Douthit Hills Fitness Center provides students on east campus with wide variety of workout options

November 11, 2024November 11, 2024

Clemson University’s Campus Recreation department offers a multitude of unique and interactive opportunities for students — fitness and wellness initiatives, intramural sports, outdoor adventure trips and more. While many of these programs are already established and well-known, one specific area is drawing more and more attention: Douthit Hills Fitness Center.

Located on the second floor of the Douthit Hills Hub, this unique space opened in 2018 as part of the brand-new Douthit community on the East side of Clemson’s campus. Exclusively designed to serve students, the area contains over 100 pieces of fitness equipment in total — a balance between approximately 50 cardio machines and 50 strength training machines. In addition to the primary workout space, there is a designated turf stretching area, a general fitness studio — which hosts roughly six different classes — and a dedicated cycle studio.

In the realm of group fitness, Douthit Hills Fitness Center offers several popular and engaging classes, including HIIT, Total Body Strength, Women on Weights, Yoga, Barre and Pilates. Douthit Studio I also offers a Massage Gun Recovery class, led by Campus Rec’s well-being team, to instruct and encourage healthy restoration methods for the body. 

The hallmark of Douthit Hills Fitness Center, however, is its original cycle studio — the only one currently on campus. It is one of the most popular classes offered by Campus Rec, attracting students with upgraded bikes, lights and talented instructors. Darius Hilliard, assistant director of operations for Campus Rec, says the cycle studio is “what most people gravitate toward” and rightly calls it the “selling piece” of Douthit Hills Fitness Center.

The hours of operation for Douthit vary slightly throughout the week. The space is open Monday through Thursday 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m, Friday 6:30 a.m.-9 p.m, Saturday 12-8 p.m, and Sunday 12-10 p.m. Within these windows, the gym typically receives the most student traffic on weekdays between 4-6 p.m. 

Looking forward, Campus Rec is hoping to achieve several goals in terms of expansion and improvement of Douthit Hills Fitness Center. Beginning in the Spring 2025 semester, Douthit looks to adopt two new group fitness formats from Fike — Hip-Hop Kickboxing and Dance Fitness.

Additionally in Spring 2025, there are plans to introduce new plate-loaded equipment to provide more strength training opportunities for students. Douthit is adding to its professional staff in order to manage the hopeful increase in student involvement; Bill Dunn, Clemson’s new assistant director of well-being, and Anna Garban, a graduate assistant in the fitness and wellness area, have been tabling to promote new events and fitness classes, as well as gather feedback from students on how to improve their Campus Rec experience.