Photo credit: Tristan Lorei | The Breeze
The discovery of new passions and hobbies has filled 2020 while one spends the majority of time quarantining or following stay-at-home orders. Public gyms were closed for months because of the coronavirus, so people had to find creative ways to stay active.
UREC closed its doors in March when JMU announced the suspension of in-person classes and activities and didn’t activities and didn’t reopen until July. Closing UREC, although it was necessary to ensure the safety of visitors and employees, left some students without easy access to workout equipment.
Troy Maples, who graduated from JMU last May with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies, began working at UREC as a personal trainer at the beginning of his senior year. He said the hardest part about UREC closing was not seeing his friends and co-workers on a daily basis.
“Losing not just the face time with your clients but with the people at UREC and your co-workers, that was really tough,” Maples said. “I can find ways to help out people with training online and anything like that, but losing all that face time with people and losing those personal connections, that definitely takes away some of the more exciting, like, more fun parts of the job.”
Tran Truong, who also graduated from JMU in May, decided to get a job at UREC after he fell in love with weightlifting and realized how mentally stimulating and clarifying it was for him. Truong said working at UREC gave him a new appreciation for the building’s daily operations.
“Working there definitely gave me a backbone understanding of the logistics of UREC and everything that happens behind the scenes,” Truong said. “It was really interesting and really fun to be a participant while also working there too, so [I] really got the full experience.”
Like Maples, Truong also said he missed the social aspect of UREC and the friends he made there when UREC closed in March. Because it was his senior year, he said he didn’t realize his last moments at UREC were his last.
“I think the one thing I miss most about UREC is definitely the people,” Truong said. “I miss seeing familiar faces, whether it be the housekeepers, the UREC staff and just people you would always see at that same time you would get your lift in because you form these relationships with people even if it’s in passing.”
Before there was a pandemic that changed most aspects of one’s daily life, UREC’s facilities helped students maintain a healthy lifestyle. UREC offers many ways to exercise aside from treadmills and medicine balls, whether it be swimming laps in the pool, running on the track or playing a game of racquetball with friends. There truly is an activity for everyone. UREC is filled with people who are welcoming of others and willing to help each other out, which makes one’s UREC experience even better.
“All my co-workers and people that come in to visit the gym just to use it are so close, and everybody just wants to talk and hang out,” Maples said. “Even as a personal trainer you get one-on-one time with clients, obviously, and you know [it’s] the same situation there. I was really lucky.”
Before it closed for the pandemic, UREC’s positive atmosphere made it a favorite place for students to work out, even if they lived off campus. Maples said it was also one of the reasons he loved working there.
“My experience at UREC was nothing but positive,” Maples said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be a trainer anywhere else.”
COVID-19 drastically impacted students’ lives and daily routines as they adapted to new realities and tried to find a new normal. Workouts are just one thing that changed during quarantine.
Instagram and Zoom played a huge role in UREC’s success maintaining its personal training and group class services. Although one-on-one personal training wasn’t allowed, UREC employees filmed workouts for Instagram in their homes. New workouts were posted at least once a week and varied in difficulty and the muscle groups that were targeted.
For students who prefer group workouts, UREC offered group classes like yoga and HIIT through Zoom, which was also advertised and promoted on Instagram. This helped students feel like they were still connected to other students, and it gave group exercise instructors the opportunity to continue working.
Kaitlin Pomerleau, assistant director for marketing and social media at UREC, said the processes for workout videos posted on Instagram and group classes led via Zoom were different, but both required departments to work together.
“The group exercise classes, that was a longer kind of process,” Pomerleau said. “[Different departments within UREC] would schedule the instructors, we would schedule which classes were going to be taught on Zoom, what time, then we would promote that and then people would go to the classes, we would record the classes and then marketing would download the class, edit it a little bit [and] upload it to our YouTube.”
Household items were transformed into gym equipment. Canned goods and laundry detergent replaced dumbbells, chairs and coffee tables replaced weight benches, old socks and scarves replaced resistance bands and paper towels replaced sliding discs and ab wheels. UREC employees got creative with their workouts too, showing that a good workout is still possible with household items. Maples credits the diverse group of trainers with different backgrounds at UREC for creating many different workouts using minimal or no equipment.
“A lot of the trainers specialize in different things like weightlifting and CrossFit, so first and foremost a lot of them were able to bring in exercises that some of the other trainers may not have thought about,” Maples said. “And then on top of that, when you have one or two people, for instance, using a water jug or using some type of weight that most people have in their home, it created, like, a web effect.”
Maples used a backpack for weight in his arm and core workout, which was shared on UREC’s Instagram account. He said the idea came from another trainer, and he thought it was a good idea because everyone can make their own backpack heavier or lighter based on their needs and skill level.
UREC is one of many gyms to utilize social media to provide easy-to-follow workouts that require minimal equipment while following social distancing guidelines.
Whitney Simmons, a well-known fitness influencer whose YouTube channel and Instagram account have a combined 5.08 million followers, posted multiple workouts throughout the week that focused on bodyweight exercises that were quiet — great for students in dorms or off-campus apartments — and didn’t need any gym equipment, just one’s bodyweight.
UREC reopened its doors last month after making adjustments to its daily operations. Equipment was marked off to maintain social distancing and some equipment was moved to University Park to create an outdoor gym space. The at-home workout videos on Instagram are saved in a ‘workouts’ highlight, making them easily accessible, and UREC has a webpage full of virtual resources with links and videos for group exercise, fitness, mindfulness, safety and more. Pomerleau said new workout videos will be posted throughout the semester for students who are more comfortable working out at home.
“They’re in the works right now, and they’re going to be better than ever,” Pomerleau said. “They should be coming out in the next few weeks. We did have to, kind of, reshift our focus back to basics. We’re gonna reshift back to regularly scheduled programming and getting some more of that fun, motivational content back out there.”
As JMU prepares to return to on-campus instruction, UREC is ready to continue helping students live a healthy lifestyle. Whether students work out at UREC, UPARK or in their living room, UREC has an option for everyone.
Story originally published by The Breeze.
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