Elon University’s Stewart Fitness Center has changed — but not by way of adding additional floors this time.
This summer, Campus Recreation installed several new pieces of equipment in accordance with the fitness equipment replacement plan.
“We had equipment that was anywhere from 10 to 19 years old,” said Peter Tulchinsky, director of Campus Recreation at Elon. “There were some bench seats from when the facility opened in 1994, and we also wanted to put some equipment in that would give students some ‘wow factor’ when they walked into the gym.”
One of those “wow factor” pieces of equipment is a TRX training system where participants can train with TRX bands to get a full body workout. Debbie Norris, associate director of Campus Recreation, is a certified TRX trainer and participants will be able to sign up for sessions with Norris for guided training on the new TRX system, Tulchinsky said.
Along with the new TRX system, several old treadmills, elliptical machines, benches, bench seats and a large cable machine were replaced.
“We had a large cable machine that was relatively old,” Tulchinsky said. “We replaced it with a new cable machine that has maybe a quarter of the footprint of the old one, so now there is more room upstairs for crossfit style training, which has become popular among students recently.”
When analyzing which pieces of equipment to replace, Tulchinsky said Campus Recreation looks for trends among students as to what they are using and doing in the gym. Campus Recreation also analyzes the lifespan of new equipment they purchase, taking into consideration when they’ll need to replace the equipment in the future so they can implement it as part of the equipment replacement plan.
“We don’t want a freshman to have the exact same gym they arrived in by the time they’re leaving the campus as a senior,” Tulchinsky said. “We’re excited with the changes we’ve been able to make to the facility, and we’re happy to have a place participants can enjoy and be excited about.”