A fitness trend that's truly inspiring
If you lack motivation to get your daily allotment of exercise in then you may want to consider attaching greater significance to your 20-minute jog than simply losing weight or getting into a one-piece minus the sarong. In fact, maybe you may want to dedicate the effort to someone who really needs a boost in your surrounding community.
That’s precisely what one UK group has decided to do by turning a daily run into a means of offering much needed community support to the loneliest population, reports The Guardian.
Goodgym is a running group based in London, England that pairs runners with “isolated less-mobile people in their area,” primarily seniors on their own. Called “coaches”, the seniors are living breathing reasons for runners to get up and out.
Here’s how it works: runners that sign up for the group (it's free to join, though a small donation is suggested) commit to at least one run a week in which they jog to a lonely or isolated senior’s house, “deliver something nice, have a brief chat and are on their way again,” explains the website.
See a short video of how the experience has affected two runners and their coaches below.
As the video suggests, the pay-off is far greater than simply burning calories or staying active. Both the runner and the person being visited benefit physically, emotionally and psychologically. The runner gets the necessary motivation to lace up after work, or on the weekend and the senior receiving a visit gets a necessary gesture of support and compassion.
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Flannery Dean is a journalist based in Hamilton, Ont. She has written features on a range of health topics for Chatelaine—from the healthiest time to eat dinner to new cancer screening protocols. Her work also appears in The Narwhal, the Globe and Mail and The Guardian.
