Should we put a weight rack in the office?

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&#x27;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.

&gt; 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&#x27;t the first time I heard it.<p>Company X get a new office that&#x27;s NOT a rented house somewhere in the Valley and wants to get a foosball&#x2F;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&#x2F;having new employees. So it slowly progresses into an office-only space because we&#x27;d rather have Kyle&#x27;s team than play games.<p>The weight rack has an extra &quot;dude bro&quot; 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 &quot;power tower&quot; type of setup(dips plus pullups) plus some mats, boxes and light weights to flesh out calisthenics routines. And if noise isn&#x27;t a factor, I&#x27;d go for a Stepmania setup first over more traditional gym equipment - way broader appeal when it covers &quot;video game&quot;, &quot;exercise&quot;, &quot;customizable jukebox&quot; 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&#x27;t much of a distraction and didn&#x27;t take up much space.

As if offices weren&#x27;t noisy enough already.

Nothing says &quot;building a homogenous culture that rejects diversity&quot; quite like dedicating office space to the founder&#x27;s hobby. It just <i>screams</i> &quot;we want people like us&quot; rather than &quot;we want people who are awesome&quot;.