Buzz
At my local cycling studio, the music is at a level that's soft enough to chat over. But when the instructor starts, the volume skyrockets. The sound fills your ears to the point where you can't even hear the person next to you catching their breath. It's as if you’re immersed in the music itself, amplifying the energy of the workout. It's the ideal volume, right?
However, the volume can sometimes reach unsafe levels depending on the studio and your proximity to the speakers. As Julia Belluz mentions at Vox, cycling classes can exceed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's noise exposure guidelines. These are the allowable limits:
85 dBA for an 8-hour workday
88 dBA for 4 hours
91 dBA for 2 hours
94 dBA for 1 hour
97 dBA for 30 minutes
100 dBA for 15 minutes
For context, a quiet room registers at 20-30 dBA, normal conversation is around 60 dBA, and a nightclub with music is approximately 110 dBA. Decibels are logarithmic, meaning a slight increase in decibel levels translates to a significant rise in perceived loudness. The decibels listed here are A-weighted (dBA), adjusted to reflect how our ears perceive sound.
A 2016 study examining noise levels in cycling classes revealed that the average 45-minute session reached noise levels nine times the allowable limit for an eight-hour workday. That may sound alarming, but it corresponds to 94 decibels, a level that’s considered safe for just one hour. This is manageable for those who take a single class, but instructors or regular riders attending multiple sessions are at risk of hearing damage. And since this is an average, some classes may be even louder.
If you want to measure the noise level in your fitness class, you can use an app. While your phone isn’t as precise as a professional, calibrated sound meter, it can give you a decent estimate.
Two of my go-to apps are NIOSH’s Sound Level Meter (free on iOS), which compares the noise you measure with the safe limits mentioned above, and Decibel X Pro ($2.49 for Android, $4.99 for iOS), which generates shareable, Instagram-worthy images of the noise data and its collection points. There’s also a free version of Decibel X that simply measures unweighted decibels (dB, not dBA).
Try these apps if you’re curious about the noise level in your class. I used one app to measure 86 dBA during the first half of my class and 78 dBA during the second half with another app. That’s loud, but not hazardous. Yours might be louder—download an app and check for yourself.
