Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

You've had your morning coffee and breakfast and you're ready to begin your workday. You plop down at your desk to scan through the 50 e-mails you received since you shut down your computer last night. By the time you finish, more than an hour has passed, you've answered five calls, and your boss is begging for your help with an agenda for a last-minute meeting.

To top it off, stress is setting in. Guess what? Your brain is already fried and your productivity for the day will probably be minimal.

Exercise at Work Is the Answer

What if your company offered employees 30 paid minutes each day to exercise in its corporate fitness center? Would employee productivity increase? Studies show it would. Exercise has positive effects on the brain. It stimulates the brain and nervous system, decreases stress, and increases performance. I don't know of a single CEO who wouldn't want his or her staff performing better on the job. Fewer mistakes equals more company return, happier bosses, and happier employees.

Increased Productivity Can Outweigh the Cost of a Corporate Fitness Program

You're probably wondering whether the benefits of opening a corporate fitness center outweigh the cost. The right type of managed facility would. Many corporate fitness centers have trainers who can help individuals reach their fitness and health goals, which means lower insurance costs, fewer sick days, and increased productivity. Corporations can reap many benefits from having a corporate fitness or wellness center. 

What's Your Next Step?

Convince company decision-makers to consider the benefits of allowing employees to exercise on company time. If a worksite fitness center seems out of reach, suggest a company-wide walking program or an exercise class at work. Become a healthy workplace advocate by providing articles and research that show how productivity and efficiency increase with employee exercise (see above).

Imagine the positive change that could occur for you and your fellow employees if your company took even a few steps toward better workplace health!

Kickin’ Cardio…Butts and Guts…Get on the Ball…fun names, right? These energetic exercise class offerings belong to the realm of corporate wellness and offer unique aspects of fitness that keep a loyal crowd coming back week after week.

In my years of working in a corporate fitness center, I’ve identified three reasons why group exercise continues to be successful in enticing new employees to join the worksite fitness center as well as increasing participation from current members:

1. Adding a Corporate Group Fitness Class Allows for Social Interaction and Accountability

The phrase “buddy system” is used in so many settings because it works! Find any article about weight loss or exercise and it will cite accountability as a key motivational strategy. Telling a friend about a fitness goal—or in this case, meeting a friend at a group exercise class—makes one more likely to follow through. Breaking a sweat next to a friend ties in the social aspect that makes those squats more enjoyable…or at least tolerable.

As a group exercise instructor, I’ve often had to remind my class participants, “If you are able to carry on a conversation with your neighbor right now, you are not working hard enough!” They are having that much fun together!

2. Placing a Fitness Class into Your Calendar Makes It More Likely to Happen

When that friendly Outlook reminder pops up on your computer screen that says, “Kickboxing Class, due in 15 minutes,” it’s hard to ignore. We all know the typical pattern: For those who aren’t “morning people,” exercising before work is out of the question. During the day it’s easy to get wrapped up in deadlines, phone calls, and the like that push daytime exercise off the agenda. So, there you are at 5 p.m., mentally drained. So you think, "I’ll go home and just eat a snack or take a quick nap and then I’ll work out." Yeah, right.

Having a specific class that meets only at a certain time makes the idea of exercise more concrete because it can’t be pushed later and later into the day. Another bonus of adding a group exercise class onto your Outlook calendar is that if coworkers notice you are blocked for that particular time frame, they may try to schedule meetings around it.

3. Going to a Corporate Exercise Class Puts You on Mental Autopilot,  Saving You Stress

I quickly discovered that in corporate fitness centers, clients deal with high stress levels, never-ending meetings, and work piles waiting at their desks when they return from the gym. In other words, exercise is the escape.

The last thing a frenzied, number-crunching employee wants to do in the gym is spend time planning a workout. Leave it to the group fitness instructor to organize the muscle groups, time the circuits, and count the repetitions. Knowing that all you have to do is show up to a class, dressed in your workout gear, makes exercise seem like less of a second job and more of what it’s designed to be: stress relief, a physical challenge, and a recharge of the batteries.

Employees are already offered such an array of professional workshops and classes. Consider adding group exercise into the mix to liven up your worksite wellness initiative.

A good way for employees to measure their fitness progress is with portable tracking devices. These can range from the traditional pedometer to more advanced equipment.

Pedometers To Track Employee Health Progress

Pedometers come in all shapes and sizes. Enter "pedometer" into the Amazon search bar and you'll pull up 1,711 different options. Some measure only steps, whereas others have additional bells and whistles. Pedometers range in price from $4 to around $60.

Other High-Tech Employee Health Tracking Tools

In the last year, a new fitness-tracking tool has come on the market. Fitbit is a handy little gadget that clips onto your waistband like a pedometer. However, this high-tech tool tracks more than a typical pedometer by measuring calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, and sleep quality. You can link the unit to your computer and store your data on Fitbit's robust tracking site. You can also join Fitbit's communities, follow its blog, and track other health markers.

At $99 per unit, the gadget is less expensive than the popular iPod nano and provides significant personal logging capabilities to track progress.

How Small Companies Can Use High-Tech Tools In Workplace Wellness Campaigns

Small employers: The Fitbit might provide a unique tool for your workforce to start moving more. Using the website tools connected with the device, you could easily build a workplace fitness program on which to base company wellness rewards.

Corporate fitness folks hear it all the time: "I really want to work out on my lunch hour, but I don’t want to sweat at work." It's a legitimate excuse. Some of us sweat in ways that it takes hours to recover from. And who wants to smell sweaty for the rest of the day?

Yoga – A Perfect Fitness Fit for Employee Health

That being said, avoiding exercise altogether will only result in overweight employees. Instead, think of yoga as the answer. We don’t mean that in an all-the-world's-mysteries-can-be-solved-while-you-meditate kind of way. But the truth is that yoga can challenge your muscles enough that employees will walk away from class feeling both relaxed and rejuvenated while barely breaking a sweat.

Employees Can Benefit from Yoga as Exercise

There is still debate on exactly how effective yoga can be for true, sustained weight loss. But yoga can positively impact flexibility and muscle tone as well as body image. Each of those pieces has a role in an individual's ability to maintain or lose weight.

How to Bring Yoga to Your Workplace

A great way to control healthcare costs is to start a yoga class at work. If you can’t afford to hire an instructor for a formal yoga class at your worksite fitness center or a vacant meeting room, try renting some DVDs from the library and borrowing a TV/DVD player combo from your AV room. Employees can also incorporate yoga into their day by using some yoga relaxation moves at their desks.

A recent Gallup survey reported that over one quarter of all medical costs are directly related to defensive medicine. That's a lot of unnecessary medical care by doctors just to protect themselves against potential malpractice lawsuits.

Practice Defensive Medicine with Your Employees by Encouraging Walking

What if we poured 25 percent of our energy into practicing our own defensive medicine--aka disease prevention or health promotion? What if your employees spent 25 percent of their one-hour lunch break getting some exercise at work?

Of course, not everyone is willing to do that. But what if employers supported 15-minute walk breaks for their employees so that they could get that walk in on the clock?

The Physical Benefits of Getting Employees Walking

Think about it: Fifteen minutes of walking the parking lot or the campus halls (which burns 50 calories per 15 minutes for a 150-pound person) could do a lot of people--and businesses--a lot of good.

The Financial Benefits for Getting Employees Walking

Wise employers know that getting away from the desk and being active can help employees be more productive. And the health benefits from this exercise can help a company control healthcare costs and practice their own defensive medicine.

Tell us how your company is supporting physical activity in your workplace.

Does your organization's disaster recovery plan account for the almost-certain riot that could ensue if your elevators break down? While I may have a flair for the dramatic, check out the crowd reaction to the escalators freezing at Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle stop recently. Your employees might look strikingly similar to these dumbstruck passengers if they were forced to scale the stairs each day.

Look at Stairs as a New Way For Employees to Get Physical Activity at Work

I think people take elevators and escalators almost mindlessly (kind of like how we eat most of the time). It doesn't really enter most individual's consciousness to view stairs as a small but beneficial chance at some extra activity each day.

Climbing stairs burns roughly seven calories per minute for a 150-pound individual. Taking the elevator burns just one calorie per minute for the same person. Over the course of one month, if you choose the stairs for five minutes per day, five days per week, you will burn an extra 750 calories. Over the course of a year, that's more than 9,000 calories burned, which is equal to roughly 2.5 pounds.

Although that isn't staggering weight loss for the year, it does provide you with some buffer for maintaining your weight year to year (assuming your calorie intake is unchanged). Furthermore, for overweight employees who are trying to lose weight, taking the stairs can support that ongoing effort.

Encourage Employees to Forego the Elevator With These Tips

This guide from the California Department of Health Services has extensive tips on encouraging employees to take the stairs at work or comment below to tell us about your healthy stairwell campaign.