Center so . . . H

When every Chapman treadmill is full and only a single dumbbell is left, students have to choose: wait your turn or go another day without a workout.

“It’s so bad. It’s literally always packed with people, like, all the time,” said junior Lauren Blue.

Chapman’s growing faster than it can keep up with, and it’s showing. At least at the gym.

On Chapman’s main campus, there are only two walkable options: the gym at Henley Hall or the Julianne Argyros Fitness Center. Some students have given up the fight for a spot.

People working the entrance check-in are tasked with handling the mass amounts of students that come in every hour.

“The Argyros and Henley gyms have definitely been busy over the last few months, and it gets pretty loud and hectic in there,” said Becca Leberman, one of the fitness center assistants.

Chapman’s Wellness and Recreation Facility Manager Michael Sakhel explained that staff are doing all they can to accommodate the large number of students at the gym, and realistically the problem cannot be fixed very simply.

Sakhel noted:

“At the end of the day, what are we going to do to create more space here? Break down more walls and add 200 more square feet? That’s not going to help. When you’re a small campus gym, you really have to work with what you got, and we’re working with what we got right now.”

Even if he’s right, that doesn’t help students who are devoted to working out. Some students have even started making memes about how full the gym is online.

“I ended up working out at 24 Hour Fitness on Tustin because there is less of a chance that I see people I don’t want to see,” Blue said. “It’s just much more spacious and a better environment to get in your zone.”

24 Hour Fitness worker Julian Lopez thinks there is more value working out at a gym that isn’t extremely crowded.

“You do spend the extra money, but it’s worth your time because you don’t have to wait as long, there’s more equipment and more variety,” Lopez said. “It’s better value even though you are spending more.”

While the gym was still pretty busy last year, according to Leberman, it’s gotten “much busier this year.”

But what is causing this rapid overpopulation?

Each year Chapman welcomes more than 2000 first-year and transfer students, according to the dean of students, Jerry Price. This year, Chapman admitted an unprecedented amount of freshmen, increasing the attendance to an all-time high of just over 10,000 students.

There were a lower number of applications than the year before, yet it was the second highest number of students admitted in Chapman’s history.

On top of this, they accepted at the highest rate in history, a 16% increase from the previous year. The result of this is an influx of Chapman students using facilities that were initially meant for less people.

Chapman is doing all it can to accommodate the amount of students that are trying to use the campus gyms, according to Sakhel.

“We form capacity numbers based on the amount of equipment that is in the gyms in relation to how many bodies per square feet we can fit. Any time we reach those capacity limits, the fitness center assistants are trained to hold people from coming in,” Sakhel said.

On top of all the precautions Chapman is taking to try and control the population at the gyms, they are also looking to create more space.

The most significant improvement to gym capacity comes from the opening of the Chapman Court apartments. Chapman Grand already has its own residential gym, but with this opening, Sakhel said he believes the gym included in the apartments will help alleviate the issue. The catch is, only residents of those apartments will be able to use those gyms. And it won’t even open until the fall of 2024.

The school is planning to open a full fitness center at the Rinker Campus in Irvine in 2026. But that’s miles away, and it will be open to graduate students only.

The overcrowded fitness centers raise concerns about the school’s capacity in many other areas, and how they plan on making more space for their students in the future.

“This is an issue with athletics, academics, and a lot more than just the fitness centers. The question of how Chapman can find more space is a question that a lot of people up the ladder are asking too in their strategic plans moving forward,” Sakhel added.

When it comes to defining the current state of the gyms, many might agree with Blue:

“Right now it’s just better to work out somewhere else until they do something to fix the situation.”