After a late-night study session followed by an unnervingly long school day, the fact that I can get myself down to the gym is, in itself, a considerable success. Having dedicated a mere hour and a half of the 24 hours in my day to working out, my determination to make today great forces me to abandon all stress and fatigue at the door. A quick stretch and I’m up onto a treadmill, my water bottle filled and a small towel at my side. The machine starts up and I begin to warm up with a jog when —“Excuse me, is that a phone?”

Cue a pang of fear—nope, just annoyance.

“Yeah, but it’s…,” I trail off as she nods understandingly and politely gestures, “go put it on the desk.”

The girl on my right looks over at me and then back at her iTouch, her gratitude unmasked. She and I run side-by-side for the next hour, but I spend nearly 20 minutes of my time listening to advertisements and the remaining 40 minutes on oldies—and not the kind that are fun to run to.

Since when did iPhones become unacceptable? They’re essentially iTouches with little, green “phone” apps—last time I checked, nobody was running in the fitness center while on a phone call. And the argument that a text could pull me away from my run? It would probably motivate me to hit that 60-minute mark instead.

The need to listen to my own music while running on the treadmill should not be so easily dismissed. I don’t want to use my phone to fraternize while at the gym. In fact, most gym-goers I know only want to use phones for their music capabilities. If our phones had “iTouch” engraved on their backs, the issue might have been more easily resolved. But since that is evidently not the case, what alternatives are iPhone owners presented with? Should we waste our money buying iTouches or iPods specifically to listen to music when our iPhones can accomplish the same task?

Even if the fitness center’s playlist were to range from Beyoncé to country music, the existence of the country-hating, Beyoncé-bashing outlier is inevitable (though—Beyoncé? Really?). Appeasing the musical tastes of everyone in the fitness center is an impossible task; it would make much more sense to allow for the use of our own phones—I know that I personally can’t run to a lighthearted Michael Bublé song or some soft techno music. Working out itself is an endeavour that requires additional motivation. Trying to exercise to what I perceive as a semi-agreeable song until someone switches the station and I am forced to keep lifting is not only unpleasant, but discouraging. Considering the motivation I need to continue to head over to the fitness center on a daily basis, I can only imagine how intimidating it would be to walk through the doors of the fitness center as a newcomer.

Truth be told, anger with the new rules leads to anger with the girls who brought their treadmills to a halt each time their phones buzzed with a notification. It’s easy to complain about the harsh rules that have been enacted, but we did this to ourselves. If we were to all use our phones for the sole purpose of listening to music, avoiding any and all potential digital distractions, life would be so much better. We wouldn’t have to run to the predictable Geico advertisements or songs we can’t stand, which would make staying on a treadmill so much easier.

We deserve a second chance—a chance to prove ourselves worthy of the right to listen to our own music on treadmills, if not all gym equipment for safety reasons. Despite the reasoning behind this rule, the mistakes of girls in the past should not hinder the progress of girls today, who are trying to exercise good habits. So, to the fitness directors: create a blacklist of “bad” iPhone users if you will, monitor our phone activity if you must—just please bring the iPhone back to the fitness center.

– Hufsa Husain