What are the team work benefits associated with outdoor group fitness?
(Spice Girls reference below)
You may have noticed that when you come to a an outdoor fitness class at MFT global, there are other people there. This may seem like an obvious statement, but we made the conscious decision to run group sessions as, due to our military background, we believe strongly in the benefits of interaction, cooperation and teamwork.
A group setting has many positive aspects to it;
Social; in a world of smartphones, iPads and wandering around trying to find superimposed animated characters, it’s easy to get lost in your own world. For many of us, the time commitment of organised sport is no longer practical, leaving us with either solo trips to the gym or no involvement in fitness at all. Many people who have used team sport at school and university as their fitness outlet can struggle to carry on when confronted with the treadmill or weight machines, which require solo effort and maximum motivation.
But at our outdoor fitness classes, you’re part of something more, a team, a group of people together for fun and fitness. Who knows who you’ll meet and get to know. So, leave the Pokemon for a while and come with a friend and meet and interact with some new people. See where we train here: https://localhost/mft_two/locations/
Accountable; Professor Stuart Phillips of McMaster University has stated several times that the best diet in the world is the one you can stick with, and that the only common factor that all successful diets have is accountability from a group support network. If weight loss results are your goal and with this in mind come to our sessions and develop your own group to whom you can be accountable. Work out, enjoy it, set some targets and let your group know and support you.
Group dynamics; Far from groups and teams becoming one amorphous blob of thought and action, the best teams appear to have very different people within it, each performing their own role. Think the Spice Girls rather than All Saints. So bring yourself to the bootcamp, we need your skills, perhaps your leadership and definitely your jokes. Perhaps you have better movement skill than the strong guy, perhaps you are the strong guy either way within a team there’s a role for everyone and we like to make sure that you can contribute to the session, and everyone’s experience in it.
Enjoyment; the key to coming back is that it’s fun. Are you going to plug yourself into a treadmill for an hour, or come and work with us, your new friends and challenge your body in ways you hadn’t thought before. When you set up that comparison, it becomes an easy decision.
If you were wondering whether an MFT outdoor fitness class was for you, yes it is, it’s for everybody, welcome to our team!
Rich
Head of Research
MFT Global
As ever we release information that is based on research. Check out the references below:
Is there a “Big Five” in teamwork?
E Salas, DE Sims, CS Burke – Small group research, 2005 – sgr.sagepub.com
Adherence to exercise and affective responses: comparison between outdoor and indoor training.
Lacharité-Lemieux M, Brunelle JP, Dionne IJ.
Effects of minimal group promotion on cohesion and exercise adherence
JJ Annesi – Small Group Research, 1999 – sgr.sagepub.com