Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

We say it with pride quite regularly, our amazing staff in corporate and senior living fitness centers are what help us serve our clients so well. Their strong educational background in health and fitness helps us set the bar high while their exceptional creativity and relationship building skills allows them to keep their members engaged and asking what’s coming next. Since we have the privilege of getting to know our staff across the country, we thought our followers might like to as well. Join us monthly as we throw a different NIFS team member a High Five.

• Name: Mike Hertzler
• City, State: Richmond, VA
• Years with NIFS: 3 months
• Position: Fitness and Vibrance Director
• What brought you to NIFS: I was attracted to the opportunity with NIFS because of the resources, the team and evidence-based training. I also wanted to continue to enrich the lives of older adults, using my background, experience, and skillset.
• What is the most impactful moment you have shared with a member:  Nothing encourages me more than to see a resident or team member work through a tough life event and change their life. It is by far my favorite part of my career; is seeing their progress and quality of life changing as a result. More recently, I filled in for a program, and 4 of the participants in the class were new to the program. And I spoke with one of their spouses soon after the class finished, and she says, “That’s the happiest I’ve seen my husband in years!” Moments like that never get old to me!
• What separates a NIFS fitness pro from the rest:  NIFS requires the highest level of creativity, as well as comes with a large support system/network, program incentives, and resources right at your fingertips. It’s amazing! I enjoy the open dialogue with our team, balance of structure, and autonomy NIFS provides me. NIFS also requires a high level of education, experience, and specialized certifications while working with the older adult population.  
• What is your favorite thing about working at your client site: I truly enjoy working with older adults! I didn’t know exactly where my education and career would take me, but I’m sure glad it brought me here. There’s something special about working in a retirement community setting, and the relationships you form. I learn just as much from the residents, and I’ve made a lot of new friends along the way.
• What motivates you:  By helping others, and doing things for other people. I’m also motivated to be the best friend, leader, husband, and father one day that I can be.  
• What is your favorite hobby:  I love being outdoors, camping, hiking, boating, and exploring new areas. I think if it were possible, I would spend all day outside!

Interested in learning more about our staffing services? Click below for what best fits your needs.

ACTIVE AGING   |   CORPORATE FITNESS

Every Sunday, I make a cup of coffee and head outside. I often just sit and listen to the sounds all around me. I take it all in. Even now I can feel the sun on my face, sense the gentle breeze, the sound and feel of the chair as it gently rocks back and forth. It is so easy for me to close my eyes and bring myself right back to that moment whenever I need to. There is something about being outdoors that feels so important to me. Every experience in my life seems more fulfilling while I am doing it outdoors.

For example, I love running outdoors. If you ask me to run on the treadmill, I have more of an attitude of I will do it because I know it is good for me, and not so much because I love it. The same goes for swimming. Put me in the ocean and I am in my glory but the same does not seem to exist for me when it comes to jumping into an indoor pool.

There have been studies that talk about the health benefits of being outdoors and perhaps these studies can more definitively describe the feelings and benefits most human beings experience when they are outdoors.

Research in a growing scientific field called ecotherapy has shown a strong connection between time spent in nature and reduced stress, anxiety, and depression.

It's not clear exactly why outdoor excursions have such a positive mental effect. Yet, in a 2015 study, researchers compared the brain activity of healthy people after they walked for 90 minutes in either a natural setting or an urban one. They found that those who did a nature walk had lower activity in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is active during rumination — defined as repetitive thoughts that focus on negative emotions.

"When people are depressed or under high levels of stress, this part of the brain malfunctions, and people experience a continuous loop of negative thoughts," says Dr. Strauss.

Digging a bit deeper, it appears that interacting with natural spaces offers other therapeutic benefits. For instance, calming nature sounds and even outdoor silence can lower blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which calms the body's fight-or-flight response.

The visual aspects of nature can also have a soothing effect, according to Dr. Strauss. "Having something pleasant to focus on like trees and greenery helps distract your mind from negative thinking, so your thoughts become less filled with worry".

As the weather changes and summer begins to roll back in, find ways to get back outside and enjoy the outdoors. The no cost key to living a happier, healthier life.

We say it with pride quite regularly, our amazing staff in corporate and senior living fitness centers are what help us serve our clients so well. Their strong educational background in health and fitness helps us set the bar high while their exceptional creativity and relationship building skills allows them to keep their members engaged and asking what’s coming next. Since we have the privilege of getting to know our staff across the country, we thought our followers might like to as well. Join us monthly as we throw a different NIFS team member a High Five.

• Name: Brian DuVall
• City, State: Carmel, IN
• Years with NIFS: a little over 2 years
• Position: Marketing Graphic Designer
• What brought you to NIFS: After 10 years at my previous job, I felt I needed a change, but spent a few months doing freelance. I realized I still liked working downtown and being in this area, so when the position opened up I was thrilled.
• What have you learned about NIFS programs and services for our clients: Working with Emily, Kara and Ashley, I understand the need for fitness not only in the professional field, but in retirement and beyond. My previous employment, I really didn’t have time, or should I say, felt I had time for fitness. Here I am blessed to be around it all day and can take an hour out of my day to walk two flights of stairs to the fitness center. I wish I had the programs NIFS corporate and active aging offers when I was ten years younger! And of course, having parents and in-laws who are retired, and seeing that they either aren’t active or active enough, makes me feel happy to hear the positive effects our programs have on the community, and possibly have a hand in making that possible. And, hopefully, after we get back to some sort of new normal, be in a position to reach more communities with newer programs that I had a hand in making possible.
• What do you enjoy most about supporting NIFS staff and clients with your graphic design work: I really feel like it’s to help people in my own creative way, to solve problems. I dabble in fine art from time to time but not a creative person in the purest sense. More of a mechanical/graphical/literal type.
• What motivates you: Continuing from the previous question, when someone presents me with a challenge, I enjoy trying to figure it out, and when I feel a really good idea hit, the blinders come on and I can’t think about anything else.

• What is your favorite hobby: I have a few. Kids activities take up a lot of my time, but most of the time if I have a free moment, I like to play guitar. Also, ever since working here, you can feel the need to stay fit, so along with working out during lunch here at NIFS.

Interested in learning more about our staffing services? Click below for what best fits your needs.

ACTIVE AGING   |   CORPORATE FITNESS

I recently had a resident from one of our client sites in Illinois contact me wanting to know which senior living communities in greater-Indianapolis NIFS was partnered with as she would soon be relocating to be closer to her daughter. She wanted to refine her search to communities where NIFS was similarly providing a robust health and fitness program to what she had come to experience in her current community. She had done some exploring on her own and quickly recognized that communities simply having an onsite fitness center with some weekly exercise classes did not measure up for her.

Think about that for just a minute, she was making visits to communities and spending time on websites; a fitness center walk-thru during a tour or clicking on some pictures of amenities on a website were not showing her enough. This informed consumer understood the value and distinction of a professionally managed fitness program and she wanted to narrow her focus to where she knows NIFS helps communities deliver on their brand promise of supporting residents in living well. A couple of observations on her part that she loved about her NIFS program:

• Amazing Staff: she commented on how much she enjoys and appreciates the knowledgeable and degreed NIFS staff at her community. She shared how much she valued the relationship with the staff and the creative and engaging ways they keep her motivated.
• Robust Programming: she loves a good challenge and finds that NIFS exercise challenges, incentives and educational programs keep her motivated. She likes the regular schedule of NIFS initiatives and is always asking what’s next!

Community leadership or life enrichment staff in senior living communities might not even see the distinction the way this resident does. After all, fitness is only component of an overall wellness program and/or community to operate. Or perhaps you are thinking other seniors wouldn’t make such an astute observation in a fitness program.

When NIFS first begins staffing services at a community and offering creative programs to engage residents, one of the common pieces of feedback we hear from clients is, “We didn’t even know what we were missing or that you would be able to get as many different residents engaged.” They knew they wanted to do better when bringing us in, but how quickly we’d make an impact regularly takes them by surprise. It’s always one of our favorite moments in a client relationship!

Here are a couple of examples of that program growth at NIFS client locations:

In particular, take a look at the Total Members, Classes Offered/Month and Class Participants/Month. There are not a significant number of new classes added to the calendar at either community but through our ability to recruit and engage more residents in the fitness program, overall class participation increased by 46% across these two communities. If you think your group fitness participation is strong now, how would it look with an increase of almost 50%? What about a 34% increase in the number of one-on-one appointments conducted during the month? What kind of message would that participation convey to current and prospective residents? Is that a distinction your community needs?

This holds true with many residents as well. Once they see and experience the distinction, the fitness program becomes one of their biggest areas of pride in the community and something they vocally champion to visitors, guests and family members. Over a decade ago when I was still managing a NIFS fitness center, it was always interesting to hear the oohs and ahhs of guests of residents who joined them for a class or came into the fitness center to exercise with them. They would often tell me how it compared to the fitness center in the community in which they lived or in comparison to the resources available to them aging in place at home. Again, they had to experience it to see the distinction.

Perhaps it’s time to evaluate the quality of your wellness program to discover opportunities for your community to create distinction in the active lifestyle of your residents. It may also be time to consider your marketing message and how you are positioning your fitness program with prospects.

Evaluate the quality of your wellness program, download our quick read below!

When waking up early in the morning, it can be extremely difficult to make it through a morning workout by yourself or perhaps you may not push yourself as hard through the last round of squats as you power through alone. There is a quite a bit that can be said about exercising in a group and how it births motivation.

Group fitness classes are not a new concept, but there has been a major increase around the corporate fitness center I staff with the rising numbers of group strength training, Tabata, core, stretching and HIIT style classes. Research has shown us that the healthy actions of our peers tend to rub off on us. It has also been proven that people who are trying to lose weight tend to spend quite a bit of time with their friends who are on the same trajectory towards similar health goals. Working out tends to be more enjoyable and communal when you are a part of a pack.

Group fitness classes allow individuals to increase their commitment to a fitness routine. Working out with a group has been linked to enhanced consistency, motivation, longer duration of being able to work out, amazing conversation and feeling inspired by others. Working out with a group of peers or friends drives consistency in such a way that when there’s someone who hasn’t shown, there’s accountability and positive peer pressure to help swerve against quitting or skipping a class. One study done by the National Library of Medicine showed that 95% of individuals who started a weight-loss programs with their friends completed them vs 76% of individuals who tried to tackle the goals themselves.

Group fitness allows you the benefit and advantage of being able to diversify your workouts. There are only so many exercises that you can perform alone and sometimes you may hit a point where you are doing the same exercises, which tends to get boring. Throwing other participants into the mix with a dynamic exercise instructor allows your workouts to get creative and reduces the urge to feel lonely from working out solo all the time. Having multiple individuals to exercise with opens up the catalog to be creative when it comes to partner resisted exercises, adding in exercises that others have recently learned or trying new things together.

Last but not least, group fitness permits one to capitalize on endorphins. Group workouts brings so much more benefit to your mental health rather than trying to always tackle a workout solo. When you’re a part of a great fitness classes with a bunch of good people, this kind of community and team effort makes you feel great outside of just the temporary boost you may experience after one small workout.

Whether you are just getting started with exercising or you are looking to change things up in your fitness routine, consider group fitness classes to learn new exercises and get some extra motivation along the way!

We say it with pride quite regularly, our amazing staff in corporate and senior living fitness centers are what help us serve our clients so well. Their strong educational background in health and fitness helps us set the bar high while their exceptional creativity and relationship building skills allows them to keep their members engaged and asking what’s coming next. Since we have the privilege of getting to know our staff across the country, we thought our followers might like to as well. Join us monthly as we throw a different NIFS team member a High Five.

• Name: Rebecca Guetig
• City, State: Indianapolis, IN
• Years with NIFS: Part-time in college, including a summer internship 2010 – 2015, then full time from 2015 until now
• Position: Wellness Coordinator at a Senior Living Community
• What brought you to NIFS: I wanted to work in an environment that revolves around wellness
• What is the most impactful moment you have shared with a member: A newer resident moved from a different community, after some encouragement to come to programs, she finally started to and became pretty social after giving it a shot.  She said she hasn’t been this happy in a long time and thanked me for continuing to invite her come for classes and programs.
• What separates a NIFS fitness pro from the rest: NIFS requires a high level of creativity and customer service excellence and comes with a large network of resources.  I enjoy the balance of structure and autonomy NIFS provides me.
• What is your favorite thing about working at your client site: I enjoy being with the senior demographic more than I ever would have imagined when I started my career in the health and fitness industry.  There’s something special about working in this setting; there’s an abundance of fulfillment.
• What motivates you: I know what we teach our members makes a difference, we see it every day.
• What is your favorite hobby: I love to turn on some Louis Armstrong and whip up something in the kitchen… no recipe and a glad of red wine.

Interested in learning more about our staffing services? Click below for what best fits your needs.

ACTIVE AGING   |   CORPORATE FITNESS

How can older adults improve their wellbeing, grow closer to others, and enhance the community in which they live? Practicing vocational wellness is a great way to accomplish these important feats.

Vocational wellness is a part of our lives and wellbeing that makes the most of our individual strengths, talents, skills, and experiences. When we are vocationally well, these unique characteristics are intentionally used in contribution to our community and larger society.

Here’s what the International Council on Active Aging has to say about vocational wellness: “Work that utilizes a person’s skills while providing personal satisfaction is valuable for society as well as the individual. Participating in the paid and unpaid workforce means maintaining or improving skills, and helping others. Older adults contribute to society as experienced professionals, caregiver, mentors, teachers and volunteers. Leisure-time vocations in the arts and through hobbies maintain vocational skills.”

One great joy in life is serving others or meeting needs in a way that only we can. Neighbors, friends, and family benefit from our vocational wellness. In community, this may look like teaching, leading groups, practicing creativity, or taking the time to volunteer. When we share ourselves vocationally, the impact can be surprising.

Here are 3 tips for improving your vocational wellness:

• Learn about vocational wellness and meditate on what it could look like in your life. By reading this blog, you’re on the right track. You may also talk with your friends and neighbors about what they do for vocational wellness.
• Seek out opportunities to participate in activities, clubs, committees, or special events that interest you. If on first look nothing interests you, don’t let that stop you! Get in touch with people who can help you start something new and exciting. Your skills and experiences are valuable!
• Do what you like to do in a way that benefits yourself and others. Beyond being used for your own enjoyment, your vocational talents can be used for the greater good. If you are a creator, create something beautiful for others to see. If you are a leader, lead others to a healthier life. If you are a teacher, teach your friends something new.

These steps should get you well on your way to a higher level of vocational wellness. When vocational wellness is overlooked, everyone is being short changed. Make the most of your unique life qualities by getting started today!

As more companies welcome their employees back to the office, they are also developing reopening strategies for their onsite fitness centers. It’s one thing to establish social distancing protocols in office spaces, breakrooms, etc., and it’s a whole other ballgame managing traffic in and out of the dynamic environments of locker rooms and fitness centers full of movement. NIFS has been helping our clients prepare their reopening plans so they can do so with confidence that this engaging space is safe for their employees. As your organization considers its reopening plans, review these considerations and align policies that best support your space and programming expectations of your members.

• Locker Rooms: don’t just think about how many people your fitness center can accommodate with proper social distancing, also consider how many individuals your locker rooms can accommodate and if you will allow that space to be accessible. Consider the traffic flow of your locker room, the number of showers you have available, and how many people that space can safely accommodate to help you determine capacity limits.
• Reservation Systems: if your employees are anxiously awaiting the reopening of their fitness center, consider how to best manage the traffic in your space especially during peak times of day before work, over the lunch hour, and immediately after work with a reservation system. Within that reservation system, consider how many users you can accommodate in the space (again, include those locker rooms), how long each session will last and how much time is needed to sanitize the space before the next round of users arrive. Also consider who or how you will manage this reservation system.
• Equipment Spacing & Cleaning: consider how you might need to stagger equipment or put select pieces of out of service to allow for adequate distancing between users. In a fitness center where fans are blowing and respiration rates are high, we recommend a minimum of 10’ between equipment opposed to the standard 6’ for social distancing. In addition, consider how smaller, hard to clean pieces of equipment should be sanitized between users or taken out of circulation. Or perhaps you have a cleaning box for small equipment to be dropped like bands, foam rollers, etc., so your onsite staff can ensure they are properly cleaned before placing on the floor again. Also provide touchless sign-in methods if you track visits and provide touchless water refill stations opposed to drinking fountains.
• Appointments & Services: consider limits on the number of participants in classes and whether you need to schedule back to back offerings on your calendar to accommodate the demand. It might not be efficient, but likely what is needed for your larger groups. Again, consider 10-12’ between your participants and even the types of formats you are offering. Avoid circuits or boot camp style classes where participants rotate stations sharing equipment. For one-on-one services such as fitness assessments or personal training, work with your onsite staff to develop the appropriate cueing to conduct their appointments while maintaining proper distancing from the member.
• Signage & Reminders: as people settle into old workout routines and habits, it’s important that they remain diligent on the current protocols within your facility. Provide extra cleaning supplies around the fitness center with reminders to wipe down equipment before and after use, use tape or other markers to indicate participant “spots” in free weight areas and group fitness classes to ensure distancing and include signage with general reminders about your company’s COVID safety protocols.

As always, stay on top of current CDC guidelines and best practices for the operations and programming in your onsite fitness center. Need support in developing a plan for your organization? Contact NIFS for consulting services or to discuss how our qualified fitness staff are effectively managing these reopening strategies for their clients.

Throughout the past year, everyone’s wellness routine has been thrown upside down at some point or another. Maybe you figured out what your ‘new norm’ looks like, you are not sure where to start, or you are somewhere in the middle trying to find that new norm. A lot of the residents at the senior living community where I am employed are unsure of where to start, specifically after the pandemic.

It felt like all at once, a handful of residents became aware of how far they regressed with taking the stairs, causing not only concern but also action. The residents were out at a Colts game or the symphony, had to take a set of stairs to their seats and came face-to-face with the harsh reality of how challenging the stairs were not only physically, but also mentally. We decided to add a “Stair Master” class to our group fitness schedule, which allowed the residents to learn proper biomechanics of taking the stairs, work on their capabilities twice a week, and have a support group that understood the struggles with the stairs. We had this class 2x per week for 4 months, each time focusing on the stairs in addition to strength, cardiovascular fitness, balance, and stability. Below are the three concepts we looked at each month to not only help evaluate if we were targeting what we wanted to target, but it was also used as an aide for residents to see their progress.

• Evaluation. There was no gold standard evaluation for out goals, so we made up our own evaluation. We wanted to overshoot what residents would typically have to do at an outing so regardless of how many stairs, they would be confident. The first Thursday of the month, we would perform 4 continual minutes of stairs and record the results. As the months went by, the residents had pride in how they felt as well as how far they had come along since the first evaluation.
• Intensity. Classes lasted 45 minutes, with a water break around the halfway point. We would consistently change when in the class we did the stairs, the duration spent on the stairs, and use work to rest ratios to help add intensity to the exercise without overloading the residents. If the stairs were added towards the end of the class, we found that residents were challenged more than if they were at the beginning of class. Overtime, going down the stairs presented a greater challenge, specifically mentally, and that allowed for our class to focus on overcoming mental barriers.
• Rate of Perceived Exertion. Once residents completed the 4-minute evaluation, we would ask them to rate their perceived exertion on a scale of 1-10. At the end of the 4 months, we saw the number of flights of stairs residents successfully performed did not increase exponentially, however their rate of perceived exertion consistently decreased.

How are you creatively adapting to the needs of your residents?

We say it with pride quite regularly, our amazing staff in corporate and senior living fitness centers are what help us serve our clients so well. Their strong educational background in health and fitness helps us set the bar high while their exceptional creativity and relationship building skills allows them to keep their members engaged and asking what’s coming next. Since we have the privilege of getting to know our staff across the country, we thought our followers might like to as well. Join us monthly as we throw a different NIFS team member a High Five.

• Name: Kaitlyn Pando
• City, State: Indianapolis, IN
• Years with NIFS: 2.5 years
• Position: Health Fitness Specialist
• What brought you to NIFS: I went to school at Ball State, and I always heard of NIFS in our classes. I knew that if my professors were always mentioning NIFS that it must be a great place to work. I graduated knowing that I wanted to go into corporate wellness, so when I saw NIFS had a position in corporate fitness I had to apply.
• What is the most impactful moment you have shared with a member: I received a personal fitness quest client who was not active. I started working with them to slowly add in a little bit of movement into their days. I worked with them beyond the 4 weeks because I knew that this could help change their life. Fast forward a few months and we ran a program that required them to try and workout 5 days a week for 6 weeks. This member ended up being one of the few that got almost every single day in for 6 weeks straight. I am so proud of this person. They went from not being active at all to getting some form of movement into their day every single day.
• What separates a NIFS fitness professional from the rest: One thing that separates a NIFS fitness pro from the rest is that NIFS puts an emphasis on having background knowledge in the fitness industry. We all come to this job with at least 4 years of schooling in this field. NIFS then encourages us to get certifications, attend workshops, and more. We are always learning as NIFS fitness professionals.
• What is your favorite thing about working at your client site: The members are by far the best part of my job. We have so many great members here that keep work fun and exciting. I love getting to know all of them and help them achieve whatever goals they may be.
• What motivates you: My group fitness class participants motivate me. I want my participants to leave every class knowing that they got a great workout in. This makes me continue to think outside of the box on how to make my workouts challenging, but fun so they keep coming back.
• What is your favorite hobby: Camping with my husband and dog!

Interested in learning more about our staffing services? Click below for what best fits your needs.

ACTIVE AGING   |   CORPORATE FITNESS