Whitworth’s weightlifting Club has changed its name to the “Fitness Club” in order to better reflect the diverse exercise preferences of its members.
The Fitness Club is among Whitworth’s newest clubs, having been chartered just last spring as the Weightlifting Club.
“My friends and I, we had an idea to start a fitness based club, and we were surprised [that] Whitworth didn’t [already] have something like this,” Fitness Club president Jacob Sokol said.
“We met people who we had known for a long time at the gym, and then we used that to create other relationships to people,” club’s vice-president, Alamin Yusuf, said.
Once the club began operating, they quickly discovered that their members had interests in different kinds of exercise, which sparked the change in name to the Fitness Club.
“This year we transitioned to the Fitness Club because we found out that most people coming in, there were different likes and different wants from different people,” Yusuf said.“That’s all fitness, that’s all integrated together.”
By expanding the club’s scope, they hope to build a stronger fitness community at Whitworth, Yusuf said.
This semester the Fitness Club is beginning to organize groups for running, swimming and Olympic lifting, and is working on affiliating with the independent pilates program, Yusuf said.
Several of the club’s members have experience in fitness training. “Those who come and want some supplemental instruction on form and whatnot, we’re there to help,” Sokol said.
“Especially with compound movements and technical lifts, for a beginner, if you’re not doing it right, it’s not good, the person could get injured,” Sokol said. “Hands-on instruction is completely different from watching YouTube videos,”
Members also meet one-on-one with the club’s leadership to talk about their fitness goals, and to receive guidance in choosing exercises that will suit those goals, Sokol said.
The freshly renamed Fitness Club meets from 7 – 8 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in Scotford Strength and Conditioning Center next to the Aquatic Center. Pilates meets in the U-Rec at 6:30 p.m. on Sundays.