Hitting the gym is a respected habit among college students. Whether your dedication ranges from going every single day to just once a week, getting or staying fit is the common goal. However, what if reaching this goal is unattainable? The little spare time you do have to dedicate to a work out could be wiped out by annoying crowding at peak times.
The Outlook feels as though the Multipurpose Activity Center gym facility is not an appropriate size to accommodate all of the people at the University.
While the gym is sanitary and machines are maintained, there are less than ten treadmills and ellipticals, six bikes, and just three stair masters. There is only one of each specific weight machine . Editors have come to the consensus that the gym follows quality but unfortunately, not quantity.
Since, according to Monmouth.edu, the main gym membership is offered to outsiders for $500 a a year, open free to employees and discounted for alumni, overcrowding is pretty much unavoidable. The number of machines simply does not fit with the thousands that make up the student body, on top of these other groups.
Editors who have used the main gym have all had to wait to use a machine before. This is common, most often with the cardio machines, when there are no others open. So, you are either twiddling your thumbs waiting to catch the next elliptical, or using a machine you had not intended to. This cuts into valuable work-out time.
Even though there are on-campus gyms like in Oakwood and in Mullaney, these are even smaller. Realistically, these gyms are designated to the on-campus residents only. The Mullaney gym only offers a few ellipticals, bikes and treadmills.
According to Monmouth.edu, The Hawk’s Den in Oakwood offers two treadmills, elliptical machines, an exercise bike, a weight machine, some weights, balls and mats. However, it is “equivalent to the size of a basement workout room,” as one editor put it.
The Outlook staff unanimously thinks that a bigger gym would encourage more people to exercise. Editors who do not use the gym agreed that they would be willing to use the gym if there were more machines and an overall larger work out space. One editor said, “I’d probably be more inclined to work out here if I didn’t feel like people were breathing down my neck in the cubicle we pass off as a gym.”
Another editor agreed, “I feel totally awkward going into the gym with the amount of people usually in there, so if I had more breathing room and the ability to hop on a treadmill next to my friend, I’d definitely go more often.”
Editors who regularly use the gym all feel that it would be even more worth it than it already is to make a gym trip if a machine spot was guaranteed for them.
If a MAC gym expansion was proposed, it would most likely raise tuition costs. However, one editor mentioned that perhaps seeking donors for private funding of the gym expansion could help avoid this. This was such the case with the new Boylan bowling alley.
If private funding is not possible, one editor proposed that, “Boylan gets renovated to become more of a ‘gym atmosphere’ and be able to hold more exercise machines and workout stations.”
The Outlook staff agrees that the act of going to the gym and getting in your exercise is definitely worth the health benefits.
On the other hand, going to the gym here can actually mean wasting time. The inappropriately sized gym directly affects our time by either cutting the workout in half or instead, having to be there longer than intended because of lines. Thus, with these factors, comes the question for many of the staff: is a work out at the gym really worth it?
Unfortunately, it is unlikely we will see a gym expansion in our time here since a majority of the editors are upperclassmen. We can only hope that the hawks of the future won’t have to stand around, waiting to spread their fitness wings.
