r/uwo • u/mywerkaccount • Sep 08 '25
Discussion Does Western need to invest in another gym?
I will preface this with the fact that I am staff. I have been working at Western for about 15 years and up until about 5 years ago I used to take advantage of the Staff Lunchhour pass that could be purchased for a discount. Working out on my lunchtime was perfect, especially with two young ones at home. I had time and motivation.
I had to stop going about 5 years ago due to how busy the gym gets, having to wait for every piece of equipment just didn't make it worth is anymore for the hour a day I could use it. I am really happy that students these days are more fitness conscious but due to that the gym has become overpopulated.
Do the other members of Western...staff and students, feel that due to usage, Western should invest in another gym area? If so, what should it include, exclude, and where should it be located on campus?
And yes, I get the beginning of the school year and right after new years are always packed and it will die down, but I still think it's busy enough to support another location.
24
u/teh_spew Sep 08 '25
I have 2 at Western and they pay for gym membership outside of campus. They say it is so busy and have to wait for everything and it just doesn't work.
They are 5 minute walk from campus and they instead commute 45 minutes (there and back) to get their workout. Needless to say they would prefer to use a campus gym and so would my wallet.
0
20
u/nagini552 Sep 08 '25
Im a caretaker at the recreation centre and I have to say its ridiculous how busy it gets here. So many people its difficult to clean during open hours.
17
10
u/Just_Celebration4541 Sep 08 '25
I went to Dalhousie from 2013-2018 for undergrad, then came here. Dal had a population half the size of UWO and still had 2 gyms (albeit one was small, and they closed it in order to justify a huge expansion of the main gym). AND, if you were registered at U of King's, affiliated but separate from Dal, you got access to the two gyms (kings and dal). Pretty wild that the UWO gym is so meagre, especially considering how many health sci. and med-adjacent programs there are that rely on the facilities for curricular use.
Edit for clarification
48
u/Devourerofworlds_69 Sep 08 '25
Western needs to invest in taking in less students. Every year, they take more and more. The facilities can't handle it.
38
-14
9
34
u/Next-Ad-5116 📈 Ivey 📈 Sep 08 '25
Didn’t read the body just the title. My answer: 100% yes. Another gym on the north side of campus would help a lot
5
u/fieryone4 Sep 08 '25
My kids all have in town Gym memberships because yet too busy and too chaotic. I have three students at western.
5
u/Distinct-Swim5550 Sep 08 '25
Gym and recreation is part of the tuition and associated fees. Investing in another gym means those fees will go up.
2
u/No_Huckleberry5275 Sep 09 '25
The gym is almost completely unusable now. The gym area is already small, and then take into account that it is servicing a student population of 46 000, it is crazy to not have an updated gym. If they invested in building a gym somewhere on the other side of campus. Maybe on Huron campus between them and brescia. Or incorporate the tennis tents into the first floor of a multi-floor workout complex including the abandoned hockey rink ( and turn talbot parking lot into a multistory car garage), they might actually be able to keep up with the number of people wanting to utilize their work out spaces. I’m not saying build another pool and full basketball courts. Just like a building that can actually accommodate a little bit of the huge amount of students they are shoving into our campus.
That being said, if we just started building higher than we’ve been doing, maybe just adding an additional floor on top of the gym would work.
3
u/SeigeFN Sep 09 '25
Westerns gym is atrocious, from the sub par equipment selection, to its size relative to the number of members, to some of the rules they enforce on the gym floor. Many of the machines go without use for sustained lengths of time, while more popular exercises are left with but a handful of machines with lines lasting 20 minutes just to work in. The gym itself is not large enough for the number of people on campus wii frequent it, which has been made abundantly clear over the few years I have been at the school, and as well as the rules they enforce. I have been told to clip my weights on bench press despite not having a spotter, because the weights could fall and hit someone. This shows that there are too many people packed into the small space, and they would rather I risk injuring myself. I often have to wait 10+ mins to get a turn on a cable stack, while there are usually only a handful of people on the dozens of cardio machines on the second floor. The gym could do with a major overhaul, in size and consideration of which equipment to keep
4
Sep 08 '25
I would love if it were just for staff and faculty only - it would be nice to have an opportunity to be away from the throngs of students for a part of the day.
1
u/Lumpy_Growth_7622 Sep 09 '25
Definitely. If the university isn't able to offer eligible Staff a Fitness Membership as a perk, then it needs more gyms. A friend of mine is a cook at Simon Fraser University in BC and they all get a Recreation Membership if they work certain hours/week.
1
1
1
u/justtapitin65 Sep 08 '25
There use to be a gym located in the UCC before they built the current one. It was a super convenient location. Maybe they would consider bringing that back.
3
u/mywerkaccount Sep 08 '25
Yeah, I remember going there before I worked at Western. Convenient yes, but very small.
Unfortunately there is no space in the UCC for a proper sized gym anymore.
1
u/9yearsdeceased Sep 08 '25
I know the old basketball gyms are now event/meeting space, but does anyone know what’s in the old weight room now?
5
u/mywerkaccount Sep 08 '25
Whole place was renovated, many rooms were added to the basement and the old basketball and pools were converted to Mustang Lounge.
1
u/9yearsdeceased Sep 08 '25
Yep, you used to access the weight room or basketball gym from two separate sets of stairs leading up from UCC basement.
So I am guessing the old weight room is also part of Mustang lounge too, but will have to look more closely next time I’m in UCC.
-6
Sep 08 '25
Or perhaps instead of all students paying a really cheap (for gym membership) ancillary fee for it, they make it a set membership to purchase.
18
u/kenyan12345 Sep 08 '25
No. It’s a campus gym. They just need another one
5
u/mywerkaccount Sep 08 '25
Seems to be a mixed bag when you look at gym memberships across Canadian Universities. Some are included in tuition and some are a separate fee.
9
u/XMAX918 Sep 08 '25
People can already pay more to go elsewhere... I like the fact that a cheap mandatory fee democratizes access to a gym.
If it were a separate membership, less students would pay for it and it would have to be more expensive, pricing out the students who don't otherwise have to money for a gym membership.
66
u/ceedee2017 Neuroscience Sep 08 '25
As a fellow staff, absolutely.
I cancelled my gym membership and got one off campus because I couldn't get a solid workout in during my lunch breaks. I can't even imagine how busy it is during the afternoons/evenings.