FOR THE LOVE OF HOCKEY
Fans increased their own fitness levels by using their favourite teams' facilities
Find an exercise routine you love, and you're more likely to stick with it. With that in mind, 11 of Scotland's top professional soccer clubs partnered with exercise experts to offer a 12-week healthy living program for overweight male soccer fans. The idea was to motivate sedentary fans with workouts in their home team's stadium rather than the local gym, offering unprecedented access to the same facilities used by their favourite professional players. The program used team rooms for chalk talks and the soccer pitch for physical activity sessions, threw in visits from athletes and had a competitive theme that complemented the participants' love of sports.
Dubbed Football Fans in Training (FFIT), the program was designed to appeal to men, who are less inclined than women to participate in weight loss and healthy living programs, despite their shorter life expectancy and an increased risk of chronic diseases and other lifestyle-related illnesses like gout, kidney stones and bladder cancer. The program was so popular that it opened up to both men and women, with more than 5,000 men and 2,000 women taking part since its debut in the fall of 2010. Word of its success resonated around the sporting world, with spinoffs related to rugby clubs in Australia and New Zealand and for hockey fans in Canada.
The first Hockey Fans in Training (HFIT) program was led by a team of health and fitness experts from Western University in London, Ont., in 2015. They teamed up with the London Knights and Sarnia Sting from the Ontario Hockey League, providing trained coaches to lead 80 middle-aged men through weekly 90-minute sessions over the course of 12 weeks in what the organizers described as a “gender-sensitive approach that appeals to men, but tailored to delivery within a Canadian context.”
Sessions were held at the Knights and Sting arenas when possible, with local fitness clubs as a backup, and featured classroom-based discussions on healthy eating, goal setting and physical activity, as well as workouts that focused on improving aerobic conditioning, muscular strength and flexibility. All of the activities relied on a hockey theme, with classroom time decreasing and the length of workouts increasing as the fitness level of the group improved.
A second Hockey Fans in Training program started up in New Brunswick, this time with the University of New Brunswick partnering with its varsity hockey team. The program welcomed 37 overweight male UNB Reds hockey fans between the ages of 35 and 65, who took part in weekly healthy living educational and physical activity sessions on the university campus.
Just like the FFIT program in Scotland, the HFIT programs were a success. The Canadian hockey edition graduated fans who weighed less, ate healthier and exercised more than they did before participating in the program.
“We found that men who participated in the Hockey Fit program lost weight, increased their steps per day and improved other clinical outcomes (e.g., systolic blood pressure), their diet and perceptions of their own health, to a greater extent compared to controls,” said the team from Western University.
The Ontario study reported an average weight loss of
3.6 kilograms that was sustained 12 months after the HFIT program ended. Participants in the New Brunswick program realized a drop in body mass index of two points (from 32.3 to 30.3), a 3.5 cm decrease in their waistline and a 1.9 per cent reduction in fat mass. They also improved their aerobic fitness.
“Results from this study suggest that it is feasible to recruit and retain middle age, overweight/obese men into a weight loss and healthy lifestyle program using sport fandom as a powerful draw,” said the Western University team.
It also proves that lifestyle changes are possible even among populations that have traditionally struggled to stay on track with programs designed to promote physical activity and healthy eating. The trick is to capitalize on their interests.
“It is clearly important to understand that men need to be attracted toward weight loss interventions and that sport provides this pathway for men to become engaged in lifestyle interventions,” said the New Brunswick researchers.
Using the same athletic facilities as a favourite sport team is one of the keys to success. Another positive aspect of the programs was the creation of a support network via closed social media groups in which the participants and coaches kept in contact outside of their regular meetings.
But perhaps the biggest takeaway is that, unlike the Scottish FFIT program, the hockey spinoffs used non-professional sports teams, thus making the program accessible to communities without an NHL team. Improving the health of Canadians through their love of hockey is a brilliant idea that can be emulated by teams from coast to coast.