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Show I 8 ATHLETICS i According to Laura Iverson, assistant director of Fitness, Wellness, and Recreation, male college students participate in group exercise classes less than female V students. Payton Schiff, sophomore, competes at the BYU Invitational racing the mile. She ran st at 5:33.65. just a second under of her personal-be- With a young team on his currently holds the top three records in high jump and the top the track and Westminster hands, field head coach, Dan Quinn, has four in long jump at Westminster. This season she broke her his work cut out for him. The biggest thing we existing school record in the high are trying to do this season is jump at the Jacksons Open. At BYU, she again broke her to get the younger athletes to understand what the program high jump and long jump school is going to be, Quinn said. If records and set a personal-be- st in we get them trained this year on the hurdles with a 9.80 overall scoring 3,058 points in where we are going, then next are to we better the see going year pentathlon. With three more meets performances. The team is comprised of to come before nationals, it is first-yeand students looking like the Griffins will have mostly of with a handful a better chance in the coming sophomores seasons to score as a team. juniors and seniors. We just dont have the On Dec. 15, the Griffins team in its of volume of kids to go to nationals, meet first the participated indoor season at the Jacksons Quinn said. Right now, were was The held meet at working on individuals and we Open. Boise State, where there were are looking to get our relay teams there. 10 athletes making their college debut. At the Jacksons Open, BYU Griffin At the Invitational on the mens 4x400 team Jan. 8, the athletes were coming beat the existing record by five off a month long break. At that seconds at 3:31.41. school The team consisted of records were meet, nine athletes Dylan Chatters, first-yebroken and 16 personal records were set. student, Joe I think that tells me they Cremer, sophomore, Joe did something over the break, Feichko, senior and Mitchell student. Sims, first-yeQuinn said. I dont know if Cremer qualified for they did everything but they did also had nationals and in the open 800 meters they something, from three race the recover time to after hitting a 1:56.94 at months prior. the Snake River Open. The team Alex Westbrooks, junior, is also hoping to qualify for the with best set her personal along open 400 meters. Cremer showed up to the breaking the Griffin school record Jacksons Open and set a new at BYU by running the 60 meters school record and beat his race in 8.11 seconds. Thats an personal best by .77 seconds improvement of .16 seconds from her personal best in 2013. She receiving a 50.20 in the 400 tied her record at the Snake River meter race. The time he had to reach in order to qualify for Open the week after. Nationals is 49.90. At the Jacksons Open, first-yeIf we can get two to four Chandler Clark, student, threw 14.18m in the shot kids to qualify for nationals indoor, thats going to be put and 13.10m in the weight throw. He is the first male in doubling the numbers we had last Griffin history to compete in year, Quinn said. At this point in the 2015 these events. indoor season, the Griffins At the BYU Invitational, have broken a total of 10 school Clark broke his existing record in records: four on the mens team the shot put by posting a mark of and six on the womens. 14.29m. 60-met- i er ar Iverson, who has worked at Westminster for over seven years, oversees all group exercise, personal training, wellness and intramurals for students. Iverson teaches classes such as Cycle Fusion, Yoga, Insanity and CRUSH, an intense interval training class. She said she has noticed a trend of people participating in the classes offered at the college according to their gender. Although we do have more males in class now than we used to because CRUSH and yoga have become more mainstream, a typical group exercise class is at least 95 percent female, Iverson said. Westminster students have also noticed a trend of more women than men participating in group exercise classes. Leesa McDill, junior English major from Wyoming, said that some classes are naturally geared towards certain genders. I think that Zumba was mainly designed for women, so I am not surprised that men participate more in other activities like rock climbing and less in group fitness classes, McDill said. Lisa Molina, junior sociology major has participated in group exercise classes like Zumba and CRUSH. She agrees with McDill. I notice a trend that mainly women go to Zumba because that class is obviously geared towards a female audience, Molina said. It is more relaxed and fun. Men arent interested to go to classes that are mainly female, and I think it is interesting that students choose classes based on gender rather than their actual ability or the difficulty of the class. Other students attribute the gender participation trend to other factors, such as culture and the media. Kevin Martinez, junior sociology major from Los Angeles, said that participation is directly related to sexual orientation, culture and how exercise is portrayed in the media. I know a couple of men who go to Zumba, but they either identify as gay or bisexual, Martinez said. Women participate in Zumba. Also, women prefer to dance salsa for fitness, whereas men like to dance for pleasure or leisure, not for fitness. And classes like yoga are represented in the media as female based, so its no wonder that men dont participate. Even though less men participate in group exercise classes at Westminster, this trend could change. Iverson, assistant director of Fitness, Wellness, and Recreation, is optimistic that group exercise trends will continue to evolve. The culture of group exercise classes has already started to change, especially with the addition of CRUSH, so Im optimistic that more males will participate in the future, Iverson said. Having male instructors helps with male student participation, and we do have a few male instructors. Despite the gendered gym spaces at Westminster, Jesper Andreasson and Thomas Johansson describe in their book, The Global Gym: Gender, Health and Pedagogies that globally, these norms are changing. Women doing strength training and other fitness activities have successively become a natural feature at the gym, it says in the book. Furthermore, there are also an increasing number of internationally accredited female personal trainers. Although group exercise classes at Westminster are currently gendered, those trends are changing. f THE PRODUCERS OF THE THEATRICAL HIT THE SCHEWTAPE LETTERS PRESENT ar ar r ar Justine Kueffner, senior, 1 i |