Where to Workout: The Differences Between YSU’s Exercise Facilities

By Sam Armstrong

Youngstown State University houses several workout facilities and weight rooms on-campus. Each has different equipment, design and functions for different members of the student body.

Exclusive athletic training centers exist on campus, such as the Stambaugh Stadium weight rooms and Watson and Tressel Training Site.

Recreational training centers are also available on campus, such as Beeghly Center weight rooms and the Andrews Student Recreation and Wellness Center.

Beeghly Center features a number of weight rooms — a weight room for YSU athletics, an exercise science weight room, as well as an exercise science cardio, boxing and spinning room.

The Rec Center includes weight racks, weight machines, cardio machines, and other amenities for the general use of students of any major or those not involved in athletics.

Todd Burkey, assistant athletic trainer and strength coach for the YSU men’s basketball team, helped design the weight rooms in Beeghly Center.

Burkey said, like the Recreation Center, the athletics and exercise science weight rooms in Beeghly contain weight racks, which perform squats and bench presses. The exercise science weight room has a greater number of machines, while the student-athletes’ weight room only has three cable machines.

The athletics weight room is used by YSU’s men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and swimming and diving athletes.

“It was created initially so that the Olympic sports, including men’s and women’s basketball, that are housed in Beeghly Center would be able to utilize this center without having to travel across to the Stambaugh weight room during the wintertime,” Burkey said.

The exercise science weight room is used exclusively by exercise science majors but is open for recreational use with limited hours.

Burkey broke down the cost of equipment in the weight rooms in Beeghly. He said the athletic weight room has six power racks which cost around $2,500.

The remainder of the equipment is comprised of three select-rise machines and a couple glute ham benches, which cost an estimated $15,000. Overall, he says the equipment costs anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000.

Burkey said the exercise science weight room and the Rec Center machines range from $2,000 to $4,000. Burkey estimates that the value of the machines in the exercise science room and the Rec are probably much higher than that of the athletic-based weight room.

Burkey explains that the Recreation Center was outfitted with Cybex machines, which is considered high-end equipment and the equipment in the athletic weight room is from the company Legend Fitness, which is considered upper-end equipment.

Brian Sklenar, assistant strength and conditioning coordinator, is familiar with both the Stambaugh and Beeghly athletics weight rooms.

He acknowledges that there may be a difference in quality between the athletic weight rooms and the Rec Center.

“Everything in the athletic weight rooms is very high quality; we have very strong athletes, so the equipment has to be able to stand up to them,” Sklenar said. “So they’re very high quality and durable to fit the needs of what we’re going for in the athletic program.”

He believes the difference between the equipment at the Rec and the athletics weight rooms is the equipment is set up for strength and conditioning coaches to run their programs while the equipment in the Rec is for general use and lighter conditioning.

Alexa Bodine, a sophomore exercise science major at YSU, utilizes both the Rec Center and the Beeghly enter weight room recreationally and for classes.

“I would choose the Rec over the Beeghly Center Weight Room solely for the purpose of more space to perform exercises and a few more equipment options,” Bodine said. “When I exercised in there for resistance training, we had to move a lot of our exercises out into the hallway or outdoors because the area was too cramped. That normally isn’t the case in the Rec unless you go during a popular time,”

Bodine says that the majority of the equipment in Beeghly Center has similar quality to the equipment in the Rec.

“The quality of the equipment is pretty high in both the Recreation center and the weight rooms.” Burkey said.