Central Campus Recreation Building

Woooowwwww this gym sucks. How much endowment does the U of M get? and THIS is what our central gym looks like??? I’ve worked out at various college gyms throughout the country and the CCRB is by far the worst.
I feel like a damn hamster hopping from room to room in a large building with no A/​C, lifting old and outdated weights. Sometimes I think of myself in Africa, with no other options for a gym, and this serves as slight motivation.
There are no day use lockers in the locker room. Which is odd, because I have to cram all my stuff into the airport lockers, grab my clothes out of my backpack, and then change in the locker room, where old man dong inevitable awaits me.
Also, the machines and weights are so close together, it must be some type of hazard. With bros constantly slamming weights like they work in a coal mine, it is downright dangerous.
UPDATE: the only reason for 3 stars is that they just bought brand new equipment for almost every room. Finally I can do overhead lifts in the lifting platforms.

Having used a lot of the gyms in the Ann Arbor area, this one gives you decent bang-​for-​your-​buck. I’m an employee at the hospital and yes, it’s a campus gym and therefore filled with a bajillion sweaty college-​aged kids. But when considering they tried to utilize an older building, it gets the job done.
The entire gym is split into many different areas, as they did little to expand the existing walls but instead filled different rooms with different gym-​type objectives. There are cardio rooms/​floors, machine-​based rooms, open floored rooms where classes are held and also used for stretching/​personal use, and free weight rooms. Cardio rooms are filled with older and newer model ellipticals, treadmills, Pre-​core motion machines, stair masters, and rowing machines. There’s a decent handful or two of most machines so come to think of it, I’ve never had to wait.
Personally, I lift more than I do cardio. The free weights are outdated but a 20 pound dumbbell still weighs 20 pounds. One larger room contains about 6 – 8 bench presses, 2 cable machines, 3 squat racks, leg extension/​curl machines, sitting/​standing calf machines, a smith machine, and a few others. An adjacent room contains a lot of free weights about 6 standard and inclined benches. A room across the hall holds about 8 stretching/​yoga/​sitting mats with some lighter free weights in that room. I almost never have to wait for equipment and despite the free weights are grossly disorganized, it gets the job done.
The locker rooms are pretty big and offer a good amount of privacy. There’s also a shower area which I’ve personally never used but seem clean and people do use them. Not to mention there’s also a dry sauna and free day-​use lockers.
Overall, it’s convenient, cheap (at least for UM staff; $ 30/​mo), and doesn’t leave a lot of options for excuses not to exercise.

Upgrading to two stars after going to NCRB to jog. This is not a particularly good gym, but apparently there is worse. Lack of AC is miserable, but the track is decent for running in the winter at least. Still not great for weights, and I still wish I could just bring in my own lock for the locker room…

Oy. When struggling with motivation to go to a gym, this place just gives you the extra dose of de-​motivation you really don’t need.
The building is worse than my inner-​city high school: it’s even more reminiscent of a prison, and with worse lighting, wall colors, and HVAC systems. It is always disgustingly hot in any room, though some rooms have giant moveable fans that ease the nausea for us heat-​intolerant folks.
Even when it’s slow (normally after 9pm is when the place stops being a mad house), you’re always sharing a room with at least two other people, and they’re likely to be image-​obsessed meatheads and sorority girls. Granted there are others here to join me in the ranks of freaks and geeks but not enough to temper jock-​fest ’99.
I know the point of going to the gym is to physically exert yourself, but the fact that there is no nearby parking is particularly frustrating when either pressed for time or up against inclement weather. Plus the longer the walk, the longer I have to hear passerbys talk about the epic frat party last night, bro.
At least there are tons of machines and most of them in decent shape. No state-​of-​the-​art stuff but stuff isn’t falling apart either. Plus, they’re open quite late which is great for last-​minute stress-​release.
This place is free for me, but I’m about to drop some money for a rec center membership that’s external to U of M just so I can be surrounded by people who make me feel more comfortable and so I can be in a building that doesn’t depress me.

To put it simply, the CCRB is a Bro-​dungeon. There are no windows or AC so it smells like 100 sweaty dudes. (I’m not sure if this is technically worse than 50 sweaty dudes. Maybe more pungent? Scientifically there must be a threshold where it all starts to smell the same.)
If you can get past that, they have a very large selection of weightlifting and cardio options. It’s a bit cramped though. Sometimes I find myself heading over to the CCRB instead of the IM building because it has more weights and some leg machines that the IM building lacks. It also has more cardio machines so I usually don’t have to wait for one. I’ve also taken a shining to those stationary bike video game/​race thing. It breaks up the monotony to have to steer and it’s fun to pass people.
It’s a free school gym. What do you expect? Are there better, certainly, but it’s hard to argue with the price.

You don’t really choose CCRB; it chooses you. I told myself last semester that I would save the $ 175/​semester fee for the BSchool gym and work out at CCRB instead. But, when it came down to it, doing cardio at CCRB feels like working out in a windowless penitentiary, and it’s really hard to motivate oneself to do that regularly.
On the bright side, there usually seem to be treadmills, stair machines, and ellipticals open, at least every time I’ve stopped by. Additionally, there are a ton of open swim hours, though you’ll usually have to share a lane with two or three other swimmers. CCRB is a necessary evil for those with aquatic needs.

Machines and weights are worn and old. Still usable, but old. The weight rooms are very compact and the ones with the dumbells and benches can be a little hard to work out when people are moving around near you. There are a variety machines for working out any muscle, so that’s a bonus. Problem for me is that I’m short and so even with adjusting the machines for the shortest people setting, it still is a tad too long for me. :(
During summer the weight rooms are hot, humid, and smelly. Ugh.
Basketballs are available for free check out via student ID. There are some balls that are good quality, grip etc. But during busy hours (ie 5pm-​9pm) you’d be lucky to get those. Instead, you’d get those rubber balls with no grip at all. 3 full courts are available on the 3^rd floor with one slightly obstructed by the volleyball curtain.
4^th floor has a track that circles above the basketball courts. Bottom floors have raquetball and ellipticals and other cardio machines. I’ve never used these. There’s also a pool somewhere that I’ve never used.
My overall impression: I’d probably go to IM gym more often if it was closer to where I live and my classes. Coming to Michigan, I thought their gyms would be very nice given it is such a renown university. I thought wrong.

Super busy and crowded — good luck getting a cardio machine during peak hours.
Equipment is old. All the bar bells are rusted over at the ends, and it’s a struggle to get the clips on.
Hygiene is questionable at best. Has the basics you need to work out, but it’s not pretty. Not at all.
I’m very surprised that UM has such awful gyms for how big a school it is.

I really enjoyed the CCRB, though I’ll agree with others that you have to time your visit appropriately. If you live in a dorm on the hill, make your class schedule so that all your classes are early and you’re done by lunch, then you can walk back to your dorm, change clothes, and enjoy the CCRB without the stress of having to fight for an elliptical machine.
Also, this place tends to get much busier at the beginning of the semesters because they allow you to try classes for free the first couple weeks. With people looking to meet new friends in September, and making New Years Resolutions for January, the gym is always busy these months. If you go Oct-​Dec, Feb-​Aug, things won’t be so chaotic!
I haven’t personally taken the classes here, but I’ve heard that they’re great and well worth the money. I’ve used the machines here, and they are top notch; I have since left Ann Arbor and now go to a Lifetime Fitness near me; I would say the machines at the CCRB and the machines at Lifetime are comparable quality.
People are a little rude here, and often don’t wipe down their machines, so the difficulty of finding a machine if you go at the wrong time, combined with having to wipe down your machine before you start because the last user neglected to do so, are what knocks this down to four stars.

The availability of machines at the CCRB is good as long as you don’t go at peak times on weekdays (4:00−8:00 PM) or weekends (11:00−2:00). Football Saturdays are great though because you basically have run of the place if you go during games. The machines are also of pretty good quality and variety.
I just hate the smell of the CCRB so much, though! It’s like sitting inside of the shoe of a soccer player on its airing out. How could they put so many machines in rooms with no WINDOWS! I’ve gotten sick to my stomach at random moments just thinking of the odor. The IM Building is much more pleasant because of the windows. Too bad it’s completely out of my way.

CCRB is one of the few places where you can feel like you’re in the basement when you’re really on the second or third floor. I wish that the cardio and weight rooms had either television sets or windows. CCRB is the only gym I’ve ever been to that has the wildly popular «rotary torso» nautilus machine, apparently hated by trainers everywhere. Showers in the women’s locker room are pretty nightmarish-​no privacy, nowhere to put your shampoo, no water pressure. Plus, as with other locker rooms, there seems to be a direct correlation between how out of shape you are and how likely you are to walk (and sit) around buck naked for long periods of time.
Also, if you have to pay for it, it’s kind of a ripoff. Not bad for an «included in student fees» gym where you never know how much you’re really spending, but I’m not happy about paying the $ 60 staff rate, would have been $ 90 if I weren’t staff, to work out here a month after I graduated.