Keeping it Clean: The Effort Behind A Clean Weight Room
Student staff team up to maintain the weight room in a voluntary cleanup
On March 22, a Sunday morning when most were hitting snooze, student staff arrived early at the Rec Centers, equipped not with dumbbells but with disinfectant sprays and wipes.
Strength & Conditioning hosted a voluntary staff cleanup of the weight room, ensuring patrons can destress and work out in a clean space. Cleaning supplies and tasks were distributed to a small group of student staff who signed up.
“The goal is to do a deep clean of all equipment and facilities that fall under Strength & Conditioning,” said Ryan Keller, Strength & Conditioning program director. “We blow out dust from cardio and TVs, sweep and mop. Each piece of equipment is deep cleaned since we have the time and space to get more detailed. Finally, we make sure to realign all equipment [and] other miscellaneous maintenance tasks will also be completed.”
In addition to mandatory deep cleans at the beginning and end of each semester, the voluntary cleanup allows student staff to earn points by coming in for overtime. The staff members with the most positive points total reaped the awards.
“You want more positive points, that helps at the end of the semester,” Strength & Conditioning Attendant Alexis Becerra ’28 said. “You’re able to choose your schedule ahead of everyone else. So I was like ‘OK, let me try to get more.’”
Student staff arrive each day for more than just points and easy scheduling. Strength & Conditioning’s commitment to providing patrons with a clean gym sets a high standard, one that student staff work to uphold.
“So the standard for the weight room is cleanliness, right?” Strength & Conditioning Manager Jayden Wilson ’27 said. “So each time people come in to work for a shift, they have a set of assigned cleanings that they have to do for those shifts. And then the same thing translates when we have these big cleanups. We’re essentially taking what you do on a normal shift to the grand scale of the entire weight room.”
With high traffic and limited hours, some areas of the room can be neglected. Those areas receive more attention during larger-scale cleanups, when the weight room is unoccupied.
“Underneath the machines, it gets really gross,” Head Attendant Julia Mueller ’27 said. “There’s some areas that just can’t get cleaned on a day-to-day basis, with people in and out of here. So I think it’s really important to just make sure that we’re getting everything good and clean for everybody, keeping it sanitary and not letting anything fester, grow, or anything like that.”
Consistent cleaning and maintenance keep the equipment in shape, allowing students to push through their workouts without worrying about faulty machines. That reliability keeps the weight room running for years to come.
“It gets us a reset each semester,” Strength & Conditioning Supervisor Savannah Cobb ’26 said. “We have a lot of people that come into the weight room every single day. Everything gets started quite fast. And so doing these deep cleans is really helpful for our equipment and the longevity of it, too.”
