Group X offers fitness classes free to EIU students like hot yoga, ab workouts, stretching and more.

Ran by a group of Eastern students, a student fitness group known as Group X offers free classes to those wanting to improve their physical and mental health.

Group X has meetings in Groniger Arena and have a weekly schedule of the different workouts it performs.

Anahi Osorio, a fifth-year student and the graduate assistant for the program, provided insight into all the opportunities the class offers.

Osorio said the group provides a wide range of classes including yoga classes, ab workouts, deep stretching classes and more.

Osorio has been working with the organization for about three years and decided to step up and take a leadership position at the beginning of the semester.

"I just wanted to know more about the aspect of being physically active, seeing how that can impact you mentally, physically, emotionally," Osorio said.

Currently the organization has four instructors, but Osorio hopes to hire up to eight more instructors.

"We have a great team," she said. "I know it's a small team, but we are mighty."

She said she enjoys her position because as an extrovert, she enjoys creating relationships with the people who come to the trainings.

Emma Edwards, a junior health sciences major, is an instructor for Group X as well.

After finding the group at Pantherpalooza last school year, Edwards decided to join after doing some research. After being accepted to be an instructor, she quickly learned the ins-and-outs about being an instructor, she said.

"We had a lecture and then one of the current fitness instructors would demonstrate a class and proper teaching techniques, safety cues, all of that stuff," Edwards said.

Before joining the fitness group, she said she has been working out and finds the entire community enjoyable and easy to learn from.

Edwards said she has picked up other skills outside of physical fitness.

"It's just given me so much confidence in other stuff, like I'm better at public speaking now because I have to get up and not only talk in front of people but show them exercises, so, I have to be confident in my abilities and my ability to teach that," said Edwards.

Edwards said that before teaching any of her classes, she practices them on her own to know if she would be able to demonstrate them to people.

She goes into the spin room in the student recreation center with her headphones and tests the moves for difficulty and plans on how she wants others to learn them.

She said her favorite class to teach is yoga because she loves teaching others the complexities of the movements.

EJ DuGuay, a sophomore 2D studio art major, went to one of the workouts that Group X was offering during her freshman year and was immediately interested.

After gaining a little more insight on the organization, DuGuay joined.

She had prior experience in working out but said she was not as consistent as she is now.

"It was one of those things where I'm like, 'Oh yeah, I want to get healthy, gain a lot of muscle' but it would wither away within like a month at most," DuGuay said.

She said once she enrolled into college, she became more motivated. Her coworkers have also inspired her to keep going, while also building close connections in the process.

Collaboration amongst all of the members of Group X is time-consuming when planning how and what classes to teach, while also making it enjoyable for those in attendance.

They will try to incorporate festive themes to the workouts later in the semester.

While strolling around Pantherpalooza last semester, Christopher Short, a junior physical education major, stumbled on Group X's table.

The organization coincided with his major, which was the main attraction for him. Since starting, he has noticed growth in not only his physical health, but also his networking around Eastern.

After teaching a few fitness classes, he said he noticed that people were drawn into the way he taught cycling classes.

"That's been nice and then just getting to know people and then helping people just growing like a healthy way," Short said.

Similar to Edwards, he tries the workouts out on his own to see how to make it flow for those that take his classes.

He chooses the music in a particular way that aligns with his movements to make sure it's not only enjoyable but also comprehensible.