The Fitness Group – Not Just a Numbers Game
There’s strength in numbers. If you need proof, count the number of defensive players on the football field; observe the light produced by one streetlamp compared to a dozen; taste the difference between a chicken breast with one tablespoon of pepper and one teaspoon; shake hands with each member of the medical team that successfully separated conjugal twins. A group with a goal cannot be stopped. If you want great results in your wellness program, call some numbers and form a group.
Men’s Health Magazine suggests signing up for an event as one of its “top twenty ways” in which “to keep yourself on a fitness program.” The motivation of preparing for a contest involving lots of people – and perhaps prizes – keeps you focused. And focus is something all anesthesia professionals can do. There are fun runs involving 100’s, maybe a few thousand people, somewhere every weekend through October as well as cycling tours, tennis ladders, bi and triathlons galore and all it takes is one other person to help keep you motivated. If you have more than 2 or 3 on your anesthesia team, you can have the same number on your walking team. Are you going to San Francisco for the 2012 AANA meeting? Take the team for the fun run and make healthy headlines. Did the recruiter entice you to move kit and caboodle to Kansas City? Your fitness groupies can gather at the head of the 17-mile trail at the south end and power a walk all the way to Town Center in Leawood, or keep going on a bicycle into Missouri! Promise the Biggest Loser a lean latte at Dewey’s Coffee Café or buy the “most improved” person a bagel at Einstein’s. Re-set the bar a teeny bit higher every week the team meets. Improvement and reward are inherent in teamwork.
Though expansion is a curse word of the weight-watcher, it’s the goal of the group. Your companions at the clinic need not be limited to anesthesia junkies (I use the term loosely), so once your “team” is up and running, let it grow. Evite another department, then another, and another to join you in the effort to be well. Perhaps you already have a wellness offer at your hospital and perhaps you regularly participate. Great! Now get out and evangelize and expand! Your improved level of energy and your own success at achieving and maintaining a fit, healthy body are perfect advertisements. Add your voice to the ads, and the group will go viral. Your team should “change up” because that’s what keeps it vibrant and challenging – sorta like 10,000 minutes on the schedule with five anesthetists on vacation!
Scott and White Medical Center, Temple, TX, has a hospital-wide cycling group that meets once or twice weekly, year ‘round. It is highly organized – matching shirts and shorts! – and has become so popular that spouses and community residents frequently join the 145+ membership for the Saturday morning ride policy of “no cyclist left behind.” Watertown Regional Medical Center in Wisconsin offers patients and employees one-on-one personal training sessions and several group fitness events each year. Cleveland Clinic in greater Cleveland offers free employee membership to its fitness centers where you’ll participate with a group of 1,000’s! Your upstate New York group can have a cross-country skiing team and your WEE employees in Colorado (We Enjoy Exercise!) can form a hiking club. New Mexican anesthetists can train together for the annual climb to Sandia Peak and Georgians can scramble as a team up the backside of Stone Mountain. The opportunities to form a cohesive, enthusiastic group committed to the freedom of wellness are only limited by your imaginations and the Dunkin’ Donuts sticking together in the anesthesia lounge.
It takes a leader and one friend to form a fitness group. Add a little organization with some consistent commitment, and “they will come.” Your health will improve as the result of being part of a team, and if it’s a good team, strength isn’t just added – it’s multiplied.
Click here for Cleveland Clinic’s wellness program
Click here for Scott & White cycling club
Click here for Kansas City bike trails
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Another good article to go along with the others. We need to have a workout group but our schedules make it difficult to get together. Accountability reinforces commitment to fitness.
I agree with the concept of the group helping each other to stay on track. Four from our group agreed to work together on fitness. We just completed our first 10K.
I like the fitness articles. I’m a gym rat when the schedule permits. We are trying to get our group in shape and hope to do an event together. Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions.
I like the fitness articles. Most CRNA web sites are all about practice and politics. Your web site is unique.