As the spring sports season begins, strength and conditioning coach Jessica Gust said she prepares for a problem that limits the amount of space in the gyms and weight room for strength and conditioning: the weather.  

“Weather always makes everything harder,” Gust said. “There tends to be a lot of overlap between when the teams want to use the weight room, making it very difficult to coordinate space for everyone.”

According to Gust, the synchronized swimming, baseball and both boys’ and girls’ track teams plan to use the gym and weight room for preseason and in-season training, making it a very busy hallway near the field house.

To battle conflicts with space, Gust said the strength and conditioning program moves outside to create less traffic in that hallway area.

“We usually go outside for more of the workouts. For the warmup, cardio workouts and endurance sports we do more stuff outside,” Gust said.

Gust said she, along with other community members, have addressed the issue of space to the School Board. However, because of budget and space limitations she said she does not expect any changes to be made in the near future.

“Any addition to the weight room or to the gym would be very expensive and is not inside the realm of possibility as of right now, based on what the School Board has told me,” Gust said.

Sophomore Peyton Morrison said the limited space poses safety risks and quality concerns for students and athletes.

“It gets really congested and hard to do your workouts,” Morrison said. “Sometimes we even have to move our workouts into the hallway, which hurts the people working out and limits their workout routines.”

Gust said although there is never ample amount of space for all sports, the scheduling for the weight room and gyms in past years worked well, and this year should not be any different.

“In the end, all schools in Minnesota have to deal with the weather,” Gust said. “We have always gotten through conflicts with gym and weight room time, and that should not change this year.”

Strength and conditioning will continue throughout the year, offering practices at 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.