The Student Recreation and Wellness Center, located near the south end of Yager Stadium, offers students and faculty an opportunity to exercise and socialize.

More commonly known as the SRWC, the 37,000-square-foot center offers a rock-climbing wall, an indoor track, a basketball gym, a wellness suite, multi-purpose room and locker rooms. It also hosts the university’s intramurals program. Students can use the SRWC by swiping their iCard at the front desk.

“Research shows that people who use college recreation centers do better in class, they graduate at higher rates,” said Joel Bluml, SRWC director. “Certainly that’s not a cause and effect relationship. You can’t say ‘if you use the rec center four times a week, you’re gonna get A’s,’ but just the type of people that do take care of themselves are also the type of people that do well in school.”

During Welcome Week, students will get a chance to get acquainted with the SRWC and socialize, as it will host Rock the Rec at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. The first 30 people to participate in Fitness Frenzy and the first 20 people to climb the rock wall will receive a free SRWC T-shirt. On Friday, the SRWC will also help host the WU Run/Walk at 8:30 a.m. at Mabee Library.

“We’re also going to have a new focus on what we call Smart Start Orientations,'” said Bluml. “We want our students to understand that while walking through our doors and making a commitment to exercise and being healthy is part of that, you have to be smart about it. Not knowing what you’re doing is like going to the library without your books to study. Just going to the building isn’t going to do it for you, you have to know what you’re going to do once you get there.”

The SRWC recently added several pieces of new equipment, including two E-Spinners that do virtual training spin classes and two rowing machines that not only serve as odometers but also provide games. The intramurals program may also see upgrades.

“We have some new things at Rock the Rec that we’re going to test out and see if they’re popular and then they might become intramural sports as well, but we’ll leave that as a surprise,” said Bluml.

Aside from the typical team sports, the intramurals program also offers individualized intramurals and events like poker tournaments, scrabble tournaments, chess tournaments and “Guitar Hero” tournaments.

“We’re trying to market it to people who may have an interest in getting together and being social but who aren’t into the team sport activities, we try to spice it up a little bit and offer a well-rounded program,” said Bluml.

For more information, visit www.washburn.edu/getfit.