University of Oregon students logged 28,918 minutes of physical activity during Ducks Unite Fitness Week from Feb. 23 to 27.
Throughout the week, the Student Recreation Center encouraged students to work out and log their exercise minutes online. The idea was to track both personal and school-wide progress. The SRC played host to a number of free fitness events and classes, challenging students to participate in improving the university’s general well-being.
“There’s no real initiative,” Annalisa Cabalka, an organizer of Ducks Unite Fitness Week, said. “It’s just: ‘Let’s see who can be the fittest,’ and it was cool to see the response.”
As students added exercise minutes to their individual totals on their accounts, they simultaneously contributed to that of the student body. Oregon’s progress as a school was then weighed in real time against the results of the other Pac-12 schools, an annual friendly competition known for the past 10 years as the Pac-12 Challenge.
Stanford blew away the competition with 444,237 minutes of physical activity logged during the five-day period. This was Stanford’s second straight year recording the most minutes of any Pac-12 university.
The rest of the results and previous winners can be found here.
Ducks Unite Fitness Week kicked off with a mile-long “running parade” through campus and a dance-off at the SRC lobby. From Tuesday to Thursday, the SRC offered promotional deals, such as guided workouts and free entry to fitness classes, and distributed prizes and nourishment to participants.
Workouts included the rock wall challenge route as well as interval and circuit training at the fitness factory and the new upstairs fitness yard area, which features full body, functional training with medicine balls, kettle bells and battle ropes.
“Those spaces and workouts really are inclusive of any student who wants to participate,” Chantelle Russell, the assistant director of fitness at the physical education and recreation department, said. “Whether an elite athlete or newbie to the gym, they’re doing the same movements; we’ve just adjusted the workouts to meet their needs.”
Oregon squared off with Oregon State on Friday for Rivalry Day, comparing minutes logged and awarding bragging rights to the champion. The Beavers out-sweat the Ducks with 54,052 total minutes logged.
Oregon saw its exercise minutes increase by more than threefold from 2013, largely a product of the spiffy new SRC’s allure. Since its re-opening in January, the SRC has undergone a 60% increase in attendance.
The $50 million invoice for the renovation raised questions about resource allocation, but students overwhelmingly agree the changes were greatly needed. The old SRC was considered state-of-the-art at its renovation in 2000, but it exceeded capacity on the first day and suffered from overcrowding due to steady enrollment growth in subsequent years.
“Every time I walk into the new building I’m fascinated by how amazing it is,” Russell said. “There’s such a diversity of fitness spaces, and there are so many opportunities for students to learn skills and exercises they might not know already.”
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