This morning I went for a miserably hot run along a busy road by my house and I decided that I really missed the Charles River and the Zesiger Center. A few of you were curious about the facilities, so I thought I'd post some pictures. Plus, you can use the Z Center for free during the school year and you're likely to have gym classes here, so why not get familiar with it.

Note: I had taken these on a Sunday morning before the gym filled up, to avoid being spotted and identified as the creepy girl who is taking pictures of sweaty people for future blackmail purposes. It's usually more crowded...but as long as you don't go between 4-6pm you won't have to wait for a machine.

A view from outside (it's distorted...sorry, the panoramic feature on my camera doesn't always cooperate):

A dark view of the lobby:

Walk up the stairs from another entrance, and you enter the first of two exercise floors. There are cubbies on the right to put your stuff, and two locker rooms downstairs:

Continuing down the second floor of the Z Center...just a small sampling of the vast collection of treadmills:

Walk a little further and you reach the weight area, as well as more cardio equipment:

If you look out of the windows on this floor, you can see our beautiful Olympic-sized pool (ranges from 7-20 feet, or something like that) and the training pool:

And for completeness, here's a view of the pool from the ground floor, looking through some decorated glass:

On the third floor, there are more weight and cardio machines, another area for floor exercises, an indoor court (called the MAC court) for gym classes/ soccer/basketball, and squash courts. There's also a huge indoor track field, but I couldn't get in because I was taking these pictures right before Finals Week and the courts are used as testing facilities:

Heading back to the first floor, there is a big area called the Rockwell Cage:

This list is by no means complete; there's also the Johnson Athletics Center (which has a huge ice rink in the winter, but was no longer there when I took pictures) and the DuPont gym (which has a huge area for gymnastics and basketball, and smaller rooms for the martial arts, yoga, pilates, etc.)

P.S. You get a clean towel each time you visit using a towel card (for a one-time $5 deposit), and can enter a lottery for a locker in the DuPont locker room. Oh! and I almost forgot to mention that the DuPont locker room has brand new saunas!! :)

P.P.S. I'm probably forgetting some things...feel free to chime in.

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

PHYSICS!!!

FIRST!!!

FIRST TIME EVER!!! WOOTT!!!!

PHYSICS PHYSICS PHYSICS... =)

Posted by: Ty'12 on June 11, 2008

WHOA, since when did they get saunas in dupont? haha, as gwen and liane know ... i sometimes look for one right before crew weigh-ins

ps - congratulations on graduation!

Posted by: anneshen on June 11, 2008

those panoramic pictures look awesome. some friends and me explored the z center during cpw and were getting into all these little halls and weird places around. it was funny to find random stuff on white boards around the center. cant wait to go to the z center and the pool in the summer.

Posted by: sam r. '12 on June 11, 2008

Yayayay for Olympic size swimming pools! That has got to be my favorite thing about the MIT physical fitness program in general.

Posted by: Meagan on June 11, 2008

I love the Z-Center! I almost fell onto the sauna heating stove thing, though.

Posted by: Eoin on June 11, 2008

Is there a fee for the Z center in summer?

Posted by: 0 on June 11, 2008

It seems like mitadmissions.org needs CAPTCHA.

Anyways, I seem to remember that everywhere around the pool were signs saying "No Photography" heh...

Posted by: Albert Wang on June 11, 2008

Just want to note that the Z Center is way, way nicer than the corresponding facility at Berkeley. It's kind of amazing when you consider that Berkeley has more than twice as many people and a much larger percentage that actually, you know, go to the gym. Oh well, at least the weather is usually nice enough to go running outside here...

Posted by: Sam on June 11, 2008

@Albert: I was planning on taking a photo of that sign, just for kicks.

Posted by: Paul on June 11, 2008

Anonymous: Yes, there's a fee in the summer. I think it's $40 for the whole summer.

Eoin: You should be more careful!

Albert: I truly have never seen that sign...but the pool was empty anyway! (as shown in the pictures...)

Posted by: Melis on June 12, 2008

*dies*

Posted by: Maryam on June 12, 2008

Oh come on Maryam. It's not that bad. In fact, I really liked it.

Posted by: Me on June 12, 2008

Maryam, what does *dies* mean?

Posted by: Eoin on June 13, 2008

OMG!!!!

Posted by: Zeina Siam'12 on June 14, 2008

@Sam: I concur. The gym at Berkeley is absolutely hideous and it's kind of dark. The Z-center on the other hand is well lit.

Posted by: Connie '12 on June 14, 2008

I cannot wait to do sports here next year! Anyone doing track or soccer shoot me an email!

Posted by: Matt Falk '12 on June 25, 2008

hey jealousy,
i think your gyms are probably three times the size of ours. do you ever see any bigshot scientists working out there?

Posted by: John on July 2, 2008

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