Every January, millions of people resolve to improve their health and wellness by joining a gym, but not everyone succeeds. You can increase your members’ success rate by organizing and running a lifestyle challenge in 2020 with help from Wodify Rise - the intuitive challenge software that costs nothing to get started. You don’t even have to have a Wodify Core account, and your participants can download the Rise app for free.
For inspiration, here are 10 challenge ideas to get your gym’s members on the road to better health:
The 800g Challenge is a great one to run because it’s easy to explain to your members: Eat 800g of fruits and/or vegetables everyday. After that, they can have anything else they feel like. It’s also easy on gym owners because there is a off-the-shelf product built by OptimizeMe Nutrition for Wodify Rise, saving tons of time.
Many fitness programmers will include a Finisher or a Cash-Out, designed to be completed after the metcon. However, participation varies. Encourage your members to stick around and complete the finisher by incorporating it into a month-long fitness challenge.
Create a list of tough functional fitness movements: pistols, hand-stand pushups, dubs, OHS, pull-ups, etc. Ask participants to choose a weakness to practice and log the reps each day for a month.
Part of completing a challenge is getting your members of their comfort zone. Use this site or others to find examples for your participants to change things up. Ideas can be as simple as trying a new recipe to cutting back on social media to overcoming a fear of heights.
Get your participants to stretch for 15 minutes a day. You’ll find tons of examples of stretching routines and programs online for inspiration. Make it a part of your class schedule or have members ask family, friends, or co-workers to join them outside the gym to make the challenge more enjoyable.
Ask members to choose a day to make their meals for the week. It will free up their day, saving time and energy required to run to the store for quick trips. Plus, they’ll wind up making fewer convenient-but-not-nutritional food choices.
Challenge your members to take an early walk before breakfast or even before heading to the gym. Bring a water bottle instead of coffee to get the blood flowing without caffeine. If pressed for time in the morning, move the walk to the early afternoon, perhaps with co-workers in lieu of a coffee break. If the weather’s bad, climb an interior flight of stairs.
Have your participants set aside some time everyday (as little as 5 minutes) and practice mindful meditation. There are mobile apps available (we like Headspace) to download, or they can do a quick search online for helpful tips to get started.
Gamify the Wodify Pulse experience in your gym by having belt owners record their daily MEPs into their Rise app.
Have participants choose one space around them each day and spend 5 minutes de-cluttering. Workspace, bedroom, car, backyard, kitchen, living room...tidy up a different spot each day to help stay more organized.
We hope this list gives you some ideas to help motivate and engage your members through a lifestyle.
BONUS: If you are running a nutrition-focused challenge, check out this blog from Renaissance Periodization co-founder Dr. Michael Israetel to help you get the most out of it. Good luck!
Need more inspiration to get moving? Read the 5 Mixed Martial Arts Moves to Master
