Weight Room Remodel Leads to Limited Access

Located in Golden Gym, PLNU’s weight room is newly remodeled to support the strength training needs of student-athletes.

The facility was updated shortly after PLNU partnered with Velocity Sports Performance. Athletic Director Ethan Hamilton said in an interview, “Athletics have hired Velocity to work with our student athletes this year with the hope for growth in an area of sports performance that was severely lacking.”

According to their webpage, Velocity Sports Performance trains athletes to overcome various performance-related limitations with an emphasis on injury prevention.

Velocity joined PLNU’s athletic department in Spring 2016 and continues to host training sessions with every sports team, except for two.

PLNU Mathematics major and senior member of PLNU’s cross-country team, Hayley Richardson, explained that the cross-country and track teams chose to “opt out of Velocity training” because they already have coordinated workouts created by their coach for their individual events.

Additionally, Richardson said “… in particular for distance running, doing Velocity would be detrimental to our training because we do not need the heavy weight training that other teams do.”

Throughout the week, Velocity’s Performance Coaches come to campus to train student-athletes in the gym/weight room for one-hour sessions. Athletes sign themselves up for their training through the Athletic Department. The times of sessions can range from 6 am to 7 pm, with the exception of chapel’s duration on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The extensive usage of the weight room by Velocity and the student-athletes they are training has made it difficult for the cross-country and track teams to access the materials they need for training, said Richardson.

Senior Psychology major at PLNU, Tyler Fabrizio said that the issue goes farther with inaccessibility to the facility and “effects non-athletes ability to maintain their fitness as well, which is unfair.”

These updates have been made with the acknowledgment that “we are obviously in need of an additional and/or larger facility to accommodate all of our staff, student and faculty needs”, said Athletic Director Hamilton.

Athletic Director Hamilton also noted “as a temporary solution, Athletics and ASB worked to form a relationship with discounted memberships at the Point Loma Sports Club in Liberty Station that has full access to all amenities.”