Why people keep turning up

I realised something on Saturday morning, at an Arena Games event at Apex Ability Gym, where I train. It was 90 minutes with three workouts in teams of four, and none of it was scored; no judges and no leaderboard. There was good music and a lot of laughing, and we finished with donuts and photos.

I also got to catch up with people I don’t always see in the week, which made me think about why people keep going back to group exercise. Because it’s rarely the workout.

A Bournemouth University study looked at three community group exercise programmes in the South West of England and spoke to 27 people aged 60 and over, all of whom had stuck with their programme for at least a year. What kept them coming was mostly social: feeling they belonged, support from others, an instructor who treated them as a person and the music. And Sport England’s latest research, published in April, points the same way; it says welcoming, social places help people stay active over time.

It’s a small study of older adults who’d already stuck with it, so it can’t tell us what makes everyone train, and fun isn’t a guarantee of results. But if you’ve been dragging yourself through training on willpower alone, maybe the fix isn’t a better plan. Maybe it’s a room, some music and a team who’d notice if you weren’t there.

So what’s the training you’d turn up to even if nobody was scoring it? Hit reply and tell me.

A quote worth sitting with

“When we move together, particularly in synchrony with other people, it alters our mindset.”

— Kelly McGonigal, health psychologist and author of The Joy of Movement, speaking to 24Life magazine in 2020.

The Saturday Standard

Nobody’s scoring

The standard is finishing every station inside its minute, all 40 of them, and if you miss one you drop the weight or the reps for the next round rather than giving up the minute. Pick loads you could finish in 30 to 40 seconds fresh. And if you can get three friends together, start on different stations and rotate as a team.

Come and train with us

If you’re near Whickham, CommFit is my group class at Rectory Hall on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7pm and Fridays at 6am. Total beginners train next to regulars, and everything scales to wherever you’re at.

Your first class is free and so is a friend’s first class, then it’s £5 a class.

And if Whickham’s too far, I also coach online. Just reply to this email and we’ll work out where to start.