With a brand new weight room, comes brand new problems. Most pressingly is that the “new and improved” facility is constantly overcrowded due to the fact that multiple sports teams are working out at once.
Dustin Sullivan, one of Buena’s wrestling coaches, has his own grievances with the overwhelmed space. He believes it compromises the safety of athletes when the room seems beyond capacity, leaving hardly the necessary space to operate weights properly. The wrestling team includes roughly 50 students between boys and girls varsity and JV teams. When they are all sharing the room with another team, space is extremely limited.
“All it takes is a little bit less room and someone could roll their ankle or twist their knee…[with] more space, it is less likely for that to happen,” Sullivan said.
These new weights in the room also solidified the reduction of size to the wrestling room. Up until 2014, the weight room was part of Buena’s wrestling room and they were told this division of space was temporary. If one were to look on the walls they would see wrestling photos, CIF awards and their hall of fame wall.The wrestling room is almost half the size it was prior, now measuring to approximately 50 square feet. It no longer fits a complete mat. That would be the equivalent of practicing on a basketball court that didn’t have the last 20 feet of the court.
Practices are being altered and workouts are being cut short. With less room to do dynamic movements, certain aspects of athletes training are left unaddressed. Along with lines at all the squat racks and the majority of the free weights taken, it’s almost impossible to get a complete workout in.
Softball coach Aaron Carr also feels that his team’s workouts are struggling because of overcrowding.
“I would love to just be focused on softball and having that group in there,” Carr said.
As Carr leads his team through workouts twice a week, they are usually interrupted from beginning to end when other teams are using the space as well which makes it nearly impossible for Carr to ensure his girls remain focused and get in a good workout.
Carr explained his athletes do focus but tend to “fall out of line” and become “distracted.”
Carr feels that his players are more focused and have better drive when there is less traffic in the weight room. He knows that the softball team likes listening to music while lifting. It’s hard to make that happen when there are multiple people in there. It’s as simple as the fact that not everyone likes the same thing.
Athletic Director Derek Rusk did not respond to requests for comment on this issue. It appears there is no telling when—or even if—this problem is going to be resolved. It makes sense that from all sides of the sports spectrum, no one is happy. All athletes practices are regressing which is the opposite of what was the assumed point of the refreshing of the weightroom.
