
Spaces with properly attuned visual and aural aesthetics are spaces where visitors want to return, whether they’re attending a sporting event, an exercise class, a concert, or a banquet.
How FSorb Overperforms in Athletic Venues
FSorb’s innate design performs especially well in athletic spaces.
Here’s why:
FSorb is highly absorptive: All three of our panel widths outperform their competition. Our largest panels — which are 2 inches thick — offer maximum absorption. We recommend 2-inch panels to reduce noise levels in most gyms and other athletic venues.
FSorb resists impacts: Our panels can withstand impact with volleyballs, basketballs, and other objects that commonly fly through gyms. We make our panels out of solid, dense plastic, from the inside out. There’s no internal substructure or external fabric that can be damaged on impact.
FSorb is easy to install: Since he previously worked as a builder, FSorb’s founder, Doug Bixel, intentionally designed our panels for simple and seamless installation. These panels can be attached to walls and ceilings from any point on the panel. They also conform to building codes
FSorb is easy to clean: The simplicity of FSorb’s design extends to cleaning and maintaining the panels. Since there’s no fabric or wood to draw dirt and moisture, a simple dusting is usually enough to clean an FSorb panel. If necessary, cleaners can use a damp cloth without harming the panels.
FSorb can be configured into clusters: Suspending panels from the ceiling enhances their performance by exposing more sides of the panel to open air. FSorb’s patented hardware takes this advantage a step farther, allowing installers to configure panels into a wide array of clusters.
FSorb lasts for decades: The simplest products tend to last longer. FSorb is no exception. Most of our panel installations are still going strong when it’s time to redesign or replace a building.
FSorb is environmentally friendly: We use recycled plastic to make our panels. This means every panel we make keeps bottles out of our landfills and oceans.
FSorb, by design, offers simple, durable, long-lasting sound absorption systems.
Personal Exercise Spaces Need Sound Sculpting, Too
Not all athletic feats play out in front of spectators. FSorb panels can also increase the joy of the game for athletes who compete in small groups or work on their own. Better sound sculpting benefits workout gyms, yoga studios, spinning classes, pickleball courts — this list could go on.
People using these spaces need a calm and pleasant environment to hone their skills, enjoy their sport, or both. FSorb is a proven system in all of these places:
By shaping sound in yoga and pilates studios, FSorb enhances the sense of calm that’s needed to grow in these disciplines.
By controlling sound in racquetball and pickleball courts, FSorb helps players better isolate the sound of the ball connecting with the playing surface or the opponent’s paddle or racquet.
By minimizing excess noise in workout gyms, FSorb helps athletes communicate better with their trainers. Sound absorption also helps athletes find the right mindset to make progress each day.
In sports complexes with multiple uses, FSorb helps stop sound from one area from bleeding into neighboring areas. After all, someone on the raised indoor running track might not want to know the score of the pickup basketball game playing out beneath them.
Calmer spaces create more focused athletes. More focus helps people achieve more goals.
Colors and Design Choices That Sound and Look Good
The world’s most memorable athletes combine grace with power. Spectators in ancient and modern times have filled seats and tuned into broadcasts to appreciate this combination.
Sound panels can achieve this winning combination, too. They can perform with power, changing a venue’s sonic atmosphere for the better, while blending seamlessly with the space’s visual aesthetic.
In other words, the best panels sound and look good.
FSorb achieves the visual half of this equation by letting interior designers control their own designs. We provide basic colors and patterns, but we don’t limit designers to those choices.
Our panels can be cut into any shape, combined into any array, or customized to any color or pattern. We can even print logos or patterns provided by the designer.
How to Get FSorb Into Your Game
FSorb is inventoried in our Woodinville, WA factory, then shipped to our network of dealers around the nation. This allows us to deliver our standard panels and hardware to job sites around the nation quickly.
Our locations and distributors throughout the U.S. also offer guidance and customer support.
Contact us today to start the conversation about shaping your sonic environment.
At FSorb, we are motivated by improving human health and do so by creating eco-friendly acoustic products. Our mission is to help designers build beautiful spaces that reduce excess ambient noise while calming the human nervous system. With over 25 years in the acoustic business we stand behind FSorb as a durable, environmentally friendly, and low-cost product. If you want an acoustic solution that is safe to human health at an affordable price, then we are your resource.
(844) 313-7672