After much delay, The University of Memphis Student Fitness and Recreation Center weight room is almost ready to reopen.
"I believe it should be ready next week," said Steve Whistler, assistant director of student recreational services. "As soon as I get a word from the installers, we will put the equipment on the floor."
The weight room renovation at the SFRC saw a major setback after installation of the floor was held up because of a moisture problem in several concrete slabs under the floor.
Now that the floor is going in, students can now take advantage of the new equipment paid for by their $44 student activity fee.
"It will be nice to try out the new equipment and have the other basketball court back," said Josh Markus, business major.
While many students have had the chance to try out a few of the new pieces of equipment in the temporary setup, many more new pieces are soon to follow.
"Most everyone really likes the new equipment," Whistler said. "Some of it we have had to hold back because we didn't have the space."
With the newly surfaced SFRC weight room opened, space will finely be available for several new additions such as a fuller compliment of free weights, three Smith machines, several sets of dumbbells, more ellipticals and treadmills as well as brand new machines never seen in the center.
"We are adding a dual adjustable pulley machine. You will be able to adjust the pulleys and weights stacks to do several different exercises," Whistler said.
Where to put new equipment in a weight room that was already packed full has been another challenge.
"The number one question has been where are you going to fit it in," Whistler said. "We did a scale layout, and it will all fit."
One new feature that students will likely notice right away is the decision to include more ellipticals instead of stair steppers in the weight room, Whistler said.
"We realized the steppers were not getting used so we increased the number of ellipticals and decreased the number of steppers," he said.
Students can also expect a few more gadgets will be installed with the new equipment, Whistler said.
"Every treadmill will have its own cable hook up and TV," he said. "You can choose to watch from any cable channel we have."
Two new television screens will also be added for students to watch while using the cardio machines as well, Whistler said.
"That will be nice," said Lauren Jackson, education major. "Now we can get to watch whatever we want while we work out."
Even though the SFRC expects almost all of the new innovations to be operational soon, one of the most exciting additions is still forthcoming.
The SFRC plans to install two touch screen panels in the weight room that will allow students to select different exercises and view actual video on how to properly use the equipment for that exercise.
"At the desk we plan to retrofit two touch screen kiosk screens so people can view exercises," Whistler said. "The reason they are valuable is because you can use lots of imagination with some of the new machines on how to use them. This shows you clips on how to do it."
