Evaluating the U of T Athletic Facilities

Not too much exciting going on in school as of late (same spiel every day- class, job search, class, job search, etc) so I figured I’d take some time to write about another aspect of the Rotman experience that people might be wondering about (I know I was before arriving!): athletic facilities.

As a Rotman student you are basically a U of T student meaning full access to all U of T athletic facilities. There are 2 gyms on campus: one at hart house, one at the athletic centre.

You guys can go to their websites:

Hart House
Athletic Centre

To see what classes and such that they offer. I want to tell you about the stuff you won’t learn from the websites.

Hart House
This building is OLD. Like really old (built in 1919). As such, the ventilation sucks and the layout of the building sucks. It feels like each room in the building used to be used for some other purposes and one year they decided to put exercise equipment into a bunch of random rooms in the building and leave it at that.

If you are only going to exercise for 1 specific purpose (i.e. JUST going for a run, JUST doing free weight exercises, JUST doing a dance class) it is fine. Besides the fact that the building is super old, you’ll get what you need. But as soon as you want to mix things up (i.e. for me in 1 session I like to do some free weights, some exercise on machines, some matwork, etc) things get super annoying. From having to do matwork in the tiny hallway outside the freeweight room to having exercise machines in a completely different part of the building from the free weights, one’s exercise session becomes way longer than it needs to be. The hart house exercise facilities are basically always open to students though so there are never scheduling conflicts which is good!

Athletic Centre (the AC)
This I would say is more like the Goodlife fitnesses of the world and such. The gym (weight room) is huge with tons of varied equipment (free weights, machines, mats etc). Although there are only like 3 exercise bikes here so if you want to mix cardio machines exercise with weights, forget about it here. You’ll have to go to one of the studios in the AC or back to Hart House. There is also a huge pool in the building though, which is cool for swimmers.

This building also has some quirks- It has a “field house” which is the top floor of the building and should just be a track with the various track & field pieces of equipment. However, the field house also has a super random set of exercise machines (different from those in the weight room in some cases) placed in seemingly random spots that should probably be in the weight room instead.

While this building is more of an athletic centre than hart house is, ironically, hart house has newer weights and machines. It is not to say that the AC’s machines suck- because they don't- I just thought it was kind of ironic. Put your best equipment in your best gym, no?

The HUGE bummer about the AC is that the gym closes itself off at random hours of the day for:
-“Programming Hours” – which I guess is when kinesiology students need to use the gym for their studies or something
-Women-only hours- which you girls will probably love but is an inconvenience for us guys!
-Being at capacity- A few times upon leaving the weight room, I noticed a few people weren’t being allowed in as there was a sign saying something like “we are at capacity…please wait.” I’ve NEVER seen that in a fitness facility EVER. That being said, I only noticed it like 4 times ever (and I am in the gym at least 3 times a week every week) so the odds of you running into this problem are super low but it was something I thought would be worth to note anyways.

In summary, I’d say if you are only doing one specific exercise activity, AC and Hart House are about the same in what they offer. If you want to mix things up at all, the AC wins hands down. (although remember to check the schedule so you don’t arrive only to find out it is “programming hours”!).