Exercise and Second Floor Apartments
 

Hello! Recently it's been so hard to encourage myself to exercise. Evidently my downstairs neighbors like to be up during the night (I hear their alarm at 11 at night/4 in the morning and them yelling during the night) and sleep during the day. When I get home from work in the afternoons, if I try to exercise, they start banging on the ceiling to get me to stop. I stop exercising at nine if I am doing it that late. I don't want to be a bad neighbor but I also want to exercise. I've never had this complaint before. I used to exercise all the time at my old apartment and never got this reaction. I've never been able to get in the mood to take walks outside because I can't keep up the pace to keep myself in fat burning mode.

What can I do to help the noise I might make jumping up and down? I saw some pads at walmart that showed noise reduction capabilities but it only showed it underneath exercise machines. Would it work if I was doing aerobics? Even if it just helped it a bit, it'd be an improvement.

I haven't received any complaints from my downstairs neighbors, but I'm surprised I haven't. I exercise on a mat. It definitely reduces the noise (I'm sure it doesnt eliminate it, but every little bit helps, right?). And I make sure I don't exercise during late hours. ALL of my neighbors (upstairs, downstairs,next door) are incredibly inconsiderate during late night hours. I don't care how much noise they make during the day (which is a lot) but they are SO loud at night. So I personally don't care about my exercising noise, which usually lasts no more than an hour and only during the day.

Maybe if you speak to your neighbors about the noise and let them know that you are getting a mat or something to work out on, and also ask them to keep it down between certain hours overnight. Approaching them to have a conversation will probably go over better than banging on the wall or ceiling, which it sounds like they are doing to you.

When I had a second floor apartment I used to exercise barefoot as I thought that would be quieter, but then you don't have foot support like shoes give, but I'm a barefoot type of person and prefer working out barefoot... so you could try that, a mat would probably help muffle the noise... and it may sound rude, but they can suck it up!
You are exercising during normal hours, and noise is expected when you live on the first floor from the floor above you! Plus, they're the ones being noisy when legally you could get in trouble...

Most states have laws on noise pollution. I'm a musician in manhattan so it is my job to practice my instrument. The laws here provide for that... I am able to practice between then hours of 10am to 10pm legally. If you are a reasonably quiet person everyday, then there shouldn't be a problem if you want to bounce around your living room for an hour everyday. I would look up the laws pertaining to noise pollution in your state and go from there. If they have a problem with it then your neighbors should be mature enough to come upstairs and speak to you like a human being (in which case you can share with them the noise pollution guidelines) rather than banging on the ceiling.