Tag: Welch Fitness Center

A change of schedule provides real life experience

For a number of health and human kinetics (HHK) students, Welch Gym is no longer a fitness center. It’s a classroom.

A new twist in this year’s schedule was the latest attempt to encourage students to be aware of fitness as HHK majors gather real­-life experience.

The FitOWU program has been pairing students up with faculty and staff for fitness assessments for 11 years now, but student-­to-­student interaction is new. All HHK majors who are a part of the Welch Gym program had to complete the FitOWU program first. Nancy Knop, a HHK professor, knew the program would eventually head in this direction.

“We have always wanted to reach out to the students more and have been experimenting with ways to create and deliver programming for students,” she said. “The students are now engaged in either a less mentored apprenticeship or a work study position helping to manage, maintain, deliver programming, provide fitness education, and perform fitness assessments of students.”

Figuring out how to get students to attend the classes has been one challenge with the new program. Dance and spinning classes will be the main use of the new open space in Welch.

However, the biggest challenge Knop has noticed is that by the time students have completed the course needed to start training, their time to graduate is quickly approaching.

“By the time they are ready to program well and deliver, they are nearing the end of their OWU career, so we are constantly losing trainers and recruiting new people to step in,” Knop said.

In addition to the new fitness classes during the week, which are Monday to Thursday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., there are weekend classes on Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m.

“The student trainer positions are intended to support the HHK major by providing our students with an applied experience that is also proving a needed service to the university,” Knop said.

Senior Ricardo Balmaceda, who has attended a handful of classes, likes the student­-to­-student interaction.

“It’s cool because the instructors are students as well,” he said. “They get everything you’re going through and dealing with as a student. They can really relate to you.”

Welch gym consolidates equipment

By: Ross Hickenbottom, Transcript reporter

 

The fitness center located in Welch Hall has been the preferred workout location for many OWU students over the years. Lately, students have noticed missing equipment in the workout area.

Serving as a more convenient exercise facility than Edwards Gym (due to its proximity to the residential end of campus), Welch has been a favorite of non-­athletes who cannot fit a workout into their busy routines.

“After work, whether I would get off early or late, I would be able to walk over to Welch to workout very easily,” said senior Shannon Hill. “Edwards just isn’t as convenient to walk to, especially later at night.”

Although the gym has lost a significant number of exercise machines, there are plans to host small group classes in the space. These include spinning and zumba, said Kimberlie Goldsberry, interim vice president for student affairs.

“The new Simpson-­Querrey Fitness Center will also be open for all students to utilize, not exclusively athletes,” said Goldsberry.

Christopher Fink, chair of the department of health and human kinetics, does not think there should be any less opportunity to exercise in Welch, but noted that “we did consolidate some equipment so that there is more open space.”

“During the summer, because of the pending opening of the Simpson-­Querrey facility this fall, our department and athletics took a closer look at the equipment that was available in Welch,” said Fink.

“We determined that there were quite a few pieces of equipment that were broken, and that some of the single­-joint strength machines were not being used very frequently. So, we replaced the broken equipment, and to save space we purchased a multi-­station strength machine that would do all of the same exercises as the single-­joint machines, but would create more open space for fitness programming.”

Junior Trasina Diazmunoz is optimistic about these changes, as well as the Simpson­-Querrey Fitness Center.

“I plan on using the new gym, and I’m really excited to see and use the new equipment,” she said.

Once the Simpson­-Querrey facility is open this fall, students will have more workout options than in years past, including state-of-the-art cardio and strength equipment.

Future plans include maintaining hours convenient to all students. So far, this means 6 a.m. to midnight.