There is no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives, livelihoods, communities and businesses worldwide. It has been an extraordinary few weeks that has seen unprecedented change for everyone including ourselves at ION.
Prior to the pandemic, and after a long 8 years of building, our environment at ION was the best it’s been with busy classes and exciting plans in place for the future, unfortunately, the handbrake had to come on and like so many other small businesses around the world we have had to shift the focus now to ‘survival mode’ so that when the lockdown is lifted, our doors can reopen, our coaches still have jobs and our loyal members still have somewhere to come and train.
At ION the health of our members and community will always be our top priority, we are extremely grateful for the support we have received through this testing time and we strive to continue to assist everyone to achieve their health and fitness goals during this lockdown period, in which mental and physical health is now more important than ever.
Here are some of the ways we are currently supporting our ION community
‘ION Lockdown Open’ our own version of the CrossFit Open, we post a weekly workout event Friday to be completed by the following Monday we then create our ION Leaderboard to add some friendly competition and keep people motivated!
9 Facebook Live Workouts per week including Mobility/Core, HIIT, Strength work and some our favourite hero WODs!
Members Private Facebook Group we use the members’ Facebook group all year round, but it has become an even more important communication tool over the past few weeks
Consistent Programming via our App – maintaining the structure of our face-to-face classes but adapted for home workouts with minimal/no equipment options
Gym Equipment loaned out to members at no rental cost
Coach led Saturday Social every Saturday evening our coaches host Facebook live social activity, so far we have had Quiz Night, Charades and Balderdash with over 80 members involved getting involved in each social
Nutrition Advice and Recipe Sharing we constantly share nutritional advice and recipes; our members also get involved with sharing their own healthy recipe ideas.
In addition to all of the above, the main way we are keeping our members engaged and motivated during this period is through our unique online health and wellbeing challenge. We set it up to help combat some of the struggles members are currently facing because of the COVID-19 situation. We labelled it the ‘ION 300 CHALLENGE’.
Our interactive digitally run challenge incorporates the main aspects of health and wellness, built by our knowledgeable and experienced team of coaches the challenge provides our members with a structured and informative program to keep them motivated and focused.
The challenge is run via the ION challenge app which provides members with daily tasks and a point system, the daily tasks are formed around 5 main pillars:
EXERCISE
NUTRITION
MINDSET
SLEEP
CONNECTIONS
Participants must complete the tasks to gain their daily points, this system helps to keep participants focused and accountable for their own actions. We also have a private Facebook challenge group to encourage interaction and engagement throughout. Our coaches will provide members with the rationale behind each of the tasks by sharing key research, learnings and their own experiences – the ongoing communication throughout the challenge is key for participants to gain the most out of the experience.
We currently have 270 members actively taking part in the challenge, they can all track their progress against other members via the in-app points leader board – another way to keep everyone accountable whilst also providing a bit of friendly competition!
Our previous challenges have led to some really impressive results, not only in members body comp results but also by contributing to a more positive outlook on their overall health and wellbeing. We believe that by providing a holistic approach, not just a quick fix weight loss challenge, we are helping our members improve both physically and mentally in several aspects of their lives.
This is a testing time for so many people and it has affected all our lives in some shape or form, the above are some of the ways we are supporting our community through this difficult time. Hopefully, there will also be some good to come out of all of this once lockdown is lifted and COVID-19 is eventually defeated. Now is a good time to pause, reflect and take the time to look at our lives and appreciate what’s important and what’s not important.
Stay safe, stay happy, stay at home
#ionlockdown #ioncommunity
