"ITT has outgrown its use," says head trainer Bill Coughlan. Several varsity teams have abandoned the crowd scene at ITT for the haven of team-only facilities--the track team has blocked off one section of the indoor track for team workouts and the football team recently established a weight room underneath the stadium.

But those elite centers of varsity iron-pumping by no means dominate the Harvard 'health club' scene. House gyms and graduate school rooms, including a small free-weight center for Law School students, reduce the strain on the jewels of Harvard's weight-room circuit, the varsity-oriented ITT and the social hub MAC.

Associate Director of Operations Don Allard says these smaller centers help meet the burgeoning demand for weight rooms--"even sub-places like the ones at Hemenway and the houses help take the pressure off the ITT."

Mather House boasts one of the most extensive supplementary rooms on campus, according to student director Peter Buonfiglio '87. A core group of 30 regulars frequents the Mather gym, which boasts, in Buonfiglio's words, "A very social atmosphere where it's easy to spend half your time talking and hanging out with friends."

New free weights, and exercise bicycle and an ergometer have spurred interest in the Mather House weight room. Buonfiglio says the changes have brought people out of the woodwork; "the hard-body fad mixes with the yuppie health craze" at the weight room," he says.

For some, body building provides exercise for the mind as well as the body. Andrew Sullivan, a Lowell House tutor and author of an article on body building for The New Republic, finds the psychology of the newly-popular Harvard weight rooms fascinating. "They are fundamentally solitary, which is why I think [working out] is the ultimate yuppie 80s activity," Sullivan says. "The weight room is sublimated safe sex, and that's the reason why it's booming."