A trip to the gym this semester may lead to long waits and frustrating searches for the machine you want to use.

“I come early in the month of January because from 3:30 to 7 p.m. it’s like a mob scene,” said graduate student Connor Notes.

Senior William Jenik said that this year is more crowded than previous years.

“There are always going to be peak hours, but it is worse than ever before,” Jenik said.

Although some of this overcrowding can be attributed to people moving their workouts indoors to, Jenik believes that some of the overcrowding is related to a change in culture surrounding fitness.

“I guess it’s culture which is a good thing but the weight room is definitely not big enough for the school,” Jenik said.

There is no official maximum limit for the gym, said senior Chris Nealy, a facility operations assistant.

Because of the large crowds, Nealy supports some kind of restraint on the amount of people that can work out in the gym at once.

“I think there should be something,” he said. “We should be limiting people as they go in.”

Both Jenik and Notes  said they know people who have decreased their workout schedules in response to the big crowds and long waits for machines.

One way some people have attempted to minimize the effect of the large crowds is by going to the gym alone as opposed to in larger groups.

“If you have a group of three or four guys just rotating, it takes longer,” Notes said.

It’s clear that students would like to see the gym significantly expanded.

“With the amount of people that go to school here and the tuition people pay, especially out-of-state, it definitely should be a bigger facility,” Jenik said.

Until this happens, students who plan on working out during peak hours will continue to cope.