I heard a piece on CBC Wednesday morning about how “most people” give up their new year’s resolutions about working out by February. Leaving aside the whole question of whether resolutions are actually a good way to form new habits (spoiler: not really), it did make me reflect again on how grateful I am for the motivation of my “220 in 2020” community. This is a facebook community that includes Sam, Catherine, Susan, Tracy, Bettina and Martha among the core posters to this blog, and Renee, Laura and many other guest posters. I’ve written many times about this group since it was “217 in 2017” as a profound motivator in my own relationship with working out; yesterday, I asked other members of the group what the value is for them.
(Quick sidebar: there are actually two facebook groups, one mixed group that started in 2016, and a feminist version that is mostly women that started last year after Tracy, Christine and I facilitated a daily motivation group for three months. Both have open membership. The original group has about 200 members to about 100 in the other, with not all in either actively posting at any given time. The main goal is to support members to reach a set number of workouts, however they define a workout, in a year. (The feminist group adds a simple little goal of smashing the patriarchy). We join the group, we post our workouts with the number, that’s it. People witness our experience and sometimes cheer us on. Simple simple).
I expected people to have something positive to say about their group experiences — but what I didn’t expect was the moving sense of how emotional and transformative it’s been for so many people. Participating in this group is about accountability, the fun of counting and shared encouragement — but more than that, for many people, it’s created community out of isolation, inspired them to be creative, and most importantly, given them a sense of autonomy and value over movement however it is meaningful to them.
As a blog community, we’ve done many posts on “what counts” as a workout, which we boil down to “whatever you personally consider an episode of movement.” This is an essential aspect of the mission of this group. Jason Breen, a personal trainer and philosopher who started the first group, captures it beautifully: “I think that the fitness industry does a lot of gatekeeping about what counts as exercise. At one point it was jazzercise and now it’s warrior challenges. These gates keep a lot of people from moving more. I wanted to remove the gates as much as I could.“
Recognizing all types of movement as meaningful is very powerful for people. One member said “I’m a compulsive exerciser so it’s therapeutic for me to see how other people make time to move their bodies and what the range of “normal” exercise is.” Another said “I am a perfectionist and tend to downplay my achievements. This group is helping me to acknowledge the things I actually do and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I hang around with a lot of serious triathletes and can get in a mode of only being critical of myself. Then I only count “serious” workouts and will skip shorter ones because they “aren’t enough–I’ll just wait until I can get a full hour in.” I end up moving less, getting more stiff and sore and start to lose the fun.” One participant added “I did not post even once in 2017, and just observed for an entire year. And even then, it helped me acknowledge for myself whenever I “worked out”, that I had done something. I occasionally managed to boulder or go to yoga, and i eventually made it to the equivalent Mom and baby classes.“
Both groups are still open — or, you could start your own!
YES! Reading about other people’s stories is so inspiring. Every time you see someone else working out and seeing improvements, you want to experience the same. There is such thing as being burnt out, but it’s just a matter of looking through these groups long enough and having access to the posts. Additionally, I find that groups are more effective if they are more active as well–you are absolutely right in that people often felt isolated in their routines and it was hard to find them to connect with people in a different way!