Breaking down Penn’s premier fitness facility floor by floor, room by room
By Walker Carnathan
2 hours ago
Pottruck Health and Fitness Center on Sep. 15, 2019.
Credit: Annie Luo
During the early going of one’s time at Penn, nearly every place on campus feels unfamiliar. And whether exercise is a staple of your daily routine or just a hobby you’re interested in exploring, it’s always helpful to understand a new space. Let’s break down the layout of Pottruck Health and Fitness Center, Penn’s premier place for exercise and recreation.
Entrance
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Pottruck is located at 3701 Walnut Street, across from the Graduate School of Education and beside a parking garage and Hello World. The main entrance is located up a small set of stairs and is unlocked during operational hours. Below is Pottruck’s current schedule:
Monday – Friday: 6 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Saturday: 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.
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Sunday: 9 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Once inside, guests will be asked to sign in to the facility. Pottruck is free to all PennCard holders, and students can either scan their PennCard at the front desk or sign in via the campus recreation app. All front desk staff are friendly and willing to assist in the event of any trouble.
For those who are not students or staff and are visiting campus, guest day passes can be purchased at the front desk for $15. Equipment such as basketballs can also be rented at the front desk free of charge. Guests can also access Pottruck’s Lost and Found by speaking with front desk staff.
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First Floor
The first floor of the facility contains two main sections: first is the main atrium that encompasses the front desk. Here, guests can find a small collection of tables and chairs, as well as a set of couches and a television that usually shows live sports or sports talk shows. This section also formerly housed Sweet Treat Hut, where guests could purchase smoothies, protein shakes, and other food/drinks before its sudden closure in April.
Also in the atrium is the facility’s climbing wall, which reaches 40 feet into the air and accommodates climbers of all experience levels. All necessary equipment is provided by Pottruck and can be rented at the front desk.
Next to the atrium is the Katz Fitness Center, Pottruck’s largest collection of cardio equipment, complete with treadmills, ellipticals, stairmasters, and other machines. The area is complete with floor-to-ceiling windows that face the neighboring parking garage.
The first floor also contains offices and meeting rooms used by Penn recreation staff, as well as the newly-renovated Rec Lounge, a space behind the climbing wall that contains board games, bean bag chairs, and a study area.
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In a typical year, this floor’s staircases would provide access to Pottruck’s basement, which houses Sheerr Pool, additional locker rooms, and a sauna, but the facility is currently undergoing renovations that will keep it closed for the entirety of the 2024-25 academic year.
Each floor of the facility also has lockers where guests can store their belongings as well as men’s and women’s restrooms in the back left corner.
Second Floor
The second floor is perhaps Pottruck’s busiest, housing its primary weightlifting area as well as the Avnet Basketball Courts. The weightlifting room, which covers over 8,000 square feet, is located to the left of the staircase, and contains equipment such as dumbbells, barbells, bench presses, power racks, deadlift platforms, cables, and a number of additional machines. The weightlifting room also contains windows that look out onto Walnut Street and the surrounding buildings.
To the right of the staircase is the Avnet Basketball Courts, where guests can play during any time the gym is open. Guests may bring their own ball or rent one from the front desk. Open shootaround is available, but guests are permitted to share the courts during peak hours. Pickup games are common and open to players of all experience levels. The basketball courts also occasionally host vaccine clinics, including the flu vaccine.
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The second floor also houses Pottruck’s multi-purpose room, which is located down the hallway immediately to the left after entering the basketball courts. The multi-purpose room features additional cardio and weightlifting equipment, as well as a turf area for stretching and exercising, medicine balls, kettlebells, and several punching bags and a speed bag. The multi-purpose room is often less crowded than the main weightlifting area, and also contains additional lockers.
Third Floor
The third floor is regarded as Pottruck’s “quiet floor” with no music playing overhead. It contains additional cardio and weightlifting equipment, including a condensed set of free weights, as well as a number of rooms designed to enhance the facility’s recreational experience.
These include the Cycling and Pilates studios, which hold group exercise classes throughout the week and can be booked for private sessions for a cost. New to Pottruck is the third floor Recovery Room, a recently renovated space that features reclining chairs, compression boots, and massage guns. Bays are available on a first-come, first-serve basis, but can also be reserved for 30 minutes at a time for a cost.
Fourth Floor
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The fourth floor also contains additional cardio and weightlifting equipment, including a CrossFit area. It also offers additional studios that offer group exercise classes throughout the week, including a HIIT studio. These rooms are generally closed to the public outside of class times but can be rented for private use for a cost.
Clubs
Pottruck is home to many of Penn’s recreational clubs, including many club and intramural sports. These include club and intramural basketball, Climbing Club, Penn Barbell Club, and many more. First-year students can learn more about these clubs and explore campus recreation’s offerings during “Night at the Rec,” which will take place at Pottruck during New Student Orientation on Friday, August 23 from 7-9 p.m.
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General Advice
Below is a list of general tips for those new to Pottruck:
During the week, 5-8 p.m. is generally the facility’s busiest time, with 6 am to 8 am being its slowest. During the weekend, traffic is more evenly distributed.
Guests are forbidden from cursing or fighting during games at the Avnet Basketball courts.
Wipe down all equipment upon completion of a workout — each floor contains multiple conveniently located wet wipe stations for sanitation.
Only occupy one piece of equipment at a time.
Guests in the weightlifting areas are generally friendly and willing to “work in” with one another, meaning share pieces of equipment by switching off sets.
More information on all of Pottruck and other recreational offerings can be found on the campus recreation website.
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With a 3:45am wake-up call, it’s a wonder Susanna Reid has any time or energy left to work out, particularly after hours of grilling politicians live on Good Morning Britain. Nevertheless, movement has remained a priority for Susanna – even if that movement looks slightly different to what it did previously.
‘I used to go to the gym and run a lot. I would do marathons, 10ks and parkruns, but I don’t do that any more, so I have to keep my body moving,’ she revealed to Fabulous Magazine earlier this month. While Susanna said she’s ‘quite disciplined’ about incorporating that movement into her day, she’s not doing ‘three gym sessions a week’.
So, how does she maximise the movement in her day?
She takes her steps seriously
First off, Susanna is serious about her steps, with a post-work walk being non-negotiable. ‘I always have a walk after work, because you get sluggish if you don’t move your body,’ she told Fabulous. ‘I walk for two miles every day.’
Susanna added that the best thing about her new work building ‘is that it gives me 2,500 extra steps every day, because there is a longer walk between different parts of the building’.
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Indeed, while you might dismiss walking as active exercise, the benefits of extra steps shouldn’t be underestimated. A recent study found that as few as 4,000 daily steps had clinically meaningful benefits, and that compared with 2,000 daily steps, around 7,000 steps a day was associated with significantly lower risks of premature death, cardiovascular disease, depression and type 2 diabetes.
And another recent study found that a 10-minute walk straight after eating helps suppress blood sugar spikes, eliciting similar effects to those seen after a 30-minute walk.
She does a 10-minute YouTube workout every day
Talking of 10 minutes of movement, Susanna also revealed that she does a 10-minute workout every day. ‘I just go on YouTube and I do it in my room before I get in the shower,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those things with exercise – if you are not that way inclined, like me, you need to reduce the obstacles.’
Again, the science shows that short, consistent bouts of exercise can be as effective as longer, continuous workouts. In fact, one study found that accumulating as little as 15-20 minutes of vigorous physical activity across the week is associated with a significantly lower risk of heart disease, cancer and early death.
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Hannah Bradfield is a Senior Health and Fitness Writer for Women’s Health UK. An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Hannah graduated from Loughborough University with a BA in English and Sport Science and an MA in Media and Cultural Analysis. She has been covering sports, health and fitness for the last five years and has created content for outlets including BBC Sport, BBC Sounds, Runner’s World and Stylist. She especially enjoys interviewing those working within the community to improve access to sport, exercise and wellness. Hannah is a 2024 John Schofield Trust Fellow and was also named a 2022 Rising Star in Journalism by The Printing Charity. A keen runner, Hannah was firmly a sprinter growing up (also dabbling in long jump) but has since transitioned to longer-distance running. While 10K is her favoured race distance, she loves running or volunteering at parkrun every Saturday, followed, of course, by pastries. She’s always looking for fun new runs and races to do and brunch spots to try.
Heel touches are one of those exercises you look at and either think, ‘is that it?’ or ‘that looks nice and easy!’, depending on how much you enjoy core exercises. For those who’d rather avoid planks and crunches, this movement makes for a good alternative – and it can be done lying down.
This exercise targets the obliques, muscles that sit on the sides of our core and help stabilise the spine and support hip strength. Often underworked and underrated, these muscles are essential for everyday movements like bending down and twisting, which in turn may help prevent lower back pain.
Abby McLachlan, personal trainer and founder of East of Eden, recommends heel touches to clients to target the obliques in her workouts. It’s “not the most challenging” core exercise, she tells woman&home, but “if you keep your head, neck, and shoulders off the floor in spinal flexion, you’ll definitely feel it in your abs and obliques”.
How to do heel touches
How to Do: HEEL TOUCH – YouTube
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Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
Raise your shoulders slightly off the mat and keep your neck neutral.
Keep your lower back flat on the floor.
Alternately reach forwards to touch your heels with your hand stretched out flat.
Exhale when touching your heels and inhale when coming back.
A top tip is to do these slowly and try not to swing from side-to-side.
If you’re new to heel touches, Abby says they can be “easily modified, or progressed to make it more challenging”. You might not be able to touch your heels at first, but as your spine becomes more mobile, you will see improvements.
“Your pelvis will naturally tuck slightly as you bring the head, neck and shoulders up, but just try to move with control, keeping the pelvis stable,” she says.
How to make heel touches harder
If you’ve been doing a bodyweight Pilates workout for even a few weeks, you’ll already have good strength in your obliques and abdominal muscles. You may need to make the heel touches harder to see the benefits.
To do this, Abby says: “You could take your feet off the floor into tabletop, which will make pelvic stability more challenging, or lengthen the legs on the diagonal to create more of a challenge, or even add hand weights to increase the load.”
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You could also move your heels further away from your bottom to increase the stretch, or hold each touch for two seconds.
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While above we’ve suggested alternating sides for the touches, you could do all of your reps on one side before switching to the other. This will intensify the pressure on your obliques. Abby suggests aiming for 15-25 reps over three or four sets to “make it count”.
Adding in additional core exercises that complement heel touches can fire up these muscles even more. Dead bugs and the side plank are good options for targeting the obliques.
Benefits of heel touches
No equipment required: You might want a thick yoga mat to lie down on if you don’t have one already, but you don’t need any equipment to do heel touches.
May help prevent lower back pain: As this exercise strengthens the stabilising muscles in the trunk, including around the spine and pelvis, you might find you have a lower risk of back pain.
Boosts spinal mobility: Whether you do strength work in the gym or you’re a keen hiker, if you spend a lot of the day sitting down, you may benefit from better spinal mobility. This helps with bending down and other functional movements.
Improves core strength: Having a stronger core has been shown to improve balance and coordination as we age, lowering our risk of falls and other injuries.
Aids posture: Back muscles are essentially scaffolding for the spine, so having strong ones created by back exercises like heel touches helps maintain a neutral spinal position when walking and sitting down, and pulls the shoulders back, improving posture.
Teenagers who see exercise as fun, social and good for their health are significantly fitter by late adolescence than those driven by competition, pressure or fear of judgement, new research led by Flinders University shows.
Tracking more than 1,000 young people from age 14 to 17, researchers found early attitudes to physical activity strongly predict measurable aerobic fitness three years later.
The national study, using data from the long‑running Raine Study, was led by Flinders University in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame Australia, and has been published in Child: Care, Health and Development journal.
Researchers examined how teenagers’ beliefs about physical activity relate to aerobic fitness in late adolescence, measured using a standard laboratory cycling test at age 17.
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The findings show that intrinsic motivations – such as enjoying physical activity, feeling healthy, keeping fit and spending time with friends – consistently matter most between the ages of 14 and 17.
Teenagers who value these factors are significantly fitter at 17 than those motivated primarily by winning, external rewards or pressure from others.
Senior author Associate Professor Mandy Plumb, a clinical exercise physiologist at Flinders University, says the results underline the importance of understanding what genuinely motivates young people.
“When adolescents see physical activity as enjoyable, social and good for their health, they are more likely to develop lasting fitness into later adolescence,” says Associate Professor Plumb, who is based at Flinders’ Rural and Remote Health NT.
Participants reported both how important they believed different outcomes of physical activity were, and how likely they thought those outcomes were to occur, including enjoyment, health benefits and appearance.
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While most motivational factors remained relatively stable across adolescence, improving appearance was the only factor that increased in importance for both boys and girls by age 17.
Associate Professor Plumb says this reflects normal adolescent development.
“As teenagers get older, they become more aware of their bodies and how they are perceived by others, which is why appearance becomes more influential in later adolescence,” she says.
The study also identified clear gender differences in how motivation relates to fitness outcomes.
Boys tended to have higher aerobic fitness at 17 when motivated by competition, winning and external rewards.
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Girls, by contrast, were fitter when motivated by enjoyment, feeling healthy, weight control and supportive social environments.
Associate Professor Plumb says these findings show youth sport and physical activity programs need to be more targeted.
“One‑size‑fits‑all approaches don’t work, particularly for girls during adolescence,” she says.
The research also highlights the damaging impact of negative social experiences, especially for teenage girls.
Girls who believed others would make fun of them for being physically active were significantly less fit by age 17.
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“Fear of judgement can directly reduce participation in physical activity, leading to poorer long‑term fitness outcomes,” says Associate Professor Plumb.
Importantly, the study shows that attitudes formed in early adolescence influence later health outcomes – not just behaviour at the time.
“What teenagers believe about physical activity at 14 continues to shape their fitness several years later,” says Associate Professor Plumb.
The authors say the findings have clear implications for parents, schools, coaches and policymakers.
“Programs that prioritise fun, friendship and feeling healthy may be more effective than those focused on competition or performance alone,” says Associate Professor Plumb.
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“Reducing pressure, bullying and overly competitive environments could help more young people stay active throughout adolescence.”
The authors say that schools and community sports organisations are well placed to apply the findings to help reverse declining physical activity levels among teenagers.
The paper, Perceptions of the Likelihood and Importance of Physical Activity Outcomes at 14 Years Affects Physical Fitness at 17 Years by Amanda Timler, Paola Chivers, Helen Parker, Elizabeth Rose, Jocelyn Tan, Beth Hands and Mandy S. Plumb was published in Child: Care, Health and Development journal. DOI: 10.1111/cch.70276
Acknowledgements: The Raine Study Gen2-14 year follow-up received funding from NHMRC (Sly et al., ID 211912), NHMRC Program Grant (Stanley et al.,ID 003209) and The Raine Medical Research Foundation. The Raine Study Gen2-17 year follow-up was funded through a NHMRC Program Grant (Stanley et al., ID 353514).
