Inside a Workplace Strength Class: Three Months at Irish Life's LifeFit Centre

The LifeFit Centre at Irish Life opened its doors on 18 May. The Strong class started shortly after, on Tuesday evenings.

Three months on, the workplace strength class is close to full most weeks, and it is largely the same people in the room.

What follows is a look at what has happened there since May, and at what the group have built between them.

What a workplace strength class asks of a coach

The people in the Strong class did not arrive with the same experience. Some had trained before. Plenty had not.

A room like that asks a lot of a coach. The same forty-five minutes has to work for someone lifting for the first time and someone who has been training for years, and the conditions for that are built over weeks rather than set on day one.

Andreya Mooney is one of the Fitvision coaches who works with the group. She is deliberate about how she sets a room up, and clear about why:

"With a range of training abilities coming into a class I feel it is so important, as an instructor, to provide a space where everyone, regardless of their strength levels or abilities, feels included and can feel they are getting the most out of their session, both physically and mentally. I always demonstrate progressions and regressions for different exercises and put out a variety of weights. I ensure to tell people throughout the class that if an exercise does not sit well we can change it, to take their time with form, and to just ask if they have any questions. Reiterating this throughout classes is really important."

The detail worth noticing is the repetition. Not saying it once at the start, but saying it again through the session. Permission to modify an exercise only works if people believe it still applies twenty minutes in, when they are tired and the person beside them is lifting heavier.

Confidence shows up alongside strength

That groundwork shows in what has changed since May. Asked about the group, Andreya talks about strength and confidence together.

"You can see people coming out of their shells. They are less apprehensive about asking questions regarding certain exercises."

A question asked out loud in a room full of colleagues is a small act of trust. It happens now, and it did not at the start.

The physical progress has come with it:

"The form has improved and their strength has improved over the weeks. They all try to push themselves in the class and are really focused on what they are doing in the movement."

And then the part she is most pleased about:

"What I love is seeing someone gain the confidence to challenge themselves, perhaps by increasing weight or progressing a movement on their own merit. It really shows they are starting to understand the foundations for progress."

On their own merit. Not because a coach told them to add weight, but because they decided they were ready. That is the difference between someone following a class and someone training.

Different departments, same mats

Something else has happened in that room that nobody scheduled.

"There are people from different departments and over time you can see people making connections, whether they are partnered up for exercises or just talking about the class."

These are colleagues in the same organisation who, in the ordinary run of a working week, would have little reason to meet. A Tuesday evening circuit put them on adjacent mats.

You can see it in how the class runs now. People arrive glad to see each other. They partner up without being asked. During a head-to-head effort in the middle of a circuit, with the rest of the room holding a plank, there is slagging beforehand and then everyone goes for it anyway.

Cross-department connection is on most HR teams' list of things they would like more of, and it tends to arrive sideways, as a by-product of people doing something together regularly. That is more or less what happened here.

The part that happens after the class ends

The most telling thing Andreya said was about the ten minutes nobody schedules.

"Over the last while I have gotten to know a lot more names. Building rapport with people is really so special, whether it is just talking about their holidays or weekend plans. Many conversations spark from simple questions. Hearing everyone's different stories and interests as people put weights away or tidy up the mats is really nice."

Weights being put away. Mats being tidied. That is where the relationships are actually formed, and it only happens if the coach is still in the room when the session finishes. A coach who knows whether someone is in three days a week or only on Tuesdays knows the difference between a person who has drifted off and a person who is working from home this week

That is the kind of understanding that comes from being there, and it shapes how the class is run. It is the same approach across the gyms we manage onsite.

Where this sits

Three months is not a long time, and there is more of this story still to come.

What the group have done so far is worth saying plainly. They have kept showing up. They ask more questions than they used to. Several of them are lifting heavier because they decided they were ready. And they have found something in each other's company that keeps bringing them back on a Tuesday evening.

That is down to them, and it has been a pleasure working with the group.

Fitvision manages onsite gyms and wellbeing programmes for organisations across Ireland. If you have a facility and want more people using it, get in touch.