Ginna Allen
News Editor
FitWell has begun a new, eight-week program called the PR Project designed for students interested in fitness to achieve goals and pursue a personal record. The program is spearheaded by both the Director of FitWell, Alena Kochinski, and the Manager of Operations, Emily Ingram, who said this new offering is “all about choosing a goal that matters to you and having the tools and support to stay consistent and motivated long after New Year’s motivation fades.” The program has already taken on 41 participants from the community who started their fitness journeys on February 1 and will continue through March 31.
The program came to be after both Kochinski and Ingram saw a need for a longer fitness program for the beginning of the calendar year, considering January is a time of high interest in fitness for students. With this, the PR Project was designed to continue this interest past January, and make it so that students have the time to settle in for the semester while also reaching their fitness goals.
“We were trying to figure out how to have a longer fitness challenge. So, we were thinking how we can provide support throughout the semester, versus just a big January blowout,” Kochinski said when speaking with The Sewanee Purple.
“The students are only here half the month, and they’re figuring out their school schedules. So it’s going to be nigh impossible to make sure that they feel supported. We instead decided to do a February through March theme and challenge so that we can hopefully, if someone was wanting to do a New Year start, they have the support and ability to start or continue that goal,” Kochinski said.
As a part of the program, participants receive personalized emails from Ingram with advice to assist in their fitness journey. She bases this advice on the specific hopes and goals vocalized by each participant. Participants are also encouraged to explore any kind of fitness they hope to improve upon, and there has been a wide variety of interests amongst participants of the program.
When asked about her process, Ingram said, “I look at where they’re at and where they want to be in the next eight weeks. Then, I dive more into that goal and give them some tips, advice, and little tricks that could help them get there…If consistency is a goal, we focus on small bites and not putting on pressure to make that workout perfect, but just simply being here. That looks like them setting out their clothes the night before, making sure their alarm is set, getting up, and making it a point to just get through the door even if it’s for 20 minutes.”
To Kochinski and Ingram, the PR Project isn’t about competition, but rather a way to equip people with the proper skills to advance their fitness while simultaneously encouraging a community among gym-goers. “Something important for me is community. I want people to feel like, ‘if their goal is consistency and my goal is consistency, how can we combine and join together to do this?’ And so if I can teach something that people can use in the real world when they’re outside of here and have it translate, that’s something that makes me very happy and something that I really enjoy,” Ingram stressed.
Looking beyond the PR Project, Kochinski and Ingram hope to cultivate a gym community that uplifts a strong life-work-health balance. They also seek to establish FitWell as a safe place for having fun and trying new things in tandem with self-improvement. “Our biggest mission is definitely removing any stigma and educating on how to do things more confidently,” Kochinski said. “Hopefully, people can feel like FitWell is a place they can come in when they’re feeling good, come in when they’re feeling bad, come in when they’re not doing their best, all those things. Our whole point is how we fit fitness into our daily lives, and continue that after school.”