Join the sgsco Strava Community
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, our staff across the UK and Europe are working from home. If you’re one of them, you might be interested in an online fitness group that’s been created so that colleagues can stay active and take part in friendly weekly competitions with each other. This positive community is hosted on Strava, a social fitness network that tracks running, cycling and other forms of exercise.
The app in particular monitors your progress using GPS data, which means that you need to be moving around outside. As a result, if you’re exercising at home you won’t be able to log your data through the app. However, by updating your profile through the website, there’s the option to mark activity as Stationery Trainer or Treadmill. To do this, use the pencil icon on the activity to edit it, then select the tag and enter your totals.
You can also access this through the Stationary activity page, which displays a performance graph highlighting your heart rate, speed and other key factors that you can take from your fitness equipment. If you’re simply running around the garden or using an exercise bike without a data panel, just make sure to keep track of your elapsed time, as you’ll still be able to enter this into your profile.
The club was set up by Helen Paget-Smith, Project Manager at SGS The Maltings: “We all know that working from home can be quite isolating and a struggle for your mental health, but exercise is a good way to combat this. You can add any activity to our Strava club, such as a lunch hour run, a walk at the end of the day, a bike ride, yoga in the living room, or even climbing your stairs fifty times.”
The website’s versatility means that no matter what physical activity you do, even if it’s walking on the spot during a virtual coffee break with colleagues, you can log it toward your weekly Strava total. This is a great way to keep moving and also stay in touch with colleagues – you could even video call a friend and take part in a workout together.
Strava is free to use, or if you prefer you can pay for an ad-free experience. Whatever the case, there are more and more SGS colleagues from around the UK and Europe joining this online community and competing to take the coveted first place on the leadership board. Having said that, don’t worry if you’re new to fitness or simply want to take part for fun, as everyone at SGS is eager to greet new Strava users and help them to improve their mental health through physical fitness.
The sgsco Hull Strava club was originally created for the three Hull sites but has now been extended to include colleagues from our London, Tamworth and Amsterdam offices, so don’t be afraid to join. It really is a fantastic place filled with friendly, supportive and fun-loving SGS team members who are passionate about exercise, mental health and staying in touch during this difficult time.
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