[Angelina]: You’re listening to K-A-L-X Berkeley 90.7 FM.
[Colin]: Here at KALX, we wanted to understand why modern life feels increasingly isolating. Where did all the casual places we used to just show up and meet people go?
[Micah]: To answer this question, our team:
[Angelina]: Angelina
[Colin]: Colin
[Micah]: Micah
[Angelina]: Together, we looked into third spaces: Places outside of school, work, and home that we go to for human connection.
[Colin]: This is the third episode. You’re listening to Spaced Out from the KALX Discovery Internship team, a show about the places that hold communities together. This is episode three, “On the Move”.
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[Colin]: Have you ever felt tired, down, and even a little bit isolated? If you’re feeling that way, we have a suggestion for you.
[Micah]: Go to the gym with your friends! I understand that this may sound counter-intuitive – because on the surface, the gym, or a field, or a court, doesn’t seem like the most obvious place to build real connection. It’s uncomfortable – You’re tired, out of breath, right? And there are plenty of ways to get by at the gym alone.
[Angelina]: But that’s also where something starts to happen. Struggling through a workout next to someone. Showing up to practice even when you don’t feel like it. Sitting down for lunch together after, still a little sore, still laughing about it. Inspired by experiences like this, we wanted to understand how people build community—and even happiness-through fitness, and where that actually takes place.
[Colin]: In this episode, we look at intramural and club sports, where teams form quickly and the shared effort turns strangers into something more…
[Micah]: We also hear from a professor who studies exercise psychology, to understand why moving together might make connection easier…
[Angelina]: …and from someone who helps run one of the largest university gyms, to see how these spaces are designed, and who they’re really for. Because for something that can feel so physically demanding, it might also be one of the most natural ways to find your people. First, Micah talked to Dr. Hannah Thompson, Assistant Professor in Berkeley’s School of Public Health, whose work focuses on using community based methods to increase physical activity and improve youth health. We want to understand the science- how does exercise build community?
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[Micah]: What is the effect of social interaction or group dynamics on exercising and health?
[Prof. Thompson]: So There’s a ton of evidence that shows the value of being physically active, regardless of how you do that: By yourself, you do that inside, you do it outside, you do it with friends, you do it with people you don’t even know, Moving your body in any way you can as much as you can as often as you can, hands down one of the best things you can do for yourself from a health perspective. When you also incorporate physical activity or are physically active in a social setting, especially when that social setting is an outdoor setting, it can produce even more benefits, even additional benefits. There’s a lot of emerging research on this now outside, physical activity and its interaction with nature. There’s a difference in terms of endorphins and how your social/emotional health is impacted when you’re on a treadmill vs outside hiking somewhere beautiful in nature. Similarly if you’re by yourself versus when you’re with other people it can also have a different and positive impact. From where I stand as an epidemiologist and physical activity research, really any kind of movement you can do, We are in such a bad place as a country and as a population that I’m less concerned about go move – anything that will make it more likely for you to move will be better, and when people go out and exercise with a friend there is more accountability there, so that’s a big benefit of being physically active with people you know.
[Micah]: I saw that you used to be a Physical Education Teacher, how old were the students you were teaching and did you see students engaging more with physical activity in group activities or solo activities?
[Prof. Thompson]: That’s a good question. I taught middle school PE at the american indian public charter school on 3th and mccarthur in Oakland for three years. It was my first job, I had when I graduated from college. And it was a wonderful job, I loved it a lot. Most of our PE activities by nature of it being physical education and being in a class setting were group activities so we didn’t have just because we had a relatively small gym and relatively small outdoor space, I didn’t have students doing a lot of solo activities. One of the intentions in physical education as a subject in the same way math or english are subjects in schools is to teach kids not only the motor skills and the ways to move their body safely and appropriately in order to be physically active but a lot of those dynamics around being physically active so sportsmanship, teamsmanship, cooperation, all those things that come along with being physically active. So generally speaking, I think kids had a lot of fun when they are able to play together because it was something they could socialize, they could talk, it was very different from being in the classroom which is rigid and strict and has a lot more rules around moving so generally speaking for the middle school students who i taught they really liked it when they had the opportunity to do group games and to do things with their friends and classmates
[Micah]: How do best exercise/social practices and how these things intertwine for youth differ from best practices for adults if at all?
[Prof. Thompson]: One of the bottom lines for both kids and adults is that exercise or physical activity should be fun and it should be enjoyable. But this is particularly important for kids, because as you age, most of us develop more discipline and develop higher tolerance for activities that are less enjoyable as we start working and you get used to doing things we don’t necessarily want to do. There’s a lot more people who kind of grind it out in the gym and do these things because they know it’s right. But where we see the most success with adults and certainly with kids is when you find activities that are enjoyable and fun that they want to do, feel motivated to do. I have two kids,an eleven year old in 5th grade and an eight year old in second grade and both of them play a couple of sports. And they play them because they really like them, they enjoy being outside,they enjoy going with their friends, they have hard times when they get in fights with coaches. For social dynamics this matters a lot. but I could never as a parent it would be nearly impossible to force them to do it. I had them try water polo because one of their friends played water polo and they both hated it, they were miserable, neither one of them is a very strong swimmer and the coach made them swim laps. And the idea of me as a parent going like you need to do water polo practices three times a week, I’d be fighting them, they’d be miserable. The idea that we would then tell grown ups, they need to go to the gym and run on a treadmill for an hour. If someone doesn’t like running on a treadmill, do something else, there’s so many ways to be active, and to move your body. It’s finding the ways that make you happy and that are enjoyable because that’s what’s going to keep you motivated and keep you going back for more.
[Micah]: What advice would you give to college students who are looking to start being more physically active, being more healthy, but don’t know where to start?
[Prof. Thompson]: One piece of advice would be to start small, one thing that happens, you see it with new years resolutions all the time, people say “I’m going to get healthy” and so they join the gym and they start going a couple hours a week and they get burned out or they get hurt and they try to do too much to fast. Really small changes, really small increases and improvements in the amount of or type of physical activity you’re doing make a huge difference. Instead of taking the bus, walk all the way up to class, instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. If you and your friend are going for a cup of coffee or boba, take it to go instead of sitting in the coffee shop and doing it. If there are ways that you can build in incremental physical activity, 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, all of it adds up. Any time you can build it into your social life, meeting your friend for a class at the gym, or going for a walk or a hike, or going out dancing instead of just sitting at the bar. Anything you can do that builds that movement into your social life can also be really helpful.
[Micah]: Are there any spaces in or around Berkeley and in the Bay Area you know of that are good places to get exercise, to be healthy and be social, and hang out with people at the same time.
[Prof. Thompson]: I think we’re so lucky in the Bay Area that we have so many trails and parks and outdoor places in Berkeley and Oakland alone there’s so many places. So I think walking clubs, outdoor clubs, places like those are great because they are typically free to join, walking groups and meetup groups, those sort of things. I’m not aware of gym membership costs or any of that for students and whether it’s subsidized, but the rec center is good or wherever you go now, I’m too old to actually know what it’s called. I used to go when I was a student, what is it called now.
[Micah]: There’s a couple, but the big one is called the RSF.
[Prof. Thompson]: The RSF, thank you so much. So yeah, meeting at the RSF, or you know, there’s a couple of pools on campus. There’s beaches all around the bay where you can get into the water and move around like that, there’s things like kite surfing. There’s Skate parks, if you like to skateboard you can go there with a friend. There’s bike trails, there’s all sorts of places around the bay. Skate park is a perfect place where you can show up by yourself and meet all sorts of people who are interested in skating and in moving around. There’s also lots of outdoor classes students can take like zumba and dance classes. Through parks and recs and all sorts of communities like that. Those are also good places to try and check out.
[Micah]: As I discussed with Prof. Thompson, exercise doesn’t have to be a solo activity. Social dynamics play a key part in getting us to commit to physical exercise routines – and doing them enough to let them have their effects. But how do people at Berkeley put these ideas into practice?
[Angelina]: Next up, we will be looking at some of the club teams here at Cal. Maybe hearing from active members will provide insight into how community builds around recreational sports. We interviewed Berkeley freshman Jane Dong, a member of the badminton club team.
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[JANE DONG]: Hi, I’m Jane, I’m a freshman here at Berkeley. I’m studying biology and economics with a minor in data science. And I’m on the UC Berkeley badminton team.
So in high school, I was actually on the varsity team. I’ve been training in badminton since I was like a kid. So when I got to Berkeley, I was like, so excited to find out if they had any badminton clubs or teams.
We practice at RSF. We have weekly sessions on Fridays. Open gym starts, I think at like five or six, so a lot of our members would come from them and then we play until it closes, which is eleven p m then it’s like a it’s like a Cal Badminton tradition where every week on Friday nights after training, we go to Kimchi Garden and we like talk and we eat until like 12:30 a.m., 1:00 a.m. But throughout the week, RSF also has open gym hours where the entire Berkeley student community is allowed to come and play badminton. So you’ll always find some of our team members playing during that time.
It’s definitely very close knit. We actually have a retreat every semester. People just show up and people go to like people’s birthdays.
We usually hang out a lot on the weekends because we actually play with a lot of different schools that we play with Stanford, we have meets with SJSU, we have meets with Davis, we play with company members. We had this Google meet, Apple; A lot of their workers came to play badminton together with us. So we often bond together on like the drive there, we karaoke singing and then we stay there and we come back late at night. We get like McDonald’s drive thru on the way. If there’s not enough people, we rent cars and we go as like eight different cars. And a lot of the times they will assign different people to the cars. So you like are forced to bond with the people in your car if you didn’t really know them. And, um, you know, it’s a long drive. We play music, everyone just talks. And so that’s how we got close with different team members.
I think building relationships with teammates… It’s like a cheat code to making friends. It’s so… It’s a lot easier to become close with new people or meet new people when you’re both actively doing something together, especially if it’s a sport where you work together, a lot of times you have to work with your partner and you actually have to communicate. So you get closer to them and you meet a lot of new people. I feel like that also reduces a lot of the social barriers, or the nervousness or the tensions that come to meeting a lot of new people.
Actually, we not only have undergrad and grad students, we also have people working at Berkeley that come play with us. So I feel like there’s definitely a huge diversity of different people with different backgrounds in the team. And I think that’s what makes it interesting and unique and a fun experience, especially as a freshman. I feel like initially when I came to Berkeley, joining the badminton team gave me a huge community of different friends and people I could reach out to. I don’t think it’s a barrier that much at all. Especially because, as I mentioned earlier, badminton there’s no limit to your age.
When I was growing up playing badminton, I’d see like people who are like seventy years old playing on the court next to me, or we on and on the other court, they’d be like, like ten year old children. And sometimes they’re on the same court partnering together. So I think badminton and sports in general is a really good way to bring people of all different communities together, because this is club badminton, like everyone is welcome to join. We have people of different skill levels, but we have the collegiates where you actually have to try out to make the team for that specific competition. The coaches will rank you based on like this, like first singles or first doubles based on your ability to play. But it doesn’t matter how good you are or how bad you are, you will still get to play. It’s like we’re much more integrated. And like the people who go to Collegiates sometimes play with the people like who didn’t go. So it’s like everyone’s friends, everyone’s a teammate, everyone just plays.
When I joined badminton in my freshman year. In the first semester, I feel like it gave me access to a lot of different opportunities, and especially because I met people of different backgrounds. They really helped me integrate myself into the Berkeley community.
It gave me a chance to bond with my seniors and people of my year actually. Also, we formed like a close, we call it the freshmen gang, where we we still we hang out all the time. We go. We support each other like at, uh, dance showcases or we eat dinner together.
And in the beginning of my Berkeley journey, I was also really nervous in reaching out to different people or meeting so many different people. But Cal Badminton definitely made that a lot easier for me, and I’m really grateful and happy to have met them. And I am so glad that I joined Cal Badminton in my first semester, and I think everyone else should join as well. Like, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to play badminton, it’s just a different community that you will bond with for sure.
Angelina: Clearly, it sounds like team sports builds a sense of camaraderie that helps us as college students become more integrated with the wider campus – and as you have heard from Jane, even in the Bay Area! But you might ask – what if someone does not do any team sports? How do we find community at Cal then? Micah spoke to Kirk Robles, an Associate Director of UC Berkeley Recreation and Wellbeing, the managing organization behind University supported sports spaces. They manage a variety of spaces and host group classes, but most students know RecWell for their management of RSF, the Recreational Sports Facility where most students go to lift weights, play team sports like badminton, and go on the cardio machines.
[Micah]: Would you consider Berkeley RecWell spaces to be “third spaces?”
[Kirk]: Yeah, so obviously lots of people work out at the rec center the RSF and a lot of our facilities, its an opportunity for people to get out of their bubble, right, so we do consider recwell, as a third space as an opportunity for students to engage each other outside of academic/work life.
[Micah]: What types of group events do you organize at RecWell? How do you think these play a part in student’s social lives?
[Kirk]: I think most people know about intramurals, that’s the one that’s the most popular with our programs. Intramurals are different leagues from soccer to basketball to pickleball and things like that. Other things we do offer, and these ones are included with your membership, are these group exercise classes like zumba and pit, in addition to that we offer classes at berkeley marina at which as uc berkeley students you have access to a free kayak rental. You can actually just go out with a friend and explore the bay.
[Micah]: RecWell also facilitates intramural sports – how do you see these playing a part in student’s social lives?
[Kirk]: I think having been a student here myself, intramural was a big part of my college experience, it was a fun opportunity for me to play basketball with friends who I had met here. Similarly to a lot of students you see here they engage each other in clubs and all that but a lot of them join intramurals as another opportunity to have fun experience outside of that. In a perfect world we’d have unlimited spots outside of intramurals, but because of limitations of our facilities and our scheduling we try to offer as many different sports programs as we can for students to take part in. Even if they don’t have a team, we offer free agent teams. So if you don’t have a team but you enjoy basketball, you can join a team with other free agents.
[Micah]: How do you market RecWell offerings?
[Kirk]: I would say It’s not an easy task, being in a school as large as we are, close to 45,000 students. It’s really hard to do so, when everyone is trying to compete for students’ time. One of our main things we do is our newsletter, in which students who are fully enrolled and have access to our gym are a part of our newspaper. That’s one of our main modes of messaging students. Now recently, we’ve started being a lot more active on social media, so following us on our RecWell instagram is quicker updates and more fun updates. Between our newsletter and our Instagram that’s our best method of seeing what we’re up to.
[Micah]: Over the sixteen years you’re been working here how have RecWell’s operations changed over time? Are more programs being offered now? Less? Specifically if you could focus on intramural sports or other kinds of group classes.
[Kirk]: I would say the pandemic changed a lot of things. When the pandemic hit a lot of our programs were definitely affected, we didn’t offer as many programs. As we try to get back, we are still trying to get back to that level. What we struggle with is the lack of facilities. As I mentioned previously, our student body has continued to grow to 45,000 now but our rec facilities have not grown to meet those needs. I think in terms of the UCs in rec facility square footage, we were in the bottom two. One thing we are trying to do is to actively work with other partners to bring other facilities online. Within the intramural space we recently this semester got La Loma field by Hearst back online as an open rec facility for students just to engage and have some small programming there. In addition, last year we opened the recwell fitness studio down on Shattuck to provide another space for pilates and other group exercise classes.
[Micah]: Since those spaces have opened have you seen more student engagement in RecWell programs?
[Kirk]: Yes we have. One of the unique things about the fitness studio is it’s reservable by the RSOs, a lot of the RSOs have been using it like the dance clubs. While they may not participate in the group exercise classes. While we bring on these other facilities like La Loma, each semester it grows as students learn more. We are always trying to work with RSOs and other clubs on campus, the ASUC to get out this information, like ‘this is something new we’re offering, to all the students.
[Micah]: Do you think students prefer to combine exercise and social activity or prefer to come here by themselves and go on a treadmill with headphones, make it more of an individual thing?
[Kirk]: I’ll answer it in two parts. I think prior to covid going to the gym was a very social thing, especially at the RSF and here when I was a student. Once covid hit it became an individual thing. When we go back to where we are now it’s an interesting mix. Some people want to come in with their headphones, some students are craving that community. We are in a weird adjustment period. I see smaller groups going to the gym and lots of individuals. People within our weight room work out by themselves and there isn’t enough room for everyone to work out and it’s an issue we’re trying to solve by getting enough room to give students space to work out by themselves but still be in that community atmosphere.
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[Colin]: When we started this podcast, we were asking a simple question: why does modern life feel so isolating, and where can we go to feel less alone?
[Micah]: What we found is that connection doesn’t always come from sitting down and talking. It can come from doing, moving, struggling, and showing up alongside other people.
[Angelina]: This is why fitness spaces make powerful third spaces. Whether it’s a club team, the gym, or just a walk with a friend, these spaces make interaction easier. You don’t need a perfect introduction or a reason to start a conversation…the activity does that for you.
[Colin]: That accessibility is what allows them to bring together people across backgrounds, skill levels, and even generations.
[Micah]: So maybe the solution when you’re feeling isolated isn’t always to look for deeper conversations right away…
[Angelina]: It might just be to start by doing something, with someone, in motion. This is K-A-L-X Berkeley 90.7 FM, we will see you next time.
