A third-year public health student and an AACC Fitness Center employee started a club to help members set and reach their workout goals.

Student Aidan Gamache, the club president, started the Hawks Fitness Club with John Lorenzana, the vice president, last spring to build a fitness and nutrition community on campus.

“I feel like this is really something that could actually pop off,” Lorenzana, an AACC mechatronics alumnus, said. “[It’s] a really cool idea.”

The pair organized the club last semester but didn’t hold the first meeting until October. The club members will eventually work out in the gym but for now they are meeting to discuss goal-setting, proper nutrition and healthy workout habits.

Gamache said he wanted to establish a fitness community on campus because he “saw a gap” in students helping other students work out in the Fitness Center in Jenkins Gymnasium.

“[When] I actually went to the school gym … I noticed a lot of people needed help,” Gamache said. “A lot of people, you know … didn’t know how to properly do lifts, or they were lifting dangerously.”

Lorenzana said the club is “not necessarily” for bodybuilders only. “Fitness is, like, a whole range of things,” Lorenzana said. “[We want to], you know, help people with their goals, make new friends and experience, like, the different faces of fitness.”

Third-year student Aidan Graham, a club officer, said he wanted to contribute to this club because he has an “extensive background” in the fitness world.

“I used to be really fat and I didn’t want to be,” Graham said. “[So] I worked out a lot. I had to get my nutrition [and] portion sizing controlled.” According to Graham, the club is needed because people are “getting … lazy.”