Exercise | 123manken.com health blog

Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

Health Promotion : Workplace Exercise Programs – Employee Interest Survey.

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

To succeed in encouraging exercise during the workday, you must find out what staff members need and want. They’re the people whose behaviour you are trying to influence, so it’s critical to understand their needs and gain their support.

The Staff Member Interest Survey

Ask staff members questions that allow you to assess such key characteristics as age, gender, social relationships, family responsibilities and current exercise participation.

It’s important to know this information so that your exercise initiative meets employees’ needs. Staff Members aren’t going to participate in something they are not interested in.

Ask workers what they want, and then implement changes that fit with their needs and working conditions. for instance, workers may not want to do activities that make them sweat, because they don’t want to shower at work.

Ask staff members what the organization could do to make it easier for them to be more physically active during the workday. When there’s a common trend throughout your organization, a single change could affect a lot of people .

For instance, suppose a large group shows interest in bicycling to work. They could want to shower and change after their commute. You could give priority to installing workplace showers and changing facilities. Secure bike storage could be important as well.

If you’re launching a program that requires going outside, begin in the spring. By the time winter comes around, participation is already a habit.

Involving staff members is key to increasing exercise participation rates. Individuals are more willing to participate in and support exercise programs when they’re involved in decision making.

The following tips will help you produce your own employee interest survey –

• Keep it short (no longer than 10 minutes to complete).

• Let staff members know why you’re doing the survey.

• Rather than using all open-ended questions, which can be long and challenging to analyze, ask people to select from a drop-down list of possible responses.

• Ask for comments and suggestions in one open-ended question at the end.

• Make it confidential and anonymous. Don’t request information that may identify a individuals.

• If you are including a list of potential programs or environmental changes, make sure your workplace has the facilities and resources to offer them.

Health Promotion : Workplace Exercise Programs – Committees and Opportunities.

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Workplace Physical Activity Programs – Forming an Employee Committee

Although support from the top is critical to a successful initiative, support from other employees is also important.

Once you get the go-ahead from management, identify others who are interested in the project and form a committee to help determine the next steps.

Depending on the size of your workplace and the amount of staff time management is willing to contribute, this committee could be advisory or may plan and carry out the initiative.

The committee could include staff members from HR, occupational health and safety and finance. It’s also a good idea to involve staff from other areas who have an interest in promoting physical activity.

Terms of reference will define the boundaries of the project. for instance, it’s important for the committee to have clearly defined and understood tasks. Possible tasks include the following –

• Evaluating your workplace environment

• Carrying out an staff member interest survey.

• Developing a mission statement and goals and goals.

• Writing a physical activity or wellness policy declaring the organization’s commitment to physical activity.

• Brainstorming program ideas.

• Promoting, communicating and marketing and advertising the initiative.

• Coordinating specific activities.

• Deciding how the initiative will be investigated.

• Continually evaluating what’s or isn’t working and adjusting the plan.

Before making plans to encourage exercise during the workday, it’s important to find out what’s “doable” in your workplace.

You don’t want to increase employee expectations by offering something that’s impossible due to funding or space limits.

For example, it’s not realistic to suggest putting in a fitness facility if there’s no room for it. be open, however, to creative ways around limitations.

Workplace Exercise Programs – Locating out What’s Possible in Your Workplace

Check with recreation departments or fitness facilities for maps of the local walking trails or underground pedways. Excellent walking trails may be right around the block from your workplace.

Below are some questions to help you assess your workplace –

• What facilities or opportunities does your work space offer that make it easier to be physically active during the workday? for example, do you have stairs, bicycle racks, showers, space for a exercise facility, factory walking lanes?

• What nearby facilities or opportunities could staff members use to be more physically active during the workday? Are you close to sidewalks, walking trails, community centers, bicycle lanes for active commuting and/or exercise facilities?

• What resources are available?

• can the initiative access funds, personnel, space, equipment, facilities?

• What’s the structure of your organization? for instance, consider staff size, working hours, number of sites, unusual shifts, length of lunch breaks and ability to use flex time.

Health Promotion : Encouraging Employee Exercise Through Business Policy.

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

• Commit to workplace physical activity in policy statements and commit funding to physical activity initiatives.

• Clearly communicating the advantages of being physically active during the workday reinforces the organization’s commitment to assisting all employees be active.

Use meetings, bulletin boards, newsletters and e-mail to reach as many workers as possible at least once a year.

• Offer flex time for exercise. Invite staff members who actively commute to work or exercise at lunch to make up any missed time later in the day.

• Allow staff to work part time, so that they can participate in physical activity.

• Include a physical activity account in your benefit plan to pay for or subsidize fitness memberships, assessments, classes, counselling or instruction.

• Give interest-free loans for staff members to buy bicycles or good walking footwear/runners.

• Conduct periodic surveys of staff exercise preferences, and offer a variety of options to suit those interests and needs.

• Hire qualified individuals to lead stretch breaks or exercise programs or classes. for help in locating accredited fitness leaders, visit Alberta’s Provincial Fitness Unit.

• Recognize employees who participate in physical activity. Survey employees first to determine how they prefer to be recognized, e.g., through business newsletters, appreciation lunches, rewards and/or thank you notes.

• Provide child care and other family-friendly amenities during physical activities that occur after work.

• Avoid scheduling meetings over lunch.

• Be sure to encourage active breaks in lieu of coffee breaks.

• Have active fundraisers rather than bingos. for instance, staff members might climb the Calgary Tower stairs or take turns riding a stationary bike for 24 hours.

• Make birthday celebrations active times. Instead of a lunch, invite the birthday individuals to select an activity. Choices could include a session with a yoga teacher or an evening ski trip.

• Promote a casual dress day. One study found that employees who dress casually were more physically active.

Health Promotion : Health Promotion Programs and Exercise With Co-workers.

Friday, May 21st, 2010

• Organize a launch event to develop excitement about upcoming activities and to develop a social climate that establishes being active as the norm.

• Organize and promote monthly or bi-monthly company events that are fun and active, e.g., picnics with physical games, staff tournaments and dragon boat racing.

Be certain to encourage families to join in by including all-ages events like relay races, soccer matches, bocce ball and baseball games.

• Begin a swim club at a local pool. Invite groups of staff members to swim the distance of a nearby lake. Convert kilometres to lengths and reward staff members who complete the swim.

Be certain to set up a challenge between workers and managers to see who covers the greatest distance.

• Post a sign-up board where staff can enroll in a group or find a buddy to participate in activities of interest.

• Arrange a company badminton tournament that lasts several months, with each employee playing once a week. Post the results as the tournament progresses.

• Organize an office Olympics, World Cup, Wimbledon or Masters Games. Invite teams to compete in several activities over a month. Reward everyone who participates.

• Create a point system in which one minute of activity is equivalent to one point. Be certain to set a target, and post a chart where all staff members can track their points. Reward the first group to reach that target.

• Co-ordinate a stair climb challenge. Post a chart at the top of the stairwell, and encourage staff members to track the number of flights of stairs they climb each workday.

Make sure to set up teams, and award a prize to the first team to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest.

• Post and promote a sign-up board for lunchtime walking groups.

• Organize a walk “across the U.S. ” Select a route, figure out how many steps it’d take to walk that distance and challenge staff members to do it.

Provide or loan pedometers to workers, and ask them to record the number of steps they take. Or, when you cannot afford pedometers, track the minutes walked. Make certain to set up a challenge between workers and managers to see who can walk across the USA first.

• Co-ordinate a walk to work club. Acknowledge staff members who either walk to work or walk to public transit.

• Have a volunteer group leader guide weekly lunchtime power walks.

• Coordinate a million-step challenge. Form groups, challenge each group to walk a combined sum of a million steps and reward the winner. Departments or sites could compete with each other and with management.

• Challenge employees to walk 10,000 steps a day. Buy pedometers for all participating employees or, if you can’t afford that, make pedometers available at a lowered rate.

Give tips for increasing daily steps, and reward workers who succeed.

Brisk exercise beneficial to cut the risk of cancer

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

As per a new study, brisk exercise for only half an hour a day can reduce the risk of dying from cancer. Games like football, squash, jogging, swimming, rowing all of these lowers the risk of developing a cancer and dying from it.

The study found that people should do exercise for at least 30 minutes a day in order to gain the benefits. This study observes that some of the energetic physical activities are the best for diminishing the hazards of cancer, mainly of lung and gastrointestinal cancers.

They recommend that the power of free time physical actions contains a powerful and autonomous connection with cancer death. In order to appear on the conclusion, examiners followed 2,560 men from the age of 42 to 61 from eastern Finland having no history of cancer. They tested them and measure the strength of their exercise.

How to Gain Weight with Just One Exercise

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

When you are looking to gain weight, the first thing you should is to do dead lifts. If you are trying to get big but haven’t included dead lifts in your program, you are wasting your time because there is no more effective exercise than the dead lift. Every muscle in your body, from neck to calves, gets activated and receives powerful growth stimulation from dead lifts.

Dead lift is the most effective mass building exercise and also the most basic one also. It trains you for real life situations and helps to prevent the common lower back problems that outbreak…

Health Promotion : Health Promotion Programs – Focus on Exercise Plans.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Advantages of Fitness Programs

Exercise lowers weight, lowers risks of heart attack and stroke, helps to control blood pressure (BP) and diabetes, and improves mood. Studies increasingly show that exercise might also help reduce the occurrence of certain types of cancer.

Scientists at the Centers for Illness Control and Avoidance (CDC) recently documented another major advantage – exercise improves the health of the nation’s medical care expenditures.3 According to the CDC, physically active individuals incur $865 less per year in healthcare costs than inactive people .

Dr. Michael Moore, vice president and chief medical director at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, maintains that exercise is the most effective tool in health maintenance. “If you could prescribe exercise in a pill, it’d be the number-one prescribed treatment in the world,” he said.

In step with Dr. Moore’s prescription, nearly one-third of U.S. corporations help workers pay for fitness club memberships, as reported by an Associated Press report. Subsidizing fitness club memberships is just one way corporations encourage active lifestyles.

Popular fitness-forward initiatives –

• Start a company softball or volleyball league.

• Compile and distribute information about opportunities to join athletic groups in your community.

• Offer partial or complete reimbursement for fitness facility memberships.

• Hold aerobics, karate, yoga or other types of fitness courses on-site.

• Give extended lunch hours for employees who commit to lunchtime exercise plans.

• Introduce an on-site exercise facility that is free, or available at a nominal cost, to employees and their families.

• Conduct on-site health fairs that include fitness demonstrations and promote fitness activities and resources.

Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

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