National Employee Health and Fitness Day
National Employee Health and Fitness Day is the third (3rd) Wednesday in May each year and was created to promote the benefits of physical activity for individuals through their work site health promotion activities. Founded in 1989 National Employee Health and Fitness Day has enlisted tens of thousands of participants from employers around the world.
There are two types of fitness
Performance-related fitness:
Linked to athletic performance (for example: a 50-yard dash time or the ability to maneuver around obstacles quickly) and is linked to speed, reaction time, and coordination.
Health-related fitness:
Linked to fitness components that may lower risks such to high blood pressure, diabetes, or low back pain. Health-related physical fitness includes the following components:
- Aerobic fitness – ability of the heart and lungs to deliver blood to muscles
- Muscular strength and endurance – enough to do normal activities easily and protect the low back
- Flexibility – ability to move your many joints through their proper range of motion
- Body composition – not too much body fat, especially around the waist.
Beverly’s Hot Tips For Promoting National Employee Health And Fitness Day:
As an employer, provide and promote opportunities for fitness even during business disruption:
- help employees to measure and track their fitness level
- co-ordinate lunch hour walking or running groups
- sponsor step by step challenges
- reward fitness involvement
When we return to our workplaces again:
- offer off-site fitness center discounts
- encourage sport team participation
- promote community fitness groups
As an individual find an activity that you can get excited about:
- if running or walking alone bore you – walk with others who are also interested in the social opportunity of getting together – you can still talk while maintaining the 2m distance
- look for opportunities to learn while you exercise – I hate monotony – so I took up karate – it is complicated, never the same and allows me to learn about the history at the same time. Thankfully classes have started on-line.
- experiment – try something outside your comfort zone – you never know if it will be the spark that you are looking for
- age is never a barrier – almost all activities can be modified – my sons were involved in triathlons and were impressed to hear at that time that a colleague of mine who is in his 50’s, was doing his first triathlon that summer
With our busy lifestyles it is important that we make the time to take care of ourselves. Make the commitment to do one thing to increase your health-related fitness.
If you have some strategies to share – comment on this posting!
Additional Resources:
National Handwashing Awareness Week