A workout for the body is proving to be a workout for the brain for students who visit the Thrash Wellness Center at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

ABAC Assistant Dean of Students Alan Kramer said ABAC students who visited the Wellness Center are more likely to succeed in the classroom, according to data ABAC has gathered in the previous three semesters.

"Students who came to the Thrash Wellness Center 15 or more times in a semester are more likely to earn a higher grade point average than those who attended less or not at all," Kramer said.  “Students taking advantage of this facility also appear to have better time management skills and will be more likely to persist in their college responsibilities.”

After 78 years of welcoming ABAC students through its doors, Thrash Gymnasium earned an upgrade in the 2017 spring semester.  Renamed as the Thrash Wellness Center, the facility reopened with modern exercise equipment and the relaxing Foundation Legacy Pool available for students and ABAC employees.

The exercise equipment includes six treadmills, six bikes, four ellipticals, two Adaptive Motion Trainers, two racks of dumbbells, two squat racks, two bench presses, one decline bench, one cable crossover, one leg press and a set of select machines that cover arms, legs, abs, shoulders, and back.

Kramer said ABAC students immediately started enjoying the multiple pieces of exercise equipment and pool deck without realizing the impact the Thrash Wellness Center was having on their grade point average.

ABAC tracked the use of Thrash Wellness Center during the 2017 summer and fall terms and the 2018 spring term to find a correlation between the success of a student inside a classroom with their activities outside of class.

“The average GPA for spring term was 2.84, and students utilizing Thrash 15 or more times had an average GPA of 2.96,” Kramer said.  “We had more than 1,239 students who visited Thrash Wellness Center at least 15 times during that semester.  That’s even higher than the numbers gathered from the summer and fall terms.”

With summer coming to an end and ABAC fall classes beginning Aug. 15, the Thrash Wellness Center is gearing up for another year of helping students have a healthy body and mind.

ABAC Recreational Sports Director Jason Pace said, "Students can come in and get the part of their workout that they want to focus on," because of the variety of exercise equipment that is available in Thrash. Additional workout and weight training classes are a possibility this fall.

“Almost all the machines have Netflix, Spotify, and WatchESPN built in,” Pace said.  “The students really enjoy that.”

ABAC students can visit the Thrash Wellness Center this fall Monday-Thursday 6:30 a.m.- 10 p.m., Friday 6:30 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturday noon-7 p.m., and Sunday 6-10 p.m.  The Foundation Legacy Pool opens Monday through Saturday from noon until 7 p.m.