Standing on a squishy purple bubble about 3 feet around, you raise one foot in the air and twist your torso while keeping your balance. By the instructor’s command, you flip over the half-shaped ball and start doing push-ups with the bubble side on the floor and the hard plastic side facing up. The unique half-ball/half-platform wobbles while you push up and down engaging your core and pushing your abs to the limit.
This challenging course is known as BOSU Pilates and is one of the many group fitness classes offered through UF’s Department of Recreational Sports.
From BOSU Pilates and Ashtanga Yoga to Speed Training and Total Body, Rec Sports offers more than 30 different one-hour group fitness classes about 100 times a week at the Student Recreation and Fitness Center and the Southwest Recreation Center. All of the classes are free with a valid Gator 1 I.D. card.
“A lot of times, people get stuck in a workout rut where they’re doing the same thing all the time and hitting a fitness plateau,” said Meaghan O’Dwyer, graduate assistant for group fitness for UF’s Department of Recreational Sports. “Going to group fitness classes really mixes up their schedules and allows them to try different things.”
With a variety of disciplines, students will more than likely find an activity that they enjoy doing, O’Dwyer said.
“I liked the fact that it was already scheduled, and it was in a group setting. I didn’t necessarily go to work on my glutes, but I heard that the abs part of the class was tough. When I got there, I was the only guy so I thought, ‘This is awesome.’”UF economics junior Russell Mercer said.
UF junior Brett Rogers, 21, started taking speed and conditioning classes over the summer. Rogers, who lettered in track and field in high school, wanted to get back into sprinting and found out about the class through a friend already taking it. Rogers enjoyed the fact that the classes focused on increasing speed, he said.
Caley Baird, a senior education major, takes BOSU Pilates and a stadiums class that focuses on running up and down stadium stairs at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Baird prefers group fitness classes compared with going to the gym by herself because they add variety and prevent boredom and monotony in her workouts, she said.
“(BOSU Pilates) relaxes me and at the same time it really makes me focus on the muscles I’m supposed to be working,” she said. “It gets you in touch with your body whereas you can just fly through cardio routines.”
Whether a student is trying to get in shape or is an athlete, the plethora of classes provides students with classes that will reflect his or her fitness level.
For more information about the UF Rec Sports and a schedule of its group fitness classes, go to recsports.ufl.edu.
UF students pose in a downward dog yoga position during a RecSports class.
