the 10 spot #3
One of the goals as Sports' Editor of Tech News is that I want to put in as many articles in Tech News that you cannot read almost anywhere else as possible. The one exception has been my first ten spot (the 10 biggest sports stories during winter break), which has received some criticism. That has actually made me feel a bit happy because people with porn names (John Blow) are actually reading my work and making me feel like a real columnist. Anyway, this 10 spot is dedicated to my first public critic, Mr. Blow. This week's ten spot, why WPI's weight room is horrible! Enjoy.
- Closed for two hours in the middle of the day. Why does WPI have this policy? Is it because they could find any students who would like to make a few more bucks to pay his/her expensive situation? Or does the administration like the fact that its students are more stressed out than Woody Allen. Anyway, some students have a tight schedule and the only time that they can work out is during that window. I do recognize that there are gym courses that go on during the day; however, I'm talking about when NO ONE is allowed. That policy needs to be changed.
- Poorly designed. You figure a prominent engineering school would know how to design a simple weight room, right? Wrong. When I work out there, I bump into at least three people because there's no space. Also, what if there's a fire, there's only one exit, so if that exit is block, everyone gets cooked worse than a bad piece of steak. Plus, if anyone who has workout seriously knows that stretching is a must, so take a guess if someone is going to able to stretch properly if he/she is bumping into three people on their way to machine.
- No cleaning stuff readily available. At one of my old gyms (the Taunton YMCA), there is a bottle of cleaning solution and a towel near EVERY machine just so the next person who uses the machine will not have to lift in someone else's sweat. At WPI, there use to be towels, but not anymore and there is only one cleaning solution bottle which is available at the front desk, but the time someone gets to the desk, they are not thinking "clean machine", they are thinking "get water, I'm exhausted". Here's a suggestion, put a cleaning bottle near very that collects and soaks sweat. That way not as many people will get sick when working out. I have to wear a sweatshirt is because of the fact that I do not want any part of my body touch those disgusting benches.
- No instructional flyers. Not everyone knows how to squat properly, or to correctly workout their triceps or know what kind of exercises to do in order to get a desirable result. This is where flyers come in handy. On a flyer, could be how to stretch and/or lift properly or some of the rules of the gym. I know whenever I go into a new gym, the first thing I look at or the instruction flyers just to see if there is something else that I should add to my workout or how to improve my technique and trust me, I'm not the only one who does it.
- No trainer available. In almost every gym in America, there's at least one trainer there to make sure that everything is going okay with your workout. At WPI's weight room, there is NO professional there at all. So if someone wants to know if a certain exercise is right for them, instead seeking the opinion of a professional, he/she just asks their friend, who has an amateur understanding at best. I know a lot of people in this university who could benefit from bouncing some exercise ideas off of a person who actually knows what he/she is talking about.
- Rust is collecting on many weights and bars. I know that I went have done bench presses here with at least 3 different bars that have rust on them. Lifting a bar with rust on it is pretty harmful because a person can easily breathe in some of the molecules from the rust, which causes someone to get sick. I would know this because my school had the same problem and it a factor of myself catching mononucleosis.
- Not enough TVs. There are women who do not want to watch ESPN while they work out, instead they want to watch a soap or something else. So why is there only one TV at the bikes, where at least 3 people are working out at a time, all the time. There should be at least one more TV at the bike station and maybe one more at the treadmill station. Some people might say that they will not able to pick up the audio of the TV, however there are devices that put TV audio on a certain radio station. So someone needs to do is bring a portal radio with him/her and he/she is all set.
- Some machines got to go. The pulley machine, next to the dumbbells, is one of the worst machine I have ever scene. The cables look like there are going to pull apart any minute, the painting is chipping and the weights are getting rusty, so why is this machine still in existence? I know, it is because is one group's IQP. From when? 1970? I don't care if the thing is historic, the safety of the students should always come first. Also, the elliptical machines (the machines that are next to the bikes) are too beat-up, according to one female athlete "[the elliptic machines] are high-impact because the machine are old and over used, so people's knees can get hurt pretty quickly". In case, some of you do not know what the difference between low-impact and high-impact means, it means when someone's leg pushes down the machine provides a certain amount of resist in order to move the machine. Low impact machines do not provide much resistance; hence it is easier to operate. High impact machines takes more unnecessary effort to operate which puts creates more tension on your knees; hence leading to knee pain. Those are two of many examples of bad equipment at the weight room.
- Bench covers that are wearing thin. Have you seen the shape of some of the benches that are in the weight more, there are more holes on them than on the Yankees' pitching staff. There are at least 4 or 5 benches/machines, in which the covers are falling off, which looks, in the words of Bill Walton, "terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible!"