**Originally posted to our Facebook Community group April 4, 2019**
Team:
We’re making some changes to our “Weight Dropping Policy” in that we’re making a Weight Dropping Policy. This Weight Dropping Policy is that we’re no longer going to allow you to drop weights from overhead, your hips, or any other height. If you pick it up, you set it down from here on out.
I know this is going to be frustrating news to some of you, but here’s why we’re making this change:
About a year ago we started getting serious noise complaints from the apartments above Haymaker. We took these complaints seriously but ultimately didn’t make much of a change as we determined that we were within our right as a business to continue about our operations. Recently, our direct neighbors have started complaining about the noise and the vibrations. The vibrations were bad enough that we knocked some things off of Yuvette’s walls doing damage to her shop.
She asked us if there was anything we could do. We got together as a team and thought through the premise of what training value does dropping weight provide.
More intensity? Not really – it’s a lot harder to lower the weight down after picking it up. Grace without dropping is a whole lot more intense of a workout.
Safety? Possibly, but during a workout, you should be in control of your weight the entire time, even when you’re tired – this is a safer strategy than dropping weight that was a struggle to pick up in the first place.
In fact, the more we thought through the issue of dropping weight, we started seeing more positives:
Most of controlling the weight back to the ground are eccentric movements, which is where a lot of strength is developed.
Dropping weight breaks down the equipment faster, forcing us to replace the plates, clips, and barbells versus investing in other areas that could improve the gym or the coaches.
Lastly, it might be within our legal right to drop weights, but I don’t think it’s the neighborly thing to do when it’s causing damage to our neighbor’s business.
While the noise complaints led us to think through the premise, our conclusion of insisting in a no drop policy is truly as much about your #gainz as it is about ensuring our business doesn’t get shut down.
So with these two reasons in mind, we’re not going to be allowing anyone to drop the bar.
Thank you!