The one thing I really would love in an office is a bar to hang from.<p>Not to do pull-ups or anything, just to decompress the spine.<p>It's the one thing I am extremely glad to have in my home office. Walking over to it, hanging for 30s once in a while, really fulfills that need for both getting mentally unstuck from problems and changing posture.
> However, there were also many reasonable voices that raised concerns. Some were concerned about the practical aspects of a rack - it could take up a large part of a room that could otherwise be used for working or conferencing. Others were concerned about the noisiness of a weight rack or weights dropping.<p>This isn't the first time I heard it.<p>Company X get a new office that's NOT a rented house somewhere in the Valley and wants to get a foosball/ping-pong table. All is well until they get to their next funding round and then triple headcount. Now the table, which used to be in a corner, is next to a conference room and the space is actually needed for meetings/having new employees. So it slowly progresses into an office-only space because we'd rather have Kyle's team than play games.<p>The weight rack has an extra "dude bro" connotation to it but the logistics are the same for any non-standard item in the office.
In the early 2000’s, we built out our flex engineering office to include an exercise room and a shower. We had a full set of weights. It was only used about 5% of the time. It looks good for recruiting new employees, but in reality people probably won’t use it. I would still put in a shower, and maybe a room and mats for stretching, body weight exercises, and maybe some resistance bands. But that’s about all I would do if I were to do it again. The shower is useful for bikers and lunchtime joggers.
Personally, I would go for a "power tower" type of setup(dips plus pullups) plus some mats, boxes and light weights to flesh out calisthenics routines. And if noise isn't a factor, I'd go for a Stepmania setup first over more traditional gym equipment - way broader appeal when it covers "video game", "exercise", "customizable jukebox" in one package.
I took pairs of 15 and 40 pound dumbbells into the office. People could come over for a change of pace, get the blood pumping, and leave. They weren't much of a distraction and didn't take up much space.
Nothing says "building a homogenous culture that rejects diversity" quite like dedicating office space to the founder's hobby. It just <i>screams</i> "we want people like us" rather than "we want people who are awesome".