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weight room live load
what is the live load for a weight room (in a football fieldhouse)? the code only gives loads for gymnasiums as 100 psf. i have found the use of 150 psf on a government building criteria website yet my company did another weight room at a high school where the manufacturer gave us a 250 psf loading. where can i find information on this?
you might contact natalus or some of the other companies that manufacture weight lifting machines & equipment and ask what they recommend. in addition, the weight room should probably have some type of flooring (thick rubber pads or wooden platforms) to absorb the repetative impact. years i recall doing some initial investigation on a gym floor (prestressed dbl ts) that were badly cracked due the repetative impact from the weight room.
repairs were made and the weight room was moved to a slab on grade, but i don't recall the loadings.
building on what 4wilmar said...
consider the kinds of loads you would expect in a weight room:
1. most weight benches, people's feet, etc. impose somewhat heavy concentrated loads on the floor. i say somewhat because, in the grand scheme of things, the world record bench press (assisted - mucho controversy, web search for it if you're interested) is hovering around 1,000 lbs. or about a kip. the world record squat is, last time i read about it, something like 1,200 lbs, and the world record deadlift is also something like 1,200 lbs. you never know how strong some people are and there are some extremely strong high school football players and other who might frequent the gym. or you might have pro wrestlers or others who are lifting this much weight. still, it's "only" a kip. thusly, unless the benches are bolted to the floor, design for concentrated loads in every worst possible configuration you can imagine. example, someone is squatting with 1 kip. that's two 500-lb concentrated loads (one from each foot), right in the middle of the slab.
2. the really heavy concentrated loads don't come form the users, they come from the stored weight plates. a squat rack or power rack or whatever it's called can accomodate at least 2,000 lbs worth of 45-lb and less plates. still, that's only giving you a couple of kips. there's also equipment loads from exercise machines (that sometimes are weight plate storage as well) and from exercise machines being moved in and out of the gym.
3. as 4wilmar says, there are repetitive impacts from dropping weights, so definitely requrire some impact absorbsion device like rubberized flooring, plywood (old school), etc.
4. calling the equipment manufacturer is certainly acceptable and you can't really go wrong with their recommendations (unless they're in cahoots with the concrete plant..). also, you can rationally interpret asce 7-02 section 4.2.1 "required live loads" to be the maximum loads expected - since it's a weight room, design accordingly. asce 7-02, sect. 4.7.2 provides guidance on impacts from machinery.
150 psf seems to be a reasonable conservative number for an overall floor load. keep in mind, that any kind of equipment will occupy some floor foot print, and will have some space around it.
expanding davevikingpe's example: take an extreme lifter with a 1,000 lbs on a bench. add 250 pounds for the lifter and say 250 pounds for a spotter. total = 1,500 lbs. a bench will occupy an area of at least 5' x 5' minimum (and likely much more, but lets use 5'x5' as absolute minimum)to be at all usualable. 5' x 5' x 150 psf = 3,750 pounds.
agree with the posts above. you need to have something to protect the floor from dropped weigths.
interesting post, having never had the opportunity to design a floor with weight lifting equipment it's given me cause to think. the gym i go to has quite a load of plates concentrated on several stands. going to start watching to see if any one individual attempts to bench press the full rack.

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