We can work it out: team bonding

• NAOMI HULBERT
• 29 January 2008
• Page 1 of 2 : single page

Photo credit: CHRIS CHEN

The challenge

We’re both business-owners and professional writers, so we spend a lot of hours sitting in front of computers. Unfortunately, that tends to lead to muscular strain (and pain), weariness, lack of motivation and isolation, not to mention rapidly-thickening girths and rear-ends! Our goal was to get fit, get motivated and get energy… and to improve our working relationship by doing it as a team. We both wanted more flexibility and guidance than a standard gym membership could offer, so we went for an integrated media option:

www.itrainer.com.au.

Week 1

Dear Diary… Can’t believe Stu actually agreed to this. Tells me he hasn’t exercised regularly since uni days, but fitness doesn’t come so naturally post-30. Now with two kids, heavy workload and busy social life, is hard for him to find time. Me? Spent good part of last year sitting on bum in light aircraft and 4WDs travelling through outback, eating burgers, chips and Chicken Kiev. Put on six kilos, not feeling pretty.

I’ll admit I was apprehensive at the start, since training with someone else equalled accountability, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that! But keen to get started nevertheless. We both logged on to www.itrainer.com.au and paid our $29.95 each for the eight-week program: sign-up was straightforward. Stu and I chose the ‘Out and About’ workout because we could do it anywhere, and the difficulty level was supposedly average.

I had a few tech issues with the podcast, somehow downloading Workout 6 from iTunes instead of Workout 1. I suspect this was a ‘user error’ based on my ignorance, rather than any actual technical problem. I visited the iTrainer website to find out what was wrong but, what the hell was my password? I couldn’t for the life of me remember. And once I started thinking about it, where were my SMS reminders? I requested a new password and waited two days for a response. A phone number on the site would definitely have been handy. Not a promising start.

Eventually I got over the tech hump and we started training. Yeesh! They call this average? I have discovered running up hill is NOT my thing. The audio descriptions of stretches were hard to visualise, though I did remember most from my gym days of yore. Perhaps iTrainer could post diagrams of the stretch poses on the website for users to double-check their form. I guided Stu through the stretches, after first enjoying a thorough belly-laugh at his own attempts. I also had to advise him that star-jumps had died out in the 70s. Laughing tones the stomach muscles, right?

Team-building

Most of today’s forward-thinking companies run regular team-building events to boost their business. Taking your employees away from the daily grind to exercise, socialise or problem-solve together brings a number of associated pay-offs back to the office. These include better support for company objectives, improved communication, faster and more positive conflict resolution, a personal sense of purpose, and, extrememly important in today's culture of work/life balance, increased job satisfaction. And if workouts aren't your thing, a number of businesses now offer specialist programs to improve teamwork your office.

Week 2

Dear Diary… Check out self in mirror: no noticeable shrinkage in rear-end as yet, though feel smug about all that exercise and start looking down nose at more sedentary friends. Go shopping for cool new Stella McCartney for Adidas workout gear, citing ‘personal motivation’ as excuse. Meanwhile, Stu needs to ditch the Batman trainers (chosen by toddler son) in favour of proper running shoes.

It isn’t easy to work my timetable in with Stu’s, but it’s been good to have company through the pain. We’re both beginning to learn the value of blocking out time for training: we’ll never manage this if we try to play it by ear. We agree to commit to one hour for training, three days a week, and stick to it no matter what. I think lunch workouts might be the go for us.

I’m a bit over the same music: no more 'Summer Rain' remix please! I’m still having download problems with iTunes, needing to reload some workouts. And I still haven’t figured out iTrainer’s promised but non-existent SMS alerts, so in all likelihood will give up on these and monitor myself. Again, it helps to have someone else counting on me to be consistent.

Break a sweat

Need a compelling reason (or two) to get off your backside, and support employees who want to do the same? Ponder this during the TV ads:

• Fit workers make 60 per cent less errors on jobs involving concentration and short-term memory

• Vigorous exercise in the middle of the day improves mental alertness and productivity for up to five hours afterwards

• A Canadian journal found job turnover among fitness program participants was more than 32 per cent lower over seven years than with non-participants

• In a 12-month study of 884 employees who took part in a workplace fitness program, those who exercised just once a week cut their average number of sick days in half

(Source: Sport & Recreation New Zealand, www.sparc.org.nz)