by Spectrum Wellness
We’ve sung from this hymn sheet several times: a fit and healthy team is a productive and happy one. Not every business has the facilities or the room to provide a gym to their employees but that doesn’t mean they can’t encourage fitness in other ways. Here are some fitness in the workplace ideas to inspire you and your colleagues to get moving!
Desk Yoga
Working at a desk all day long can cause a number of musculoskeletal issues, particularly around the shoulder, neck and back regions. It’s important to stay mobile and to keep those muscles moving. An easy way to do this is putting a Desk Yoga class in place once or twice a week. It’s fun, easy and doesn’t require any equipment or extra space. It’s also good for the mind as well as the body!
Resistance Band Classes
Resistance Bands are one of the most versatile pieces of fitness equipment and they take up hardly any space at all. Resistance Band classes can even be done beside your desk if you don’t have a spacious meeting room or empty space to hold classes. Resistance bands allow you to perform strength exercises without weights, can be adapted based on fitness and strength levels and are excellent for mobility exercise; again, this is important for desk workers!
Walking track
No extra space at all? No interest in desk yoga from the employees? Painting a walking tracking inside and outside the building, including start and finish lines as well as KM markers is a clever and fun way of encouraging employees to get moving. Encouraging walk and talk meetings are a great way of prompting your colleagues to use the track; it’s a great talking point for anyone visiting the building!
Go digital
For most people, fitness must fit into our individual lifestyles, not the other way around, so going digital might be the best way to encourage movement and exercise. There are a number of ways to do this, but one that a lot of companies find effective is the introduction of a health and wellness portal. It gives employees access to an array of health and fitness resources, screenings and more. This is an excellent way of introducing health and fitness into the company culture.
Set Challenges
A little healthy competition can be incredibly positive in terms of team building, so why not introduce a few fitness challenges? Rewarding employees for achieving step goals, attending a certain number of fitness classes, completing 5k runs are all excellent ways of encouraging them to get moving. This is something you can also do digitally through virtual games, making it easier, more visual and more accessible.
