The Importance Of Your Fitness Community

Today we have a guest blog post by our newest addition to the HFF Team – Coach Rachel. If you haven’t had a chance to meet her yet, find out all the fun details by clicking HERE 

Hint: she is so awesome that she’s the first HFF coach in history to require TWO supersheroins to adequately represent her 😉

Take it away, Rachel…

When building a rocket ship–or something more basic like a house, there are key components to making sure it is sustainable and well built so it lasts a long time. If you’re building a house, you start with a solid foundation because without it, the house will certainly crumble and fall.

You build up from there, making sure each addition to the house is strong and well structured. You wouldn’t dare forget to add in the plumbing (unless you want to dig a hole out back).

In a perfect world, we should all take this same mentality towards our health and fitness journey. What seems to happen is that we pick one or two aspects that go into having a successful health and fitness journey and let the others fall behind. Your body deserves the same love, time and thoughtfulness that goes into building a home.

Many people miss out on important aspects of the journey because they simply weren’t educated on what constitutes the core foundations.

Fear not… we’re trained for this, and we’re here to help.

The Core Foundations

So, what are the core foundations, and which one is often the missing link?

I would say the core foundations to a successful journey are: mindset, nutrition, movement and the missing link– a fitness community.

One thing I hear frequently from clients and friends is something to the effect of :

“I’m doing okay, but ____ doesn’t support me.”

Sure, this can be a bummer, but it doesn’t have to be like that. At the end of the day, not everyone has to get your journey, well because–it’s yours. It can be extremely defeating though to feel like you are walking this alone.

I find those most successful in their journey have some sense of a fitness community supporting them. It could be the culture at the gym, or a specific workout buddy, or simply a supportive or encouraging friend in their life.

Community: a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

Finding Your Fitness Community

I may be a wee bit biased but this has to be one of the greatest aspects of HFF. The culture and community here are unlike any other. You could walk in on any given day and see a pilot, stay at home mom, doctor, dancer and lawyer all working out together and truly having a great time. There’s no ego here; judgment is left at the door and when our members walk in they are welcomed into an environment that encourages growth, knowledge, mindfulness and overall an experience that makes fitness enjoyable.

You may be like me, and usually prefer to workout alone. That’s okay, you have to honor your personality on this journey. But I must admit, even as a tried and true introvert, I have developed an even deeper love and commitment for my journey through the involvement in this community.

Your support base doesn’t have to be big. It can be as simple as your “newly supportive” grandmother  acknowledging the fact you’d rather not “double fist” her homemade oatmeal raisin cookies and that’d you like to bring your own healthier pumpkin pie to Thanksgiving.

You can absolutely find a community that will support you and your health and fitness goals. If you haven’t done so already, come check us out at HFF and get a taste of what it feels like to be supported within a compassionate and fun community.

If you don’t feel  deeply rooted with others that support your goals, seek out a place, a group or friends. Have some honest and open conversations with loved ones about why this journey is important and see how they respond. If there are people in your life who haven’t been supportive, maybe all they need is to understand why this matters so much to you. With seeing your passion, you may inspire someone else to begin their own journey.

A fitness community, do you have one?

How has your journey benefited from being a part of a supportive community?