Gym instructors fit in fun online workout to beat lockdown blues
TWO gym instructors who worked at four Link4Life leisure centres in Rochdale launched a full free timetable online for anyone to use.
On March 19, Elaine, 45, and Jay Stott, 48, saw the doors to the leisure centres and didn’t know when or if they would return.
It was the first time in 25 years that Elaine hadn’t worked as a fitness instructor, but by the next week, Elaine and Jay had launched a full timetable on Facebook.
The couple invited members and people they knew to join their GymBuddies2020 group and livestream.
By the end of the first week they had 603 people taking part, made up of 17 nationalities.
Elaine said: “We did all of this live from our living room and continued to deliver 24 sessions across five days a week, for 22 weeks.
“We’d only thought we’d be doing it for a month at the maximum!
“The majority of the group have actually told us they’re fitter than they were before lockdown, which has been really great to hear.
“As lockdown wore on, we noticed that people weren’t always their usual bubbly selves.
“We saw a marked decline in the mental health of the people we knew, and we knew we had to do something.
“Getting active is great to make some space for yourself in the day. Moving your body also releases endorphins, which helps you feel and sleep better.
“We were already putting on lots of opportunities for people to get active, so we knew we had to do more.
The couple set the group small challenges and introduced fun sessions like sing on your doorstep Sunday, formal clothes Friday, having GymBuddies2020 t-shirts made for everyone, celebrating VE day together and encouraging people to post selfies celebrating little, everyday wins, no matter what they were.
Elaine and Jay also took socially distanced walks with small groups, when they could, and let everyone know they could reach out to them.
In addition, the vintage-loving couple researched and published mental health and self-care information on the page, and provided signposting to mental health and wellbeing services. Jay added: “The pandemic hasn’t been easy for any of us, but we hope we’ve managed to inspire people and give them somewhere to turn to if they need us.
“Yes, we wanted to keep people moving, but more than that we wanted to make sure they were feeling okay, sleeping okay and dealing with whatever the pandemic threw at them.
“Getting active, even for 10 minutes at a time, helps with all of that.