The government has recently suggested that Americans need to get between 60 and 90 minutes of exercise daily. It seems almost impossible to achieve that goal while trying to work out on the Sam Houston campus. Not only are the gym facilities old and out of date, if you could actually make your way through the crowded work out center, you would probably not want to exercise because of the poorly maintained and sweat-drenched machines.
The Health and Kinesiology Center, also known as the HKC, is definitely not up to date with the latest workout machines. Since the weight room has limited equipment, it makes it hard to do an entire fitness routine easily. The gym here has been compared many times to the same quality as most high school facilities. One would imagine that the large sums of money that we, as college students, are paying for our tuition would enable us to have buildings and equipment that is in decent condition. That is definitely not the case here at SHSU.
The HKC doesn’t even have a single treadmill. It does have a track that circles the playing courts, but most people get tired of running around and around. Most people like to run where they can watch a television set to make the time go by faster. In the workout room here, they do have a TV or two, but there are only a few cardio machines that are even facing these TV’s, making it impossible to enjoy their presence.
If you can actually push your way through that crowd at the gym, you would probably not want to even work out in the filthy place. The HKC is very busy between the hours of three and nine p.m. The crowds that file into the gym are remarkable. Or maybe it just seems so crowded because the facility is so small. After you wait to use a certain machine, it will be so disgustingly sweaty that you lose your desire to want to even work out. There is supposed to be staff that walk around and clean the equipment frequently, but I can say that I have never once seen this happen.
The school must have seen that this was a major problem and that is why they have decided to add on the the HKC and build the students a more up-to-date gym. Well, this new gym was supposed to be open by the fall of 2005. We are still waiting on it. I guess we shouldn’t complain though because anything will be better then what we are working out in now.