Three-Peat: VCU kicks off fitness program

By Patrick Fernandez

As the summer heats up, the Global Corporate Challenge is back in season at Virginia Commonwealth University. Determined university participants gathered last week to kick off this wellness program created for the betterment of worker morale and fitness.

VCU joined the Global Corporate Challenge three years ago under the supervision of Debbie Fitzgerald, coordinator of work/life resources for VCU Human Resources, in an effort to increase the wellness of the workforce.

"It has grown from our first year at seven teams and 49 contestants, to 14 teams and 98 contestants," Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald would like to see the challenge become a growing annual project to advance the wellness of the VCU workforce one step at a time.

As the 14 teams of VCU join the 57,000 teams worldwide for this challenge, the goals stay the same: to boost morale within the workplace, improve productivity, higher job satisfaction, better team work, reduced absenteeism and stronger engagement.

Through this challenge, participants are encouraged to walk 10,000 steps a day, the World Health Organization’s recommended average amount of daily steps needed to achieve an active lifestyle, whether it is walking outside, walking around the office, walking their dog, or even walking around their bedroom while they watch TV. No matter the action, all of it is tracked by the GCC "Pulses"— accelerometers — that participants wear and from which they enter information through the online interface named "GCC Me."

The challenge officially started Wednesday, May 28, and VCU held a kickoff the day before with an inside warm-up session at the University Student Commons led by Recreational Sports' Assistant Professor Eric West. West demonstrated stretches for muscles such as quadriceps and hamstrings, as well as how to effectively warm up before a walk to prevent injury.

Each VCU team — ScRAMbled Legs, VCU Avengers, Ramzillas, Team Hazardous Waist, Garage Entourage, Health Nuts, RVA Miracle Walkers, Between a Walk and a Hard Pace, Pedominators, Healthy Havoc, Best Under the Sun, Havoc in Heels, Walking Havoc and VCU Globetrotters — consists of seven walkers.

Hazardous Waist member Roma Maraj-Owen, assistant director at the Chemical Biological Safety Section of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said her team is well prepared for the challenge.

"Most people that work within this department do a lot of walking anyway,” she said, "Some of us even go to the gym after work just to rack up our steps for the day."

As for the heat of the summer becoming more and more apparent, Dana Rajczewski, Family Medicine and Population Health administrative assistant and member of the RVA Miracle Walkers team remains undaunted.

"I feel as if the temperature outside sometimes determines how much you are willing to go out and walk, but I feel as if our team will figure a way around it," she said.

The challenge’s outreach and popularity at VCU has grown substantially since its start three years ago. Because of the limited amount of supplies and starter kits available, there is a wait list for participants. Fitzgerald thought it would be beneficial this year to select more first timers, not only to promote wellness within those who might not otherwise participate in these types of daily activities, but also to expand the scale of participants in hopes of advancing the popularity of this challenge at VCU.

As of Day 8, VCU’s walkers combined had already taken more than 6 million steps and walked more than 2,500 miles.

The challenge ends Sept 4.

For information on joining the movement, contact Debbie Fitzgerald at dmfitzge@vcu.edu.

 

Subscribe for free to the weekly VCU News email newsletter at http://newsletter.news.vcu.edu/ and receive a selection of stories, videos, photos, news clips and event listings in your inbox every Thursday. VCU students, faculty and staff automatically receive the newsletter.