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One of Jed Lyons’ mechanical engineering class projects is to have students design and build a scale upon which they can weigh him.
The students always come up with a scale that is really accurate, said Lyons, a professor of engineering. But a few years ago, the project brought with it an unsettling discovery: Lyons was putting on too much weight.
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| Jed Lyons |
“I saw it going up and over time realized it had gone up too much,” he said, adding that attempts to lose weight by working out on his own or playing sports like racquetball weren’t successful because he’d get bored and postpone or quit the workout, especially if he was busy.
Then Lyons discovered an early afternoon faculty-staff fitness class he could attend for an hour a day four days a week in the Blatt Physical Education Center and soon realized it was the solution to his problem. Over a year’s time, he lost 30 pounds and returned, at age 41, to his weight as an 18-year-old: 160 pounds.
“When I found the class it was great because it has a set starting time I can’t put off, I can’t walk out of the workout once it starts, and I can go every day of the week from 1:05 to 2:05 p.m. after my morning classes. If I miss a couple of days I’ll get an e-mail from the instructor checking to make sure I’m OK.”
The class, which is geared especially for faculty and staff and taught by certified instructor Linda W. Jordan, is one of 85 fitness classes offered by Campus Recreation to faculty, staff, and students at the Blatt PE Center, the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center, and the Moore School.
For $20 per semester, participants can sign up for any of the classes, said fitness director Charles Anderson. (Courses taken at the Thurmond Center also require payment of an annual membership fee of $360 for faculty and staff.) Included in the class offerings are sessions on indoor group cycling, cardio and strength training, cardio kickboxing, lower body workouts, pilates (exercises without building bulk), yoga, water exercise, basic choreography, step training and body sculpting.
The combination cardio and weight training class taught by Jordan was designed with faculty and staff in mind so they could work out on their lunch hour, though the session also is open to students. At $20 per semester, said Jordan, it’s “the best deal going.”
One word that keeps coming up by participants in the class is “fun.”
Lyons likes the way Jordan knows all of the participants’ names, that everyone in the session is a peer, and that the exercise, which provides a full body workout, is to music “we like to hear.”
“The instructor is excellent and the exercises are good; not terribly strenuous but enough for a good workout,” said Richard D. Wertz, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies. “Participants are a range of ages and genders and we all have a fabulous time.”
“The instructor is very good about making sure that you do the exercise at your own pace,” said Janice Bell, staff compensation manager in the Division of Human Resources who has been in the course for 10 years after starting it “for health reasons and to feel better.
“The jobs we work in can be very stressful,” Bell said. “Getting out and exercising in the class three or four times a week helps clear your head.”
For a list of all group fitness classes, including times and locations, call the Thurmond Center at 576-9375 or go online to campusrec.sc.edu/fitness/group.asp.
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Class instructor Linda Jordan (far left) leads faculty and staff members during a mid-day workout at the Blatt PE Center. Engineering professor Jed Lyons shed 30 pounds in the class.
