Parks and Recreation strengthens weight room options with new equipment

It's taken a few years of requests and planning, but the community center weight room finally has new equipment, freeing up valuable space and increasing safety.

Two metal frames allow users to do pull-ups, triceps dips, landmines, seated rows and many other exercises, helping to create targeted workouts.

A survey was conducted to identify the value of each piece of equipment in the weight room before the upgrade was made. Free weights were unanimously chosen as the most used items. However, the space in the weight was crowded by various machines providing only one type of workout per unit.

"We started doing some research, trying to identify a rig system that would allow for a variety of movements and consolidate some of that single-use equipment into a more dynamic unit," said Kate Thomas, director of Parks and Recreation.

Thomas said she and staff talked with Jack Carney, the high school wrestling coach and weight room instructor. A similar configuration of equipment has been used in that facility for four years, giving students a chance to try out and evaluate it.

Eventually, Thomas said they settled on Rogue, a popular brand for box-style weight equipment.

"They had a lot of accessories, great customer service representatives and a decent price point for us," she said. "We started talking to them about what our cores needs were, and they made this recommendation to us."

Rogue designed two box-style rigs connected by crossmembers, which have pull-up bars, a matador dip unit, a hanger, landmine connector for press-ups and lateral body movements. The boxes allow for deadlifts, upright rows, squats and other exercises. There is a seated row options and adjustable triceps and lateral pulldown bands. There is also an adjustable bench and two different styles of weight bars: A 33-pound Bella bar and a standard Olympic 45-pound bar.

To increase the free-weight options, a couple 60-pound and 75-pound weights were purchased with the new setup.

"We removed the singular bench press unit, the dip and pull-up and ab unity because all that stuff is consolidated with the new equipment," Thomas said. "Then, the only other piece of fixed-weight equipment that was eliminated from the circuit was a hamstring curl. It was the lesser-used of the four leg units."

In all, the cost was $8,000 for all the new equipment, which was covered in this year's budget, Thomas said.

"We're stoked. We got the best bang for our buck," she said. "(Rogue) helped us design what is the most usable structure. We put a lot of thought into it. We had public hearings, discussed it at the advisory board level, communicated all along the way with the borough manager. It really was an all-hands-on-deck team (project)."

Though the new equipment frees up a lot of space and allows for safer movements, Thomas said weight room users should still be aware of their surroundings.

"I think it's important for the general public to remember that this facility is small," she said. "It's used by a variety of folks. It's important to be conscientious of other users when you're in this area. ... You still have to lift within your means to safely set and lift the bar."

Thomas said there has been a lot of positive feedback since installing the equipment, with people telling her they see the potential for a few more exercises than before.

"People are super-jazzed," she said. "One quote that stands out to me is one person said, 'I'm so glad this is happening. Winter is coming and I'm not always excited about winter, but now I am.'"