One of Missouri Southern’s features offered to students is the Beimdiek Recreational Center on the main floor of the Billingsly Student Center. 

The rec center, as it is often called, hosts weight training facilities, basketball courts, a volleyball court, an indoor track, and several rooms for aerobics. 

One of the many students to use these facilities is Chase Fowler a senior health promotion and wellness and kinesiology major. Because of his choice to major, fitness takes high priority in his life. 

Fowler has exercised regularly his entire life, first through his love of nature and physical activity, and later through his soccer career. 

He started training with free weights during his sophomore year in high school.  Fowler has spent a lot of time in several different gyms and said among them all he would “give Southern’s gym a passing score.”

Some of the features Fowler finds the most useful are the wide variety of equipment as well as the amount of equipment. 

He believes for him, waiting to use equipment is a real downer on a workout. He also enjoys the fact that the gym is exclusive to the University’s students, staff and administrators. 

“The fact that it’s exclusive helps keep the gym less crowded,” he said. 

There are some aspects of the rec center that Fowler would like to see improved. He would like to see more creative cardio equipment such as a machine that simulates climbing a rope. 

Additionally, he believes heavy boxing bags would be nice for students to vent their stress as well as get good cardiovascular exercise. 

One of his favorite parts of going to the gym is the staff.

“Those guys are great. They’re so helpful, kind, and informative,” he said. 

He is a supporter of the fact that people who may not know how to use the equipment can have confidence in the staff and trainers to give them careful and clear instruction. 

Fowler has attended the University for almost four years, and in that time he has worked out at the rec center consistently at least four days a week. 

He does a wide range of workouts focusing at times on heavy weight training and at others intense cardio. He believes the University has everything he would need to stay active and healthy as long as he would like to attend.