The fitness center at the Oshman Family JCC is not your run-of-the-mill gym where people go in, do their exercise thing and then leave right after. In fact, once visitors come to the new Richard and Rhoda Goldman Sports and Wellness Complex, they will find plenty of reasons to stay and hang out.
“This is a place where you spend time,” chief marketing officer Mimi Sells said, “not just work out and run off. We break down isolation here at the JCC. The fitness center is no different.”
Part of the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, the state-of-the-art center is designed to accommodate a wide range of users, from babies to seniors.
For kids, the biggest hit has been the pool. The indoor water park features two slides, BoRiS (for Big Red Slide) and a frog slide that many children have been enjoying. The aquatics program, which offers private and public swim lessons, has been inundated with parents signing up their kids.
Parents who want to get a little grown-up time can take advantage of the child care center, which is open to children from 6 weeks to 10 years old. Depending on their age, the little ones can enjoy arts and crafts, toys and games (and no television) while their parents are otherwise occupied. The program is set up to be a hands-on experience. “It’s not babysitting,” Sells said. “It’s child care.”
Classes for adults include yoga, Pilates and spinning. In the exercise room, members can choose from five types of ellipticals and three kinds of treadmills, all with personal viewing screens to watch television or listen to music.
For older adults and seniors, the fitness center offers a number of accessible exercise machines as well as a master’s swim program.
“We have ages all the way from preschool to the oldest members,” said Todd Milton, the fitness and wellness director. “How are we going to program and provide services for that range?”
The answer is variety. “We’re set up to cater to the adults, the families, and the boys and girls,” Milton said. That extends to the locker rooms, which have separate spaces for men, women, boys, girls and families, including private showers and changing stalls. “Adults want more of a quiet atmosphere in their locker room, and we provided that,” he said.
Atmosphere was a key concept when developing the fitness center. With a lot of open space and benches prompting visitors to stop and talk to each other, it is meant to foster the idea of community.
JCC members can’t help but feel that sense of belonging. “The first thing you notice when you walk into the fitness center is how large and open it feels,” Milton said. “There’s a lounge where you can sit and chat and watch TV.”
For Milton, who spent the last nine years running fitness centers throughout California, the Taube Koret Center for Jewish Life is incomparable.
“It’s awe-striking at first,” Milton said. “There are 12 buildings on this campus. There’s opportunity here for so much. It’s conducive for people to come here and hang out.”
And work out.