Lifting in the HUB Fitness Room is Great! Except…

COURTESY PHOTO: KAITLYN HAMILTON

I think everybody can agree with me that the renovations made to the HUB Fitness Room this academic year were well-needed improvements. Stainless steel plates were upgraded to new, rubber-coated plates with handles, making them easier to carry and less prone to making noise and scratching the floor. Speaking of the floor– that too was replaced, specifically in the lifting room. The hard surface of years past is now softer and more durable against heavy plates and dumbbells. It compliments the new plates and preexisting equipment nicely, and overall makes for a better lifting session experience. I applaud Plymouth State and the Fitness Department for funding all of these wonderful changes!

All that being said, why is Deadlifting still not allowed in the HUB Fitness Room? For the purposes of the renovation alone, it would make sense that the decisions of upgrading gym equipment and fortifying the floor were specifically aimed to legalize Deadlifting, or at least it appears that way to me and anybody with common sense. Yet the posters still hang around the gym, “Deadlifting of any kind is prohibited.” Perhaps one of the reasonings is because it is common that people performing the movement incorrectly ride the bar down to full when they finish, which is noisy, disruptive and can damage the floor. But why can’t we use mats as a floor-condom to filter those out? The rule wouldn’t bother me as much if I wasn’t specifically told not to deadlift in the gym; neglecting the rules (as I have observed others time and again doing the exercise without council), I was approached by the staff and asked to cease the movement. They cited that it hurts the floors and that if I am so inclined to perform the movement that I could go to the PE Center near ALLWell and do it there. Well I’m glad one place on campus encourages Deadlifting but is the venture really necessary when changes to the HUB Fitness Room have already fixed the issue? Cut off from the leg exercise, I instead turned my focus to the TBar Row; to initiate the position for this back exercise, I have to deadlift the plates off the floor, and on top of this I utilize much more weight in this exercise than the TBar Row, effectively making it even more harmful to floor than anything I would do while Deadlifting. But they don’t care about that, they just don’t want you to Deadlift for whatever reason.

Despite the changes to the HUB Fitness Room, the staff still have to mandate outdated regulations with seemingly no point to it. Maybe I’m just biased because they approached me specifically about the rule, but what about the other people that deadlift in there. I know I’m not the only one; I see other gym-goers do them all the time, whether it’s with a barbell or dumbbells, and they don’t get told not to. Even my peers around me who were bystanders to my encounter expressed their confusion, noting that they Deadlift and that the rule doesn’t make sense. I hope the Fitness Department comes to terms that if people want to Deadlift, then they’re going to do it. They’re supporting a rule that has been overridden for a while now. Other than this issue the HUB Fitness Room is pretty cool! And I think we can all agree that it’s incomplete since they trashed their preacher bench. Why have you done this to us…?