Last Thursday, Loyola’s Fitness and Aquatic Center (FAC) opened a newly revamped functional training area on the second floor of the facility for students to use, and it has already received positive feedback for its quality. The new space has a variety of equipment for different forms of physical activity, including weightlifting stations and yoga spaces. The space is built on gray turf for comfort and consists of numerous bench press stations and squat racks accompanied with medicine balls, dumbbells, and yoga balls. It also has a few cable machines.
“I think it’s pretty open, got a lot of new equipment in here so I like it overall,” Antonio Rizzo ‘27 said.
This addition to the FAC follows a trend during this fall semester which has been renovating current spaces and adding new spots for students. Prior to the unveiling of this new second-floor space, Loyola introduced the new Humanities Café and the Sellinger Express where you can go for a late-night snack or drink.
These changes display efforts being made from the school to meet and satisfy student desires outside of the academic spaces. In regard to the training area, it offers a solution to a problem that a fair number of students had with their experience in the FAC, which is overcrowding.
“It was always cramped in the first-floor gym so this should open it up and bring a lot of people up here,” Daniel Goetz ‘27 said.
Although the new area has been appreciated so far, it has also received some criticism and suggestions to make it better.
FAC staff member Camille Leah Barrón ‘25 said, “I would have preferred it to be green turf, I think it’s a little too gray.”
Additionally, Goetz proceeded to add a recommendation of his own.
“They should add more cable machines up here because right now there are far too few,” Goetz said.
With these constructive comments alongside other opinions from the student body, it is currently unclear whether changes will be made to help improve this new space. Still, students are excited about the opening of this new area and what it has to offer.
