I don’t think so. Once you’ve done 30 minutes you are on the bubble, you’ve used up your alloted time and you are now the lowest in the priority queue. If anyone shows up after that, you get bumped, whether that happens at 30, 31, or 60 minutes. You can’t reset your status simply because at one point in time no one is on the queue, it’s a boolean value.
A side rule that may or may not be valid is that once you’ve used up your 30 minutes for the day (or other time period) you stay on the bubble for the rest of that day. That way if you leave for 5 minutes and come back to an empty machine, you’re still on the bubble and will be bumped off by the next person on the queue. Why? Because you’ve already gotten your 30 minutes and the whole purpose of the rule is to allow everyone access to the machines for approx 30 minutes a day (or other time period).
There is no selfish or not… it depends on what condition this queue is supposed to favor. Do you think the purpose is to maximize the time on the machine, or to minimize the chance (and duration) of wait periods? In most queueing systems the intent is to minimize the wait and maximize the throughput (customers served).
If that assumption holds true, then the right thing to do is assume that the counter starts from zero and becomes effective as soon as the queue is saturated.
Consider the 2 outcomes to the scenario of the 60 minute period from 5:00 to 6:00, if all machines become saturated at exactly 05:29:59 with one excess customer:
Assume the counter starts when all machines are full - you get 60 minutes of machine time, the other party gets 29:59 of wait time and 1 second of exercise time.
Assume the counter starts at the beginning of exercise - each of you gets 30 minutes of exercise time and 0 minutes of wait time.
If you’re a person with tons of free time who wants to get the longest possible workout, obviously the first outcome will look favorable to you. But most people don’t have an excess of free time or a desire to exercise much beyond 30 minutes. The second outcome minimizes the chance of wait time (as well as the duration), making it ideal for people on limited schedules. Furthermore, the second outcome increases the customers served by a set of machines, which is cost effective from the club’s perspective.
If you still think you’re in the right after this explanation, you really need to invest in your own equipment. When there is no competition for the resource, any allocation strategy is valid
At the gym at which I used to work, our sign said, "Please limit your time on the cardio machines to 30 minutes during peak hours. (6:00-8:00am, 12:00-1:00pm, 5:00-7:00pm). We would walk around the cardio during the peak hours and if we saw anyone who had been on the machine for 30 or more minutes, we would ask them to yield to someone else.
If you really feel you have to do more than 30 minutes, go during non-peak hours. Problem solved.
In my opinion, you have 30 minutes from the time you get on the machine. If all the machines are being used, you get off and give someone else a chance - whether you know FOR SURE that anyone is waiting or not. You give someone else a chance to get on anyway. Because:
How is anyone on the machine supposed to know if other people are wanting to use it? Do people actually stand right behind a treadmill and watch people run until someone gets off? I would assume they do something else until some machines free up. Maybe my club is weird but nobody just stands there motionless for 20 minutes while waiting for someone to finish on the treadmill - they do something else in the meantime. That doesn’t mean they aren’t waiting to be able to take a turn on themselves.
If you’ve been on for 30 minutes and you get off so that someone else can have a chance to use it, and 5 minutes later the treadmill is still empty (or another one is empty), then you can get back.
Okay, I revived this to update, and point out that once put into practice, there is no doubt (in my mind…) that I was right!
I went to the gym with the same original presumptions:
They treadmills are not full from 5-5:30 AM.
They tend to be full from 5:30-6.
I have to leave the gym at 6.
only, now I added:
According to many in this thread, I only have the right to one 30 minute session per day.
Ok. So, since I need to leave the gym by 6, I begin my workout at 5:30, since as I now only get 30 minutes, there is no reason to show up at 5 anymore. So, previously, I was on the treadmill by myself from 5 until 5:30, and with full treadmills from 5:30 till 6. Now, no one is on a treadmill from 5 till 5:30, and there are the same number of people on the treadmill from 5:30 till 6. Nothing has improved, and the only difference now is that I get a shorter workout for no reason, because I treadmill is sitting there unused from 5 till 5:30!
Now, someone can say that I can be magnanimous and do my 30 minutes from 5 until 5:30, but that option is available to everyone, and let’s be serious; I’m not going to get up a half hour earlier so that someone else can use a treadmill, and neither is anyone else.
A) You haven’t improved your exercising experience (i.e. you’re still getting 30 minutes of exercise).
B) You’ve effectively shoved someone out of a turn (i.e. you were perfectly fine with going early, but out of spite, it seems, have begun going later just so someone else can’t claim you’re breaking the rules).
So it changes my thinking from “You’re interpreting the rules differently from me,” to “You’re being malicious about interpreting the rules differently from me.”
You also run the risk of someone else getting on the treadmill at 5 a.m. and not getting off until 5:59 because the clock doesn’t start until you stagger in at 5:29. Your original plan was right, remember? One-minute workout for you!
It’s not out of spite. When do you get to the gym to do a 30 minute workout if you have to leave at 6? You get there at 5:30. If I have to leave at 6, what should I do? Get there at 5, workout from 5 till 5:30 and sit on my hands congratulating myself for being nice?
That’s why the other people that I’m “shoving” get there at 5:30 as well. So they can do a 30 minute workout and leave at 6.
You forgot about your nemisis who also showed up at 5:30. If you show up at 5:30, one of you gets a 30 minute block of exercise and the other gets 30 minutes of wait time. You didn’t factor that into your scenario. Therefore, between 5:00am and 6:00am, the customer throughput is decreased by one and the total wait time is increased by 30 minutes.
You’re trying to to game the queue to maximize your exercise time. That carries the risk of increasing someone else’s wait time. That puts you in the wrong.
I agree with that, but it also carries the risk of increasing my own wait time, so I’m not putting any burden on anyone else that I’m not myself bearing. I’m playing by the exact rules as everyone else in the scenario. We all have the option of showing up at 5.
In all fairness, this isn’t even an issue anymore. As someone earlier pointed out, once the New Year Resolutioners stop coming (which has already happened). I can stay on a treadmill for three hours if I feel like it!
Exactly. By my experience, they’ll be gone by the second week of February.
By the way, if the treadmill is all you use at the gym you might want to consider buying one for yourself. Most payment plans are very similar to club dues, and then you could get on for as long as you want whenever you want. Just a thought.
It’s all I use leading up to a marathon, but ordinarily I’m more of a lifter. We’re looking to buy a house in the next year, and will probably outfit it with a complete home gym. In which case I’ll be on here looking for advice on that!
My vote is that your 30 minutes is up when your 30 mintues is up (assuming the treadmills are full).
What if more and more people start showing up early? Quite simply, there will become competition for machines and people will begin arriving earlier and earlier. If the rules read the way you WANT them to read, it’s possible that you would miss an entire workout because everyone else there might be at 59:59 and feel justified that they never needed to let anyone else on.
To me this is simple. The greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Like someone else mentioned, after your 30 minutes and someone takes your machine, others (if everyone is on a 30 minute max) will begin leaving as well opening one for you.
Then again, are you paying for this gym, or is at your office or apartment complex (and “free”)? This could make a slight difference in my opinion.
Anyway, I also don’t think that the long-term effects of treadmilling more than 30 minutes is good for the body anyway. I know people under 30 whose cartilage is gone in their knees. My father, for example, used to jog endlessly when in his 30’s. He now has severe back problems at age 55 and feels like he’s 80 when he walks. He doesn’t drink/smoke or have any bad habits to facilitate aging. He just wishes he’d had more bicycle and swimming action when he was younger.
So talking about gyms and ethics, I should probably stop going to the college gym a full year after I finished my grad work… even though it’s empty when I go, huh?
I’m with brickbacon. All of your “logic” is just rationalization, trying to figure out ways to hold onto the machine while somebody else cools their heels and waits.
They’re trying to say, “Once you’ve had your 30 minutes, if the machines are all full, yield yours to the next person in line.” You’re reading it as “Don’t force the first guy in line to wait more than 30 minutes.”
If you’ve had the treadmill for over a half-hour and somebody gets in line for it, making them wait another 30 minutes is rude and selfish.
