Jacobs High opens new fitness center, dance studio
Students at Jacobs High School in Algonquin opened the school's new fitness center and group fitness/dance studio this week.
The 6,462-square-foot center includes 24 strength training multi-stations that can accommodate up to 72 students simultaneously. It was designed to help students reach fitness goals and offer opportunities to rehabilitate student athletes, officials said Friday.
"We really feel like fitness is a life skill and we are teaching kids learning that will impact them for their entire lives," Principal Barb Valle said. "The students and staff are very excited ... it's a community piece to our school that might have been missing in the past."
The school's roughly 2,100 students and 275 employees will be able to use the facility.
The fitness center has training stations for body weight, dumbbell, kettlebell, land mine, medicine ball, Olympic weight, TRX and resistance band. It also is equipped with 34 spinner bikes, four row machines, three glute/hamstring stations, two multifunctional cable machines, two leg extension curl machines, a leg press, a treadmill, an elliptical machine, a commercial grade sound system and LED lighting.
Students can use a 16-foot by 4-foot yard training turf area for speed and agility activities, and stations for sled, heavy rope, vertical jump challenges, and plyometrics. A physical education teacher who also is a certified personal trainer will serve as an after-school strength and conditioning coach to help students stay fit. Students who were working out at local gyms now are using the center, said Joe Benoit, athletic director.
"This is the first year that we truly have a consistent strength and conditioning coach," he said. "What we are most excited about is it allows us to have a more holistic approach to meeting the needs of our students across the board."
Jacobs' new 3,505-square-foot group fitness/dance studio includes mondo dance grade flooring and is surrounded by full-length mirrors. The room has an 80-foot dance/balance bar, equipment storage, LED lighting, and an integrated audiovisual system with an 80-inch television for instruction.
It cost roughly $400,000 to build and equip the fitness center in an underutilized auxiliary gym space, and repurpose a balcony in the main gym for the dance studio. Improvements were funded through a combination of district and school funds - from sponsorships and gate receipts from athletic events - and donations from the booster club and senior class of 2017, Assistant Principal Mark Rasar said.
"Some of the equipment was repurposed from the previous weight room ... but about 80 percent is new," he added.