Every Sunday morning, nutrition sophomore Jamal Fielder goes to Clark Field to give personal training and workout classes to other students — for free.

For Fielder, the classes provide valuable personal training experience, but for the students attending his boot camps, it is a free hour of exercise with a trainer they couldn’t get elsewhere. 

The UT Fitness/Wellness Program with the Recreational Sports Center offers workout classes, most of which require the purchase of an $85 TeXercise pass. The program also offers personal training, which costs $75 for two training sessions with a friend. 

“Considering that exercising isn’t always the number one choice when you’re at as rigorous of a school as UT…having to pay so much for workout classes isn’t going to give people an incentive to go work out,” said social work sophomore Vanessa Ferretiz.

Ferretiz has been attending Fielder’s boot camps since they first started at the beginning of last semester. Six months later, she now tries to make it out every weekend she can.

“It’s really motivating to know that somebody cares enough about other people to get up in the morning for it,” Ferretiz said.

Fielder said he was always interested in nutrition, but after learning about the nation’s health problems in his biology classes, he knew he wanted to train people as a career. 

“I’ve always worked out and I’ve been in sports and stuff since a young age,” Fielder said. “Seeing that health and nutrition were pretty bad here, (training) was just … something I could do to help out my country.”

Fielder said the cost of workout classes at UT isn’t the sole reason he started up the boot camps, but it definitely played into the decision. 

“I understood that a lot of people were ‘broke college students,’” Fielder said. 

Biology senior Carolyn Trieu, said the UT classes offered have never interested her enough to look into buying a pass. However, she said the price would be a deterrent for her if she were interested. She also said Fielder’s boot camp is a good resource for students wanting to work out without spending a lot of money. 

“I think (the boot camp) is a really good idea, because even if I was interested in a lot of classes, I don’t think I’d pay $85,” Trieu said. 

Fielder said he plans on continuing the Sunday morning classes for his next two years at UT.