Editorial: The SLC needs to rethink its weight distribution

Many people don’t even walk out the door before letting friends and random strangers know about their healthy life styles. They post their plans on Facebook, tweeting about it in hopes a celebrity will see that they work out or posting a picture of some sweet new kicks on Instagram.

The entire ritual that people are going to the gym to do more than just work out.

While at least half of the people truly go to the gym for themselves, the other half go to surround themselves with physically fit people of the opposite sex. This can make it difficult for people who are actually trying to improve their health.

Baylor provides a large variety of ways to “hit the gym,” but the way Baylor students are able to do it could be tweaked to maximize our potential.

The weight room needs the most improvement.

Sleeves and a towel are required to enter into the hallowed area of weights, cardio equipment and — best of all — a handful of televisions showing different sports channels.

Neither sleeves nor a towel are necessary for the cardio machines, which adds an unnecessary trip back to your apartment if you forget either one.

Secondly, due to the large number of people in the area, it is hard to maneuver around the weight room and difficult to wait for the equipment you want to use.

Russell Gym is a great alternative to use for weight training, but the building — except for the basketball courts — is closed to use outside of a human performance class.

This raises another issue. Where are faculty supposed to work out? It is a definite possibility that many members of the faculty might not want to run on the treadmill or use an exercise bike in front of a room full of students lifting weights.

An expanded area set apart from the weight rooms would alleviate this problem to a large extent.

Faculty aren’t the only people who might feel uncomfortable in the combined weight and cardio room.

The large portion of this university’s population of the female persuasion might also feel uncomfortable being gawked at by the people in the weight room while they run on the treadmills.

And should a woman enter the free weight section — God forbid — their walk past the cardio equipment and up to the bench press might shock all the men around them.

It would provide less of a socially awkward situation for the intimidated men if the two areas of fitness were separated.

At that point, anyone entering that room could be assumed to be there for just the weights.

If you walk up the stairs — that being the healthier option over the elevator — to the second floor you will find a handful of cardio machines.

Instead of letting them lie there mostly unused, Baylor could move the rest of the cardio equipment up there as well.

If there are no available machines upstairs then the track around the top of the gym is that much closer.

People are more likely to use the track if they’ve already made half the walk anyway.

So, with all the cardio equipment relocated, there is plenty of room to expand the weight room.

The ab mat could be extended to reach across the entire front strip of the room where the stationary bikes are now.

The rowing machines, lat pull-downs and chin up bars could be moved up to take the place of the treadmills while the abdominal machines and benches could be moved up to take the place of the ellipticals.

This leaves room for the machines to be added to the middle of the weight room or to expand the free weight station.

Also, it would free up more of the coveted space next to the televisions.

You’re more likely to hold a plank watching professional athletes on the television than looking out the glass door and watching someone eat their sandwich or burrito outside the Baylor Science Building.

Before taking this necessary step, the SLC should send out a survey to the student body to find out the popularity of certain machines and weights to more effectively remodel the room.

In all, most would agree that the workout situation at Baylor is better than average.

But we shouldn’t be satisfied with that. There are always ways to improve our experience, and this is most certainly one.