Why are we making you exercise with a group?
Watch any sporting event or competition and listen to the winner’s interview at the end. What’s the number one thing they always note as the key to their success? “If not for my fans, friends, family, the crowd here….” The support, the people. Just thinking about those people even as you exercise alone can help boost your energy:
“Everything I do, all year, training so hard, it’s all about this moment when we’re all together, this crowd, these people, this excitement of what we all love doing together. I feed off them, they feed off me. [Crowd roars] See that?”
– Vermonter Mathew Fraser, 2017 World CrossFit Games Champion (5-times games competitor and now back-to-back champ; he earned 1132 out of 1300 points – the most dominant win in CrossFit history)
So why are we asking you to exercise with a group?
Let’s continue to break it down. Simply put, friendships are invaluable. Of course we know that in our gut but science always likes to prove what intuition has made immutable for millennia.
- Friends help keep you accountable.
- Friends help you handle rejection and loss.
- Friends provide resources and ideas on how to get handle a myriad of situations. They don’t call it crowdsourcing for nothin’.
- Friends help you see reality so you’re not beating yourself up more than you deserve yet not wasting away in denial.
- Just being together helps reduce inflammation and increase immune function. This is huge people. Your DNA actually changes. We’re talking at the cellular level. Your whole body takes on a stronger immune response.
- Sharing information and staying quick witted with your friends helps stave off dementia.
- Friends help influence our behaviors. If you’re surrounded by people who are healthy or trying to be healthy, that effort only multiplies. Behavior is contagious!
And so much more. The bottom line is that good friendships and loving-kindness add quality years to your life. People who live to 100 and beyond cite life-long friendships as crucial. Japanese children are connected to friends as toddlers and attend weekly meetings for life – yes, for life! Happiness and Positive Psychology pioneer Chris Peterson famously said, “Other people are the antidote to all that ails.”
Be with a good group of people this week while you burn some calories and see how great it makes you feel. Why, we get goose bumps just from seeing all the pictures of your smiling faces enjoying healthy living and summer together.
So why are we asking you to exercise with a group?
We don’t think it will make you a super champion in grueling sport but we know it will make you a champion in your own heart, with your own pursuits and in your own community. Fist bump.