Time to Get Moving!

Form a team and take the 2006 getfit@mit challenge

That chill in the air says it all. It's almost that time of year again. Soon the snow will be falling, the wind chill index will be plunging, and members of the MIT community will be lacing up their sneakers, buckling up their boots, strapping on snowshoes and skis, and adding up their weekly exercise minutes.

That's right! The second annual getfit@mit fitness challenge gets underway on January 15, 2006 and continues through the end of March. Participants can form teams of five to eight members and register online beginning December 27th. The challenge is open to all members of the MIT community, including students, faculty, staff, affiliates, alumni, retirees, spouses, and partners. The challenge is presented by MIT Medical, the MIT Health Plans, and MIT Medical's Center for Health Promotion and Wellness, with major sponsorship by MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation (DAPER).

Count your minutes

The 2005 getfit@mit challenge drew nearly 1,300 participants on campus and at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. Though it can be difficult to find ways to be active during the harsh New England winter, last year's participants rose to the challenge. They walked through the MIT tunnels, ran along newly plowed Cambridge sidewalks, climbed the 21 flights of stairs in Building 54, biked along slushy city streets, swam at the Z Center, braved the cold to skate, ski, and snow shoe, and tried new activities like belly dancing, indoor rock climbing, and flying trapeze lessons. By the end of the 12-week program, these intrepid exercisers had racked up more than 4.3 million exercise minutes.

This year's participants will again participate in individual or group activities of their own choosing, keeping track of their individual activity minutes. Team captains will submit time totals for their team members each week, and an online database will maintain individual records and calculate an average for each team.

"For the purpose of counting exercise minutes, we define 'exercise' as 'physical activity done at a level that increases your heart rate and/or challenges your muscles,'" explains MIT Medical health educator and getfit@mit committee member Deirdre Neylon. "For someone just starting an exercise program, 15 minutes of brisk walking would count as exercise. For someone in better shape, it might be a 15-minute run or the equivalent. In any case, allowable physical activity should include one or more components of physical fitness-aerobic/cardiovascular exercise, strength training, and/or flexibility exercises."

And the winner is.

Although this year's participants will again be counting exercise minutes, organizers have changed the way the grand prize winner will be selected. This time around, although the getfit@mit website will continue to rank team and individual performance, the overall prize winner will not necessarily be the team with the highest average number of minutes exercised. Rather, all teams that meet a steadily increasing weekly minimum average for at least nine of the 11 weeks will be entered in an end-of-the-challenge drawing for the top prize.

"The team goal for the first week will be an individual average of 150 minutes of exercise," Neylon explains, "which breaks down to 30 minutes of exercise on five days of that week." From there, the weekly average increases by 10 or 15 minutes each week until the last week of the challenge, when the goal reaches an individual weekly average of 300 minutes. "The newest government guidelines suggest an hour of exercise per day on most days, and someone exercising 300 minutes a week would be meeting that goal," Neylon notes.

Neylon observed that last year's top-ranked teams, largely comprised of "fitness superstars," set a standard that was unreachable for most participants. "The new weekly fitness goals will be challenging for most teams," Neylon emphasized, "but they'll be attainable. From the start, we've tried to emphasize that this fitness program is not just for competitive athletes, and that it's more about challenging oneself than about competing with others."

A little help from our friends

Taking a more active role in this year's program will be MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation (DAPER). As a major sponsor, DAPER will be offering discounted, three-month Z-Center memberships to getfit@mit participants. The $110 trial membership fee, which represents a $100 saving over the regular three-month fee, can be applied to the cost of annual membership for individuals who wish to continue their gym memberships at the conclusion of the fitness challenge. DAPER will also be making their facilities available for a number of special getfit events, including ice skating, volleyball, basketball, walking and running at Johnson track, and special exercise classes. Event admission will be free to Z-Center members and $5 for others, but the $5 fee includes a free Z-Center day pass that can be used on another occasion.

Other MIT community supporters include MIT IS&T (Information Services and Technology), MITAC (MIT Activities Committee), MIT Campus Dining, the MIT Coop, and MIT Human Resources. Off-campus prize donors include restaurants, sporting goods stores, ski areas, dance studios, and rock-climbing facilities. Some prize donors will be providing additional discounts exclusively to getfit@mit participants.

More events, more prizes, more fun

"This year's challenge should be even bigger and better," enthuses getfit@mit committee member Katherine Wahl of MIT Medical. "There will be many more special events and additional chances to win weekly prizes." Organizers would also like to see every participant end up with a tee shirt that fits, Wahl adds. "So, this year we'll be asking for tee-shirt sizes as part of team registration. That way we'll be able to order the right size for each participant."

Team captains and co-captains will use the getfit@mit website (http://getfit.mit.edu) to enter weekly exercise totals for their teams, and teams and individuals can use the site to track their progress. The website will also offer fitness and nutrition resources, a calendar of events, and a message board where participants can post messages and ask questions about a variety of fitness-related topics.

A healthier MIT

"MIT Medical is proud to lead this public health initiative for our community," declares medical director William Kettyle, M.D. "As a physician, I'm always encouraging my patients to exercise, so it was wonderful to see so many members of our community exercising during the noon hour every day during last year's challenge."

Eileen O'Keefe, manager for the MIT Health Plans concurs. "We're happy to play a major role in bringing this health and fitness program to the Institute community," she notes. "Personally speaking, last year's program was a great incentive for me to exercise and get in better shape," she added, "though after last year's record-setting storms, I think I speak for everyone in hoping for fewer snow-shoveling minutes this time around!"