This is a quick scratch pad post to share a few community concepts to help you build healthy athletic communities.
- Mission and charter that extend beyond driving sales or renewing members.
- Guiding principles
- Experienced, certified and competent coaches on the community leadership team
- Games, leveling, rewards and leader boards
- Fast feedback
- Diverse membership
- Technology Enabled (Data and Apps)
For example, CrossFit Regulus, a gym in Northern Nevada has a charter to be the ‘Happiest CrossFit Gym in the World”. The gym owner, a former UNR wide receiver is determined to leave his legacy by executing on this concept. He believes his gift is to light the path for all types of people on their healthy journey. He invests time to meet each member personally, he remembers their names, he inquires and probes as a part of their on-boarding process at Regulus in order to help fine tune his coaching methods for the CrossFit daily ‘WOD’ – or workout of the day.
Opening exercise at his gym starts during warm up when he and all his coaches form a circle and each introduce themselves and answer a question, such as, ‘what you ate for dinner’. Simple, right? Doesn’t require props or complicated supplies, yet is a subtle way that allows everyone to focus on each other, practice active listening and think about their own health decisions or perhaps other fuel decisions they could make to accompany their fitness regime. Not quite the corporate team meeting experience, right? Behind this ‘question’ is a change management technique that calls you to action to be accountable for what you ate and/or what you could consider consuming that very day. Additionally, it allows people to connect with one another on a first name basis and slowly start to form an affiliation and relatedness with other humans, the coaches and the gym.
Co-owner, Jamie Thomas, who is currently a criminal justice student and UNR cheerleader, is constantly weaving across the gym to provide adjustments, coaching and technique feedback. There is no ‘sandwich technique’ – it’ simple. You get input on your approach, your form and/or inspiration to dig deeper to find a new level that you could realize.
Technology and applications allow members to easily connect with one another online, get alerts, connect with your fellow members and track your progress against others on the leaderboard. The application has a concept for fast feedback through a ‘fist pump’ in sugarwod or more active engagement through a comment. These tools allow you to capture the data associated with your ‘FGB- Fight Gone Bad’ or ‘AMRAP’ as many reps. They provide you with different levels in which you can scale your WOD and also incentives to reach the RX – or prescribed work out. Those of us who thrive on data enjoy this number chasing game which fuels some people to strive for a personal record (PR) or simply a journal which shares trends over time.
What an impressive result that within 14 short years, the CrossFit exercise program which combines Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics and aerobic exercises into a workout routine grounded in community principles has driven societal culture change. Hats off to Greg Glassman former gymnast who trademarked and founded these phenomena according to the Los Angeles Times.
