Group exercise available to all

When some people think of exercise classes, they might envision of a room filled with brightly colored spandex and people constantly stepping on and off a plastic step.\nBut staff members at the Student Recreational Sports Center see things differently. While step aerobic sessions are popular, they are only one of many group exercise session offered by Recreational Sports.\nColleen McMahon, who oversees all group exercise sessions, said she attempts to make something available for everyone.\n"Our goal is to offer a diverse program for inclusion of students and other members of the community," McMahon said. "We try to offer something for everyone from beginner to expert in all of our sessions."\nThis means that new sessions ranging from cycling to yoga are often added.\n"Hip-hop is one of the newer sessions that we just added recently," McMahon said. "We've also added a lot of 'comboed' classes like step-crunch. Kung fu is also new this year." \n"Our most popular sessions by and large are dance sessions such as Hip Hop," McMahon said, "and also Jazz It Up is a very popular one."\nWhile hip-hop is a session attended by more than 100 women, there are usually about 10 men each session. \nOne of those men, freshman Kelley Rounds, has been attending sessions and said he enjoys it because of the fitness benefits and also because it's interesting.\n"I want to get exercise out of it," he said. "I want to get some physical exercise and just dance and have fun."\nEach group exercise session is directed by one of about 45 group leaders, most of which are students. Personal trainer Adam Gutwein, a junior, is the one of two group leaders for the Cross Conditioning session, an hour-long session that offers a cardiovascular and muscular workout that benefits people playing one or more sports. Gutwein said his session offers an alternative to standard workouts such as lifting weights and running.\n"I just try to give people a different way to work out and try to make it fun," he said. "We try to make it fun and also interesting so that people have a good time and get a good workout."\nHe said extensive talent and a high fitness level are not prerequisites for attending the sessions.\n"It's for varying degrees," he said. "It's not really geared towards any level of ability. People at different levels can both work out at the same time. You can just go harder or add more things if you're advanced." \nRounds said that the same is true for the hip-hop session, which he said is challenging but basic enough that the average person can catch on to the dance steps.\n"Anyone can do it, it's simple movement," Rounds said. "They don't move to fast, and they don't use big words so everyone can understand"