Sports

Fitness Center to undergo significant changes

The Fitness Center is getting new equipment and undergoing renovations for the spring semester.

Rex Bennett is the Student Center Section Supervisor for the Fitness Center. He said that the changes will be mainly an aesthetic upgrade to the building, but that students will notice changes after the first of the year.

“Coming up in December we have a project where we are getting 60 new pieces of weight room and CV (cardiovascular) equipment,” Bennett said. Among the new equipment will be treadmills and some bikes to replace older ones.

“We have a lot of older machines here in the building that need to be replaced, it’s just sort of their time, so hopefully that is coming in early December but definitely for next semester they’ll be ready to go.

“We are also getting 23 new pieces of pin select machines, which means that you select the plate you want. We aren’t getting any new free weights this time. We updated our dumbbells a few years ago so the free weights are actually in pretty good shape. We have new Olympic barbells coming, as well.”

A brand new addition to the Fit will be the Freedom Climber wall.

“On the second floor, towards the east end of the track, we are getting what is called a Freedom Climber, which is a rotating wall climber.” Bennett said.

“We’ve gotten a lot of requests for a rock wall and that’s hopefully a future project. But for right now this is a really neat machine it counts not only your calories burned and your time elapsed but also your elevation and you don’t get more than a foot off the ground when you climb on it. So if you’re scared of heights, don’t worry about it, Freedom Climber takes care of that. That will be ready hopefully in the next two weeks, by the first week of November.”

“I think it’s always good to have new activities for students,” senior Jordan Jozwik said. “I think if they turned one of the racquetball courts into a full climbing wall it would get an enormous amount of use, and there are definitely enough students that work in the fit to train them to belay. Something new is better than nothing new.”

Bennett said that the two main basketball goals in the Fit along with the basketball goals in Memorial Gym are getting replaced with new, fiberglass goals. The pool in the Fit also has some upgrades coming but for now, they will only replace the guttering system.

In addition to all the new equipment, the entire building will be getting new carpeting and paint.

“The purple around the building was done 10 years ago and the second floor has never been redone in 20 years.” Bennett said.

Also, the intramural and health promotions offices will be renovated to match every other office on campus. The second floor bathrooms are currently under renovations and will be ready this week, equipped with all touchless features.

The second floor of the Fit will be closed for renovations Dec. 16 through the 23rd, while the first floor will remain open. The whole building will be closed December 24 through its target re-open date of Jan. 3.