The ‘good gym’ where you get fit as you lend others a hand
Like many people at this time of year, i’ve joined a gym. But it’s not just any gym. There are no exercise bikes or dumbbells, and there aren’t even any changing rooms. i’ve joined gyms before, but, after a month or two of religious exercise, i slip out of the habit — gyms are essentially very boring.
But the members of the new one i’ve joined, GoodGym, hate treadmills, crosstrainers and generic workout music as much as i do.
instead of running on treadmills, GoodGym’s members run to the houses of elderly or ill people who need help around the house, or who simply crave company. They might run to a community project that involves clearing land or planting trees. The idea is that they are getting fit while doing something good — and that’s motivating.
GoodGym operates in 28 areas around the Uk and has plans to open in 70 more in the next few years. its 3,000 members have so far completed more than 42,000 ‘missions’ (i.e. runs), it says.
it might sound worthy, but there are huge plus points for the runners.
First, it’s a lot harder to not do the exercise when you know someone is waiting for you at the other end. ‘ People never cancel because they’re emotionally invested,’ says Nina Mehmi, who organises missions for GoodGym.
Second, GoodGym is free and not-for-profit. it does recommend a voluntary monthly subscription of £9.95, but compared with High Street gyms that can charge £150 a month, that’s nothing.
After signing up online and completing a DBS check (a government check to make sure you are safe to work with vulnerable people), you can join events via the GoodGym website. At this point, you decide how far you’d like to run — some members run six miles, others one or two.
Then a meeting place is arranged — runners are always sent in pairs when they go on missions.
Nina and i are to visit Valerie and Victor Devos, a couple in their 70s, referred to GoodGym by the local housing association.
We meet at a Tube station in east London and run to Valerie and Victor’s Poplar home — they need help clearing their very tangled garden. We use the Google Maps app on Nina’s phone for directions and, after running a few miles, we are there.
The couple’s garden is covered in overgrown shrubs, tangled trees, and piles of muddy autumn leaves. everything in it looks dead.
Valerie, 72, tells us they haven’t been able to use it for seven years.
As they got older, she and her husband Victor, 76 — who suffers from atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat, and oedema, a buildup of fluid that has made his legs swollen and sore — found the work to maintain it became too much.
‘ i tried to clear the garden myself, but i couldn’t cope,’ says Valerie. ‘i needed help because i wanted to be able to sit out there with Vic in the summer so he could get some fresh air. Sometimes, he doesn’t leave the house because he finds it so hard to walk.’
Outside, equipped with rakes and garden shears, Nina and i pile the debris into huge bags until everything is cleared. it’s tiring work, and the effect on your arm muscles is not dissimilar to doing pull-ups and weights at the gym.
Most jobs don’t take longer than a couple of hours because they’re designed for people that need to fit them around busy lives.
Becky, a 29-year- old member who has run six miles to join our mission, thinks this is the key.
‘i get so bored at normal gyms,’ she says. ‘it’s so repetitive, it really feels like a chore, but here you’re using your energy to help people.’
Becky has been on more than 400 missions. ‘i’ve done things like rearranging people’s furniture,’ she says. ‘it has the same effect as a bench press at the gym.’
ivo Gormley, a former documentary maker and now GoodGym’s CeO, had the idea for the ‘social gym’ in 2008 when he realised he wasn’t doing any exercise.
He said: ‘ My friends started telling me i should join a gym because, at the age of 27, i was more than 13 st [he’s 6ft 3in] and inactive.
‘But i didn’t want to go to a sweaty basement and run on a treadmill. it felt like a waste of time and energy.
‘instead, i started running to take a newspaper to an isolated older man called Terry — the ex-builder of a friend’s parents.
‘Most days, he told me i needed to run there faster, because he wanted his paper, so i did and i got fitter. i started thinking maybe other people would like to do something similar.
‘it works because what you’re doing at our gym is a distraction from the pain of exercising. Often, at the end of a mission, you tell someone they’ve run six kilometres and they can’t believe it.
‘You get a double sense of satisfaction because you’ve exercised and done something good.’