This year, Point Park has proven to be extremely eager for change and facility upgrades.
With the completion of the Professional Career Readiness Center in the basement of the Student Center, an overhauled Point Perk menu, and a new dance studio built in the Online Education building, it is clear that Point Park’s administration aspires to keep the university fresh and exciting with constant new additions.
However, they have made one glaring oversight in their revitalization projects.
The Fitness Center on the fourth floor of the Student Center is incredibly lacking, especially for an institution recently invited to compete in Division II of the NCAA.
The Fitness Center consists of three large rooms: one with a quarter-track, cardio machines and isolation machines; another with assorted additional machines and a versatile cable machine, and a third with squat racks, benches and dumbbells for compound lifts.
This third room is the most lacking.
Compound exercises are movements intended to target several muscle groups at once, according to the Australian Fitness Academy.
These lifts are often the most popular, as they are extremely efficient and rewarding to improve upon.
The dumbbells in the third room go up to 100 pounds, and there are nine 45-pound plates for barbell exercises.
For compound chest exercises, there is one flat bench, one decline bench and one incline bench.
For legs, there is one squat rack. There is another smaller rack that is often unstable and unnerving to use, especially when handling heavier weight.
In the past there was also a smith machine, useful for safely performing compound lifts alone, but it has been broken since the end of the Fall 2023 semester.
This lack of equipment is troublesome, especially when the gym is busy, as – more often than not – there are not enough weights or racks to go around.
On top of this, any one of Point Park’s 17 varsity athletic teams may be found working out as a team in the fitness center, making it near impossible to get a good lift in at certain hours if they are occupying the equipment you wished to use.
It is commonly known among students that, if you are taking your fitness seriously, you are likely going to have to pay for a membership at a different facility.
Both the UFC gym on Forbes Ave. and ETAGE Athletic Club on Stanwix Street are popular gyms. Both also charge roughly $25 a month for its membership, according to its websites.
If students genuinely want to get in shape, they should not have to pay $25 monthly to use appropriate facilities, especially on top of tuition at a private university.
The Fitness Center in its current state does not need any large investment to dramatically improve the quality of exercise it can provide. An additional squat rack and flat bench, as well as maybe another cable machine, would dramatically improve the Fitness Center.
If Point Park wants to be taken seriously in the Mountain East Conference, it should consider overhauling the Fitness Center. This will not only improve the performance of its already extremely talented athletes but allow for students to get stronger and healthier efficiently alongside them.