Fitness

I have always loved basketball, and if you want to go to a medical school where playing basketball is incredibly easy, look no further. We have a really nice basketball court in the basement of one of our buildings! We have a big group chat (>100 people) and people show up to play almost every day. We are able to run 5v5 pretty much every day I go. There are also a few nice outdoor courts around. Once intramural sports return to the Danforth Campus, medical students will be able to join undergrad basketball intramurals again. The only drawback to loving basketball in Missouri is that the nearest pro team is Chicago or Memphis.

From boxing novice to future world champ (what are you doing in med school?), St. Louis has many gyms and tournaments to practice your wares. Boxing for fitness is a fun, high-paced way to work up a sweat, and there are numerous group classes offered at the WashU Danforth Campus gym, The Boxing Gym, and Title Boxing. For people looking to step in the ring and spar, Finney’s MMA and Eppley’s Boxing offer coaching and opportunities to practice with other amateur fighters. If you are looking to branch out into other disciplines, River City Warriors and St. Louis MMA have fighters trained in Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu.

As a die-hard fan of Latin dancing, I was pleasantly surprised by the many offerings in St. Louis! Just a 15-20-minute walk away from the main residential area in Central West End (CWE) is Club Viva, which hosts 1-hour introductory lessons and social dancing for salsa/bachata on Thursdays and Saturdays. For other styles of dance, both Consuming Kinetics Dance Company and Central Studio (about 10 minutes from the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center, or FLTC) offer adult classes in a variety of genres (ballet, contemporary/jazz, tap, and more), and you can either attend on a drop-in basis or buy a class pack. Besides these options, the student organization WUSM Dance regularly hosts free events, open to medical students, both onsite and off. The dance communities here are very welcoming, so you’ll never be bored!

Playing golf in Forest Park is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon in St. Louis! Personally, I’ve spent a lot of time at the Highlands, a 9-hole golf course located about half-mile from the Medical Campus. My classmates and I love to hit the driving range after class. A bucket of balls only costs $4-7, and the greens fees range from $15-22 (depending on the day of the week). But don’t be fooled by the low prices: the Highlands is perhaps one of the most nicely-maintained public courses I have ever played! The tee box of hole #7 has an especially beautiful view of Barnes Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital that you don’t want to miss.

I think if you aren’t coming from the Midwest (I wasn’t), your first instinct will be to assume that there’s no hiking and everything in St. Louis and the vicinity is flat and full of cornfields or whatever. Thankfully, there are tons of great ways to get into nature around St. Louis.

Castlewood State Park is the most popular option and is a ~20-30-minute drive from the Central West End (CWE). There are eight popular hiking trails of different lengths/difficulty levels, with beautiful views of the Meramec River. You’re also right next to Lone Elk State Park, where you can see elk (!) and bison (!!!) up close, and which has two hiking trails, one with moderate difficulty/incline and the other for more relaxed hiking.

If you’re willing to make a bit of a further drive, Hawn State Park (~1 hour outside of St. Louis) has fantastic hiking trails, with the most popular Whispering Pines Loop giving you 12 miles of with decent elevation gains, beautiful views, rivers and streams, and some pretty sick rocks. If you want to see the most beautiful fall foliage in the Midwest, you can also head to Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois (~1 hour drive from the CWE). Also, we can rent cheap camping/hiking/backpacking gear from WildMed, which is super convenient if you’re looking to make a weekend backpacking or camping trip, but don’t want to commit to buying a tent, backpack, or stove.

Overall, I’ve been really impressed by all of the hiking I’ve gotten to do in and around St. Louis, and if you’re worried in any way because you’re super crunchy or coming from somewhere known for hiking, you’ll be able to find trails and parks here that you’ll love.

I was introduced to racquetball by one of my classmates in the beginning of the school year and it has been an awesome way to get some exercise or to take a break from studying. The closest courts are in Hudlin Park (right across the street from The Core apartments), but there are some more a little further away in Forest Park. Both are free but be warned that the courts are not fully closed, meaning that they have an opening in the top quarter of the back wall. The good news is that the ball rarely escapes through that small opening, so you’ll be able to enjoy playing for long periods of time before having to run after an escaped ball.

St. Louis is an incredible place for runners. First of all, there is Forest Park just steps away from the Medical Campus, which is actually 1.5x the size of Central Park in New York City and has hundreds of different trails for runners, walkers, and bikers. If you prefer running in the city, you can go through the Central West End towards downtown, run around the undergraduate campus, or through the Tower Grove/Shaw neighborhoods, among many other places. Finally, if you like to compete, there are road races throughout St. Louis multiple times each month, and multiple competitive racing teams you can join. We even have a running club for our medical school class and routinely meet up for group runs!

Playing sports, especially soccer, is something that a decent number of our classmates participate in. We often organize within our class if the weather is nice and we can get around 10-15 people with varying skill levels. It’s super low stakes, just kicking the ball around and having fun. Additionally, there is a med-school-wide (all classes) soccer GroupMe that organizes similar kick-arounds. There’s also a team to play in a more competitive intramural league, where we compete on the undergrad campus against other undergrad and graduate teams at WashU. This year we actually won first place! It is really easy to get involved and continue to play this amazing sport, no matter your experience or passion level!

I cannot sing the praises of the Sumers Recreation Center on the Danforth Campus enough, although I’ve actually tried to keep quiet about it because, in my opinion, being one of the few med students who uses it is the best part. The Sumers Recreation Center is about a ten minute drive from the Central West End or a 7-minute walk from the University City-Big Bend MetroLink station (three stops away from the CWE station on the blue line). It’s right next to the ~historic~ WUSTL football field/former Olympic stadium, and you can park next to the football field (not directly next to the gym — I would make sure there isn’t a Red/Yellow parking sign next to wherever you’re parking) without a WashU parking pass.

The Rec Center itself is fantastic — there’s a weight training area with six squat racks, five deadlift platforms, tons of benches and free weights and brand new machines, as well as multiple rooms for yoga/stretching. The basketball courts have been converted into a cardio room, with all of the cardio equipment spread out along the basketball court and on the upper-floor track for social distancing. This is super convenient in terms of COVID precautions, but it does mean no basketball/volleyball/badminton on those courts (but maybe this will change by the time you guys get here!). The Sumers Rec Center also has a pool for swimming laps, and you can reserve a lane two days in advance.

The gym tends to get decently crowded around the standard hours (~4-7 p.m.) but it’s so spacious and has so much equipment that I haven’t seen that as a huge problem. Also, the odds of ever running into another med student there are extremely low — I’m sure you’ll love everyone in your class, but sometimes you want to work out somewhere where you won’t have to think about Anki, or your last exam, or if someone you sort of know and see around and say “hi” to but aren’t close with will see you looking really sweaty. If you want the peak Danforth gym experience, I’d recommend going when they open at 6 a.m., so the entire massive gym is just you and like five super-jacked grad students all doing your thing and you get to see the sunrise through the skylights, all while knowing you don’t have to worry about getting a parking ticket (the parking monitors start checking parking passes around 7:30 or 8 a.m. every day, as a heads up).

One of the best ways that I’ve found to take care of myself during med school is by swimming laps once or twice a week. I was a competitive swimmer throughout my childhood, and as an undergrad I played on my college’s club water polo team. Being in the water is a big part of my life and it’s been great to continue that at WashU using the Danforth Campus pool. Medical students have free membership to the undergrad gym and pool facilities, and there are slots for lap swimming every day. Due to the pandemic, you have to reserve in advance, but I almost always get a time slot when I want it. We even have a group of a few people who carpool the short 10-minute drive to the Danforth Campus on weeknights and swim together — it’s great to see friends outside of class during busy weeks. I have a great time with friends, and I am always left feeling relaxed and tired after my set — which makes for a great night’s sleep and helps me stay balanced.

There is a big community at WashU School of Medicine that plays tennis, ranging from your classmates to faculty members! There are so many accessible courts in the area, starting from the free public courts at Hudlin Park, which is right across the street from school and the hospital. There are a few nicer courts in the area that you will have to pay a fee for, such as those in Forest Park and Tower Grove. We have a running group chat between the M1s/M2s and Dr. Yau (one of our amazing clinical skills professors), and people are always down to play whenever the weather is nice out! There have even been 60-70-degree days in the winter where we have been able to play! One of my favorite events is the tennis tournament during the Society Cup, where you will get to see the skills of your classmates and the amazing faculty, and have some friendly competition.

The on-campus gym located at the Core Apartment Residences is perfectly located one block from the Becker Medical Library and the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center so that you can work out before, between, or after classes. Students have access between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., making it great for both early risers or night owls. The gym itself is very large, with every sort of cardio machine you could want, from treadmills, to ellipticals, to stationary bikes, to rowing machines, and more. For strength workouts, there are many weight machines, cable machines, and free weights to choose from. The gym also has a separate, smaller room with a TV that you can use to stream exercise videos on and more floor space for abdominal exercises or stretching.

My favorite way to start off the day or take a break after class is a Hot Yoga or Power Yoga class at the studio YogaSix. It started off with me and one of my classmates (and now best friends) challenging ourselves to do the 6 a.m. classes for five days in a row during our first week of school. Every time we drove past the grandiose WashU Medical Campus at sunrise, it felt magical.

I now tend to go in the early afternoon because it allows me to take a break from the class-heavy mornings and study-heavy evenings and just re-center myself. We have a group chat with yogis in our class and we often share class-package deals there and plan to car-pool together. When I moved to St. Louis, I tried out a few yoga studios including Blue Sky Yoga and Shanti Yoga but there are still so many I want to explore: Yoga in DeMun, Urban Breath Yoga, CorePower Yoga, Yoga St Louis, Pure Hot Yoga St. Louis. The WashU Yoga Club also offers free classes once a week either in person or on Zoom depending on the weather and/or COVID-19 cases at the time.