Welcome to RAC: Home of bruised shins and wobbly machines

By Anthony Agostino

Warning: working out at the RAC may be dangerous to your health.

Despite a significant upgrade in exercise equipment last year, the Ryerson Athletic Center is facing complaints from students concerning inadequate exercise machinery.

Erik Denison, a second-year journalism student, bought a membership at a new gym and refuses to go back to the RAC because of an injury he claims occurred while using a faulty leg extension machine just over a week ago.

He says his “shins were badly bruised” when, while doing leg extensions the thin padding moved up from his ankles to his shins because of the machine’s instability.  As a result, he experienced what he described as “about 110 pounds across my shins.”

“It’s pretty painful,” he added.  “The machine is not secure so it moves around a lot and doesn’t stay in one place.”

Denison had first approached RAC staff about the leg extension and other machinery alst March and was told the machine was going to be fixed.  Seven months later, the machine still has not been fixed properly according to Denison.

Anthony Seymour, a RAC staff member who works in the weight room said he rarely hears complaints about the exercise machines.  He said fixing them is the staff’s “number one priority.”  He deems the equipment safe and without functional problems.

Fourth-year nursing student Debbie Paton frequents the RAC up to five times a week and depends greatly on the nautilus machines.

“The machines are my main medium of getting a proper workout,” said the 21-year-old.  “One of the pec deck machines is stiff on one side and it works one half of your chest more than the other and that is dangerous.”

“You get the feeling some of the machines are going to break down if you use too much weight on them, which is not exactly the feeling you want to get,” said 23-year-old David Desroches.  Denison sees maintenance as the main problem.  “If I brought all my tools into the RAC I could probably fix the machines myself.  It is just a matter of getting people in there to fix them,” he said.