The Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center will reopen Monday with new hours and safety measures in place.
According to associate director of campus recreation Lauren Martini Olson, the fitness center has shifted to a “touchless entry system.” Students must fill out a screening survey, which can be found online and can be done in advance or upon arrival, and they will need to self-scan their CarolinaCards to enter. Olson said the hand scanner previously used for entry is “a thing of the past” and will not be returning.
Forehead temperature scanners will also be used upon entry. Olson said the fitness center has purchased and will soon implement non-contact temperature scanners that can be walked through.
Face coverings are required.
“They should be worn when at all possible. We understand that during exercise, depending on the exercise you’re doing, if you can’t keep it on and you need to take it off, that’s allowed,” Martini Olson said.
Some resources will remain unavailable, including the sauna and spa, outdoor pool, sand volleyball courts and rental shop. A full list of available and unavailable resources can be found on Strom Thurmond Center’s webpage.
Available resources will look different, however. The climbing wall will be open only for bouldering, and the indoor pool will be set up in lanes with one swimmer at a time in each. Both will have a reservation system for students to sign up online.
Martini Olson said the biggest change people might notice is that exercise equipment was moved from the cardio deck and fitness floor to courts one and two in order to leave more space between equipment. Some equipment deemed difficult to clean was removed.
“People are gonna have to think differently about their workouts a little bit, in terms of not only what equipment that is available maybe, but certainly the locations of equipment. We’ve moved a lot of stuff around, and so what was easily next to each other before maybe isn’t,” Martini Olson said. “People are just gonna have to be creative and flexible and certainly be prepared to sort of modify workouts they may have done in the past.”
The fitness center will have modified hours with several three-hour gaps to accommodate cleaning needs. A full list of updated hours can be found here.