Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

In corporate fitness we find that members love a good team challenge. Whether that's creating teams of 4-5 people to work toward a goal or all coming together to reach a finish line. Our popular 500 Challenge is back, and employees are revving up those tennis shoes to clock miles this next month! We know the benefits of moving more each day with be achieved, but the fun in building community is just as beneficial. Join us and rev up your body and get moving this month!! Go big and strive to hit 100 miles in one month. Feeling intimidated by the big number? Look no further, here are a few tips and tricks to accomplish the feat!

Ask yourself… What’s my baseline?
100 Miles in 31 days averages to be about 3.2 miles per day or 22.6 miles per week. This may seem like a lot, but you may already be hitting close to that number! Take some time to track your normal daily average. How close are you to the 3.2 miles? Find fun and low effort ways to incorporate more steps into your daily routine! This could be taking the stairs, getting up and taking a short walk every hour, or taking a morning and/or evening stroll daily.

Break It Up & Schedule Steps
Be realistic about your daily schedule. What days are you more likely to get more steps? When do you have time to add a couple extra miles? Use a calendar and set a daily/weekly goal based on your schedule. Add time in to get your miles completed so you don’t find yourself falling short.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
Set up a time with your team, colleagues, friends, or family to accomplish some miles. When you bring others along, it can help make the activity more enjoyable and you may find yourself accomplishing more miles than you would by yourself!

Incorporate Challenges In Your Challenge
Find fun and competitive ways to meet your daily and weekly goals! This could mean striving to achieve badges on your apple watch or inviting family and friends to a step challenge. Be creative and participate in challenges outside of the 500 that will get you moving and help motivate you to exceed your 100 miles in a month!

The NIFS staff often find that employees will take time away from their desk to exercise, enjoy conversation that isn't work related, or simply decompress. Our staff are great at putting the FUN into Fitness which often results in laughter during classes, conversations and that sense of community in our client's onsite fitness centers.

When it comes to health and medicine, most people think about doctors, pills, or exercise. But more evidence is suggesting that laughter can also be a part of one’s treatment and can actually improve one’s health both in the short and long-term.

According to the Mayo Clinic, when laughing there are not only emotional and mental benefits but also physical ones as well. When you laugh, your heart, lungs, and muscles get stimulated more, and in turn, more oxygen is delivered throughout your body. Laughing increases the secretion of endorphins that are released by your brain which makes you feel happy. It also aids in muscle relaxation.

There are also long-term benefits to laughter, too: Positive thoughts can release chemical messengers called neuropeptides that help fight stress and improve overall immunity. Laughter may ease pain by causing the body to produce its own natural painkillers and can also make it easier to cope with difficult situations. As a result, it can help lessen your stress, depression and anxiety and may make you feel happier. Socially, it also helps you connect with other people since people like to be around those who have a positive outlook. Making more connections with people can also improve your self-esteem.

Laughter and humor can also have the following effects on specific illnesses:

• Lowered risk of heart diseases
• Decreased risk of type 2 diabetes
• Increased pain tolerance
• Improved mood and self-esteem
• Reduced hyperinflation of the lungs in people with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Humor therapy (watching a 20-minute humorous movie) can lead to improved cognitive function, including learning ability, delayed recall, and visual recognition in a study that included 30 older adults.
• Comedy improv training can lead to subjective improvements in symptoms for people with Parkinsons disease.

With all of these benefits in mind, it’s a good reminder for us to have a good laugh every once in a while, and to have as positive an outlook as we can.

When winter blows in and the days start to get shorter and colder, you can pull the blankets over your head and hibernate—or you can suit up and head outside for an outdoor winter adventure. Exercising in colder weather has distinct advantages over working out in warmer weather, so there is no reason to take a break when the temperatures drop. There are a number of advantages to working out in colder weather that most people disregard.

In the winter we do not have to deal with heat or humidity. We all know heat and humidity can be extremely dangerous to our body but can also be uncomfortable and frustrating to work out in if you are not used to it. It is easier for our bodies to adapt when the temperature begins to drop, and you may be able to workout longer in the cold than in the heat. Working out longer allows your body to burn more calories and it takes more energy to keep the body warm when exercising in the cold. Another advantage to working out during the winter is your body has a chance to soak up Vitamin D that it lacks during the winter months. Vitamin D helps boost your immune system, creates strong bones, strengthens muscles, and helps maintain blood sugar levels which can prevent diabetes.

Try these outdoor activities to help keep you active in the winter:

• Walk, Hike, or Jog
• Shovel Snow
• Rake Leaves
• Ice skating
• Sledding
• Skiing

Exercising in the cold can be beneficial, but there are things to keep in mind when being outside for longer amounts of time. Dress in layers and be sure to cover your hands, ears, and feet. Layers will allow you to stay warm without producing too much moisture on the skin which could make you even colder. Our hands, ears, and feet are where our heat escapes and they tend to have a lack of circulation, keeping them covered helps keep them warm when the temperature drops. Be aware of the signs of hypothermia and bundle up when going outside. If you are not cold and uncomfortable you are more likely to enjoy your time outside instead of running back inside shortly after going out.

Exercise can boost your immune system during the long cold and flu months. Even just 20 minutes a day can boost your immune system enough to help fight simple bacterial and viral infections. Below is a list of indoor activities to keep you active when you are not motivated to bundle up and get outside.

• Home workout 
• Active household chores like vacuuming
• Roller skating
• Yoga or group classes
• Stair climbing
• Rock climbing

Find a way to stay motivated when the temperatures drop, and the days begin to shorten this winter. Invest in a few high-quality products and clothing items so your time outside is more enjoyable and you can take in the full benefits of being outside in the fresh air. You can pick up a new activity or try something you have always wanted to do but have not had a chance. Your body will thank you.

The benefits of providing an onsite corporate fitness center at the workplace are far-reaching and they may or may not have anything to do with reducing health care costs. For leadership, it’s easy to focus on this tangible measurement and lose sight of other reasons  to support employees in their health and fitness goals.

Learn how one member at a NIFS client location has found value in using her corporate fitness center as she strives to maintain a newly established healthy lifestyle.

Was there an “a-ha” moment or life event that led you to make a positive change for your health?

I’ve known for a number of years that I needed to improve my health, but always had excuses for not doing so. When my granddaughter was born in 2016, I knew I wanted to be around to see her grow up. I also wanted to be able to keep up with her energy so I could be active in her life as she got older. She, and the future grandchildren, have been my inspiration.

What has been a key factor in helping you stick to your new routine? What is your motivation?

Staying motivated is a challenge, so I set a number of small, fun SMART goals that I was determined to achieve. For example, when work sponsored a team to run the Indianapolis Mini Marathon, I decided to run the 5K race. Our NIFS fitness center staff provided a training program to follow. I finished in the top 10% of my age group. I have signed up for five more races, with the next goal being to win my age group.

[Related Content: Why You Might Be Wrong About Outsourcing Fitness Center Management]

How has the fitness center provided a supportive environment for you to work on your health?

There are a number of benefits of having the fitness center onsite. First, it is convenient. Employees can go before work, at lunchtime, or after work; that flexibility is a huge help. I also like the personal attention that is available to help build a structured exercise program that will achieve specific goals. In our corporate fitness center there's a huge variety of activities available, especially the group fitness classes. You can try something new each week.

I really enjoy the supportive atmosphere of the coaches and my coworkers in the center. They make exercise fun. I also feel that we're lucky to have the center as one of our corporate health benefits. The fact that our leadership supports the existence of the center signals that employee health and fitness is important to our organization.

What would you tell your coworkers who still haven't tapped into the benefits of the corporate fitness center?

I spent a long time feeling like I was too tired to put exercise into my schedule. I also told myself that I just did not have the time. But, now that I am exercising regularly and feeling better, I have more energy. I also am more agile and can do things around the house that I have not been able to do in years. It’s funny that one of my excuses in the past for not exercising was thinking I did not have the time or was too busy. Now that I am exercising and have more energy, I get things done faster. So by exercising, I have more time.

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To read other NIFS "members speak" stories, click here. If your'e looking for a corporate fitness vendor to start improving your employees lives, click here to find out how we support our clients across the US.

In a seasoned corporate fitness program, sometimes it's hard to figure out where to look next for improvement in the services, staffing, or overall offering. In NIFS almost three decades of providing corporate fitness management services, we've continued to evolve our use of surveys well beyond the typical satisfaction ratings. Below are three tested survey styles that we use on a regular basis to improve our corporate fitness centers and  ensure our staff are doing everything they can to sustain a positive and inviting fitness atmosphere for employees.

The New Member Experience Survey

We know that creating a positive and welcoming first experience for employees in corporate fitness is crucial to winning loyal members. And we value customer service skills in our staff as much as we value sound exercise science knowledge. In order to capture our staff's effectiveness at using strong customer-focused skills with new members, we began implementing a new member experience survey. We use the tool in a monthly welcome email with new members to get a better picture of any potential barriers members may experience as well as to better understand how well our staff are implementing expected procedures for orienting new members. Results from this survey offer strong talking points in semi-annual review discussions or more frequently if needed to both praise and correct staff, based on member feedback.

The Quality Assurance Surveys

When we contract with a business to provide fitness center management services, part of the package includes managing liability within the fitness environment. We have several components in our quality assurance program that support this activity, including a monthly emergency procedures survey which our managers fill out. It provides a nudge to ensure they're checking emergency equipment, stocking first aid kits, and documenting any missing or broken supplies in a timely fashion. We also have an annual risk management survey and a semi-annual emergency survey where staff work through emergency scenarios and take an emergency preparedness quiz.

The Satisfaction Survey (with a twist)

I suspect that most vendors like us provide a satisfaction survey to share with clients how the staff, services, and spaces are being received by their employees. It's foundational to measuring our commitment to the client; in fact, portions of our satisfaction survey sometimes translate into service level agreements between us and the client. We've made tweaks to our standard survey over the years, and we recently added a Net Promoter Score question as a new twist that provides us with more of an industry benchmark for the way our staff are connecting with members to build loyalty. 

Even if you're unfamiliar with NPS, there's a good chance you've answered a product or service survey question that generated an NPS for the provider. It's usually worded to ask how likely you are to recommend X service/product to a friend and the answer is given on a 0-10 scale. The responses then are broken down into three categories:

• Detractors, rate their likelihood to recommend between a 0-6. They are considered likely to stop using your product/service and/or share negative feedback about your product/service.
• Passives, rate their experience as a 7-8. They’re neutral to your brand; they might continue to use your product/service, but they aren’t likely to invite others into the fold.
• Promoters, rate their experience as a 9-10 and they are considered evangelists for whatever you’re selling; they LOVE you and will tell others about how great you are.

The industry average NPS for fitness centers as tracked by the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub association (IHRSA) is 43. That score includes commercial gyms, so it’s not quite apples to apples, but we are talking about a very similar scope of services where members are entrusting their physical health to the fitness center staff and carving out their very precious personal time to spend time at the gym.  Since we added an NPS question to our survey over the last few years, we have far exceeded that industry benchmark and we are regularly looking at strategies to continue growing member loyalty.

This overview provides a good snapshot of the types of information we gather through surveys, but I haven't touched on how we use the survey responses to coach our staff, improve our client relationships and manage customer liability. To dig more deeply into these topics, grab our white paper.

Throughout 2015, we’ll be blogging about our dreams for corporate wellness, fitness, and aging well. Some of the content will represent a gentle “poking fun” at the industry, but it’s all written to stimulate thought about what really could be if we put our heads together and started mapping out what’s really possible in the realm of individual wellbeing. We hope you’ll join the conversation by commenting on the blogs, giving us additional ideas about which topics to explore, and by finding us on Twitter at #wellnesswhatif.

Businesses need top performers in order to survive. We need sales staff who are heavy hitters, research staff who are actually rocket scientists, and customer service professionals who can turn any frown upside down. You know who those folks are in your organization, that top 5% of all performers. In some cases, they might be unsung heroes, but at a lot of businesses, the best among us are often publicly lauded. They are the elite.

Changing the Definition of “Elite”

Not everyone can fit into that narrow industry-specific definition of elite. But maybe, if business leaders opened their minds about what counts as elite, we could have more than one class of top-tier performers.

What if you didn’t have to exceed your sales quota to be considered among the elite at your worksite? Don’t get me wrong. You’d still have to work really hard. After all, becoming top tier is definitely hard work. Some would say rising to the top requires strength, agility, and grace under stress.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center found one way to get into the top 5% is to sweat. In their analysis of the American Time Use survey, they concluded that only 1 in 20 Americans engages in vigorous exercise (the kind that makes you sweat) on any given day. 

That’s right, a paltry 5% of us are working hard enough to actually sweat when we work out.

What Does This Have to Do with Employee Health? 

The way to sustained weight loss toward a healthy weight is through a healthy diet combined with prolonged cardiovascular exercise (45 to 60 minutes) at least five days per week. Employers: If you want a workforce that is at a healthier body weight, you have to (among other things) create an environment that supports and provides opportunities for your employees to work out hard enough to sweat. You need to build a corporate health culture that supports breaking a sweat in your worksite fitness center, or through another avenue of the employee’s choice.

Certainly, there’s more to individual well-being than being physically fit. But I wonder how many employees hold back on working out because of their environment (lack of access, lack of support). What if businesses publicly rewarded the exercising (aka sweaty) elite alongside the elite sales force and recognized the importance of employee health and fitness?

Download our whitepaper for tips on adding exercise to your worksite wellness program. 

Mandy Kisamore was a little reserved when we first met. She is not a jump in the front of the room type of person. She came to a few classes and then became more of a regular.  After a while she started to hang around after class and ask questions that began with her and then shifted toward her children, and her family. She has done a lot of work from when she started and it hasn’t stopped with her.  Check out her story about how she transformed herself and her family.  It has been extremely rewarding to be able to be a part of Mandy’s success. 

Transforming Myself and My Family

Exercise was not one of my favorite things to do.  It was never fun; I would never look forward to it, or hate to miss a class. Today is a different story.

Three years ago I started to get serious about taking care of myself.  This transformation has been, and continues to be, a struggle that I have to work on at every class, at every workout, and every time I exercise.

Here is my story.  In the beginning, my family and friends would always tell me that I needed to find some “me” time.  Having a husband and two kids at home, finding “me” time was the last thing I thought was a possibility.  After thinking about this “me” time that I apparently needed, I decided that I would start checking out the gym at work and the classes that were offered.  I thought that would be something positive for me, mentally and physically.  That could be my “me” time, one night a week for 45 minutes. 

Of course going to the gym itself is overwhelming, and joining a class for the first time was terrifying for me.  I found myself frustrated during the past three years because the scale did not tell me the number I wanted it to. I have had to shift my thinking to look at the inches I have lost, the new pants I have had to buy, the muscles I have built, and the confidence I have gained.  During the past three years I have had some setbacks which were frustrating, but I know that I cannot stop now. I feel that I have come so far that giving up and going back to where I was is not an option for me.  I started with a lower body class, it was only 30 minutes and who doesn’t want a better back side? A few friends and I started going to the class together. It was definitely a good decision to start with people I knew.  To my surprise, I ended up enjoying the class and started going once a week.  I attended this class for a month, and then added two classes a week for the next month, then three a week the next month. I soon found myself going to as many classes as I could fit into my schedule. As time went on, I could feel how much better I felt inside, and I could see the changes that were happening to my body.  These helped me stay motivated and continue trying different exercise classes.

My motivation to keep pushing through and continuing to make this more of a lifestyle change than what started as just a way to find “me” time is definitely my family.  To see the changes and the positive thought process this “me time” has brought to my family is amazing to see.  At one point during this journey my son said he was proud of me.  That was such a motivator for me to keep going no matter how hard it was, or how much I didn’t think I could keep up with it.  Since then, my kids have started paying attention to their eating habits, and exercising because they want to.  My husband, sister, and father have been making changes to be healthier as a result of what I have started.  It is wonderful to see that what started as one group fitness class has turned into a positive change for my entire family.

To me, every positive change you make is a success, whether it is stepping foot in the gym, joining your first class, or trying a healthier meal out on your family.  These changes can lead to so many more positive changes in your life. Although I haven’t reached my initial goals yet, I have found the smaller goals I have made are just as important.  I have to remind myself of what I’ve already accomplished, and that I am a work in progress.  I am going to keep trying to be a better healthier me, for myself and my family.   

Interested in helping your employees make great strides in changing their habits to live healthier lives?  Checkout NIFS Fitness Management Services to see how we help your workforce.

*Weight loss claims or individual results vary and are not guaranteed.

Bodyweight exercises are trending in 2015.  If you missed last week go back and check it out.  Now it's time to crank up your bodyweight workout from last week? We have another workout for you. Before you begin this workout, make sure your form and technique for each exercise is correct first. You want to get a good workout in while avoiding injuries. Watch the video for correct form and technique.

Instructions: Complete 3 sets of each exercise with a 30 to 60 second rest in between sets.

Workout

1. 20 jump squats
2. 15 burpees
3. 10 broad jumps w/ squat thrusts
4. 15 downdog push-ups
5. 10 tricep dips w/ leg extensions
6. 60 sec plank
7. 15 single leg squats (both right and left sides)
8. 60 sec bridge march

It's importatnt to stay hydrated when working out. Make sure your water bottle is close by; you’ll need it!

We kicked of the new year with tackling the components of a workout.  Flexibility is often overlooked, but is needed in everyday activities. Not stretching properly or a sedentary lifestyle can negatively affect one’s flexibility and range of motion. Without appropriate stretching and activity, our bodies’ posture and movement patterns can change overtime reducing range of motion. There are two kinds of stretching: dynamic and static. Dynamic stretching uses controlled movements that bring muscles through their full range of motion. Static stretching involves taking joints through a range of motion to a comfortable end point, holding that position for a period of time (at least 10 seconds).

Self-myofascial release, commonly used with a foam roller, is another method to increase flexibility. In this technique, one uses a foam roller to assist in self-massage to release muscle tightness or knots. Foam rollers are available in different densities. At the beginning, the process may be uncomfortable. A softer roller is ideal to start with. Foam rollers are available for purchase online or in any store that provides basic to advanced fitness equipment.

For dynamic stretches, check out our blog about warming up which includes dynamic stretching.

Static Stretches:

• Arm hold across the body
• Triceps overhead
• Upper back
• Chest
• Obliques
• Inner thigh
• Hamstring and calf
• Quadriceps

Foam Rolling: (demonstration video)

• Hamstring
• Calf
• Glute maximus
• Glute medius
• Piriformis
• IT Band
• Upper back (1)
• Upper back (2)
• Lats
• Quadriceps

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