EDUCATION
Washington & Lee High School
Arlington, VA
SITUATION:
Built in 1925, Washington & Lee High School (W&L) is one of the oldest suburban high schools in the state of Virginia. In 2005, Arlington County government embarked on an aggressive project to demo and redesign W&L High School. With the school landlocked, Arlington County’s plan called for a “vertical” high school design, rather than the traditional horizontal layout. Although, certain athletic fields and parking lots are still under construction, the final facilities phase was completed this September, 2009. It’s truly a beautiful complex, unfortunately, the new training area was allocated less space than the previous weight room—1,560 square feet versus 2,860 square feet. This fact posed our greatest challenge--creating a design that would train, at a minimum, the same number of student/athletes as W&L’s old weight room.
SOLUTION:
Fortunately for Heartline and W&L, the previous weight room only had four PowerRack stations, and an assortment of single purpose Olympic benches, single-station selectorized machines (a variety of brands), a cable crossover, a dumbbell area, and a number of old cardio units. With such a heavy dose of single purpose equipment, the room maxed out at 40 to 45 student/athletes. To achieve this capacity level going forward, Heartline and W&L’s PE and athletics staff decided to emphasize core-lifting stations using Heartline’s Dual CoreRack ™ training systems. Each Dual CoreRack ™ is able to accommodate up to eight student/athletes at one time, enabling student/athletes to perform all of their core lifts (benching, squatting, deadlifting, and power cleaning) in one station. By installing four Dual CoreRacks ™, W&L would be able to train 32 student/athletes in 432 square feet, leaving some 1,100 square feet for complementary auxiliary and circuit training systems. As a result, Heartline was able to create a comprehensive selectorized circuit for general student and wellness programming, as well as a free weight area for dumbbells and specialized training systems. At the end of the day, we were able to achieve our goal of enabling W&L’s staff to train up to 40-45 student/athletes with 1,300 square feet less space.
Testimonial
"We've been working with Heartline since I joined the staff at W&L in 2005, and they have been terrific. In particular, Heartline's sales rep, Jason Malecki, helped us think through the design and the equipment package in a way that would not only optimize our facility space, but dealt in all of W&L's interested parties-physical education, athletics, staff, and most importantly, the students. Job well done..thanks Jason and Heartline!" Josh Shapiro, Head Football Coach, Washington & Lee High School.