Friskis&Svettis (Healthy & Sweaty) is a non-profit organization of Swedish origin aiming at providing various forms of exercise. A unique feature of Friskis&Svettis is that all work in the organization is based on volunteers. Friskis&Svettis is today one of Sweden's largest organizations. Since its inauguration in 1978, with only one participant at the premier "Jympa"-session, [1] Friskis&Svettis by 2009 had a total number of paying members exceeding 500 000 in Sweden, equalling 4,21% of the country's total population. Many clubs in Sweden even have more than 10% of their city's population as members.
Friskis&Svettis features several forms of activities, ranging from outdoor activities, such as Nordic Walking, Jogging and Cross-Training. Its original activity and core product is the "Jympa", a unique Swedish way of training developed by Friskis&Svettis's founder Johan Holmsäter. The word is derived from gymnastics. A jympa session is rather similar to aerobics class in exercise content, but tend to be less choreographed and less coordination-requiring. The jympa concept does not assume that participants regularly attend a specific instructor's session. Also, the profile of jympa in Sweden has tended to be more informal in comparison to aerobics, attracting a wider variety of participants.
Smaller Friskis&Svettis clubs usually use school or general sports facilities for their activities, while larger clubs tend to have their own facilities and have all the outward appearance of a commercial gym. The concept of Jympa, together with Friskis&Svettis maintaining its status as non-profit, has maintained the organization at a unique position on the Swedish exercise market with continued growth despite fierce competition with commercial gyms such as SATS and World Class Training offering similar activities.
In 2016 Friskis&Svettis controversially offered free training to unaccompanied refugee youths. [2]
There are today several local Friskis&Svettis training centers set up outside of Sweden, most notably in Norway, with 35 branches, as well as activity in Helsinki, Vantaa, Copenhagen, Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg, London and Aberdeen. All of these branches use the concept of Jympa as its core product.
The name Friskis&Svettis comes from the Swedish words frisk (healthy) and svettig (sweaty) with the Stockholm dialect "-is" suffix for creating nominative forms from adjectives or nouns. I.e. frisk = the adjective "healthy". friskis = someone called "Healthy".
A club is an association of people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities. There are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.
A personal trainer is an individual who creates and delivers safe and effective exercise programs for healthy individuals and groups, or those with medical clearance to exercise. They motivate clients by collaborating to set goals, providing meaningful feedback, and by being a reliable source for accountability. Trainers also conduct a variety of assessments beginning with a preparticipation health-screening and may also include assessments of posture and movement, flexibility, balance, core function, cardio-respiratory fitness, muscular fitness, body composition, and skill-related parameters to observe and gather relevant information needed to develop an effective exercise program and support client goal attainment.
Aerobics is a form of physical exercise that combines rhythmic aerobic exercise with stretching and strength training routines with the goal of improving all elements of fitness. It is usually performed to music and may be practiced in a group setting led by an instructor. With the goal of preventing illness and promoting physical fitness, practitioners perform various routines. Formal aerobics classes are divided into different levels of intensity and complexity and will have five components: warm-up, cardiovascular conditioning, muscular strength and conditioning, cool-down and stretching and flexibility. Aerobics classes may allow participants to select their level of participation according to their fitness level. Many gyms offer different types of aerobic classes. Each class is designed for a certain level of experience and taught by a certified instructor with a specialty area related to their particular class.
Exercise is intentional physical activity to enhance or maintain fitness and overall health.
Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys. Ed. or PE, and sometimes informally referred to as gym class or simply just gym, is a subject taught in schools around the world. PE is taught during primary and secondary education and encourages psychomotor, cognitive, and effective learning through physical activity and movement exploration to promote health and physical fitness. When taught correctly and in a positive manner, children and teens can receive a storm of health benefits. These include reduced metabolic disease risk, improved cardiorespiratory fitness, and better mental health. In addition, PE classes can produce positive effects on students' behavior and academic performance. Research has shown that there is a positive correlation between brain development and exercising. Researchers in 2007 found a profound gain in English Arts standardized test scores among students who had 56 hours of physical education in a year, compared to those who had 28 hours of physical education a year.
Aerobic exercise is physical exercise of low to high intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process. "Aerobic" is defined as "relating to, involving, or requiring oxygen", and refers to the use of oxygen to meet energy demands during exercise via aerobic metabolism adequately. Aerobic exercise is performed by repeating sequences of light-to-moderate intensity activities for extended periods of time. Examples of cardiovascular or aerobic exercise are medium- to long-distance running or jogging, swimming, cycling, stair climbing and walking.
Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of sports, occupations, and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate-vigorous physical exercise, and sufficient rest along with a formal recovery plan.
Kenneth H. Cooper is a doctor of medicine and former Air Force lieutenant colonel from Oklahoma, who pioneered the benefits of doing aerobic exercise for maintaining and improving health. In 1966 he coined the term, and his book Aerobics was published in 1968, which emphasized a point system for improving the cardiovascular system. The popular mass market version was The New Aerobics (ISBN 0-553-26874-0), published ten years later.
Step aerobics, also known as bench aerobics and step training, is a form of aerobic exercise that involves stepping on and off a small platform.
The Conservation Volunteers' Green Gym programme aims to provide people with a way to enhance their fitness and health while taking action to improve the outdoor environment. It can be seen as enabling people to get fit who would not normally attend a conventional gym or sports centre.
A health club is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise.
A fitness boot camp is a type of group physical training program that may be conducted by gyms, personal trainers or other organizations. These programs are designed to build strength and fitness through a variety of types of exercise. The activities and format may be loosely modeled on aspects of fitness training used in the military and the trainers themselves may be former military personnel.
A gym, short for gymnasium, is an indoor venue for exercise and sports. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term "gymnasion". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational institutions. "Gym" is also the commonly used name for a "fitness centre" or health club, which is often an area for indoor recreation. A "gym" may include or describe adjacent open air areas as well. In Western countries, "gyms" often describe places with indoor or outdoor courts for basketball, hockey, tennis, boxing or wrestling, and with equipment and machines used for physical development training, or to do exercises. In many European countries, Gymnasium also can describe a secondary school that prepares students for higher education at a university, with or without the presence of athletic courts, fields, or equipment.
VirtualGym TV was a live broadcasting and on-demand online gym, which provided access to hundreds of exercise classes.
Inhibitory control, also known as response inhibition, is a cognitive process – and, more specifically, an executive function – that permits an individual to inhibit their impulses and natural, habitual, or dominant behavioral responses to stimuli in order to select a more appropriate behavior that is consistent with completing their goals. Self-control is an important aspect of inhibitory control. For example, successfully suppressing the natural behavioral response to eat cake when one is craving it while dieting requires the use of inhibitory control.
The Anteater Recreation Center (ARC) is an 89,000-square-foot (8,300 m2) indoor gym facility that is part of campus recreation at the University of California, Irvine (UCI); the anteater is the mascot of the UC Irvine athletics team. It is open to all UCI students, faculty and staff members, alumni, and other university affiliates, including spouses.
Fitness culture is a sociocultural phenomenon surrounding exercise and physical fitness. It is usually associated with gym culture, as doing physical exercises in locations such as gyms, wellness centres and health clubs is a popular activity. An international survey found that more than 27% of world total adult population attends fitness centres, and that 61% of regular exercisers are currently doing "gym-type" activities. Getting and maintaining physical fitness has been shown to benefit individuals' inner and outer health. Fitness culture has become highly promoted through modern technology and from the rising popularity of social media platforms.
Barre is a form of physical exercise, usually conducted in group classes in gyms or specialty studios. It is distinguished from other group fitness activities by its use of the ballet barre and its incorporation of movements derived from ballet. These classical dance movements and positions are combined with those drawn from yoga and pilates, and other equipment is sometimes used in addition to the barre, such as resistance bands, yoga straps, exercise balls and hand weights. Barre classes typically focus on small, pulsing movements with emphasis on form, alignment and core engagement. Participants hold their bodies still while contracting specific, targeted sets of muscles in isometric exercises. Repetitions tend to be high, range-of-motion small, and weights, when used, light. Barre classes focus on the lower body and core, developing strength and flexibility from the ankles up though the calves, knees, thighs, glutes and abdominals. Holding muscles in contraction for extended periods frequently leads to them shaking as they fatigue. This is particularly true of thighs, as the quadriceps tire.
Outdoor fitness consists of exercise undertaken outside a building for the purpose of improving physical fitness. It contrasts with exercise undertaken inside a gym or health club for the same purpose. The activity may be undertaken in a park, in the wilderness, or other outdoor location. The popularity of outdoor fitness grew rapidly in the second-half of the twentieth century and grew as a commercial consumer market in the twenty-first century.
The benefits of physical activity range widely. Most types of physical activity improve health and well-being.