Rural Fitness first came about because I needed a name for my personal training venture. The rural part of my name has become to mean so much more. I want to be a resource and provide a service to those who may not be able to get it otherwise without travelling for hour or two. I believe that access to help for obtaining a healthy body shouldn’t be an extra in life, but a necessity. This becomes especially true as we watch our lifestyles become more sedentary in our day to day.
Like the old me, I think many in the rural community are becoming less active in ways that we are accustomed to, for example farming has become technologically advanced, meaning less movement for us. We now need some sort of structure to get the requirements for a healthy body in each day. I understand that this is no small feat. The audience I am wanting to reach has a certain lifestyle and mindset that is pretty set in it’s ways. Habits die hard.
My goal is to help shift the perspective on exercise. There seems to be a light stigma in the rural community around the person that starts to take their health serious. Have you ever tried to be more mindful of your eating habits while eating out and your friends bug you about it? “What, do you think carbs are the enemy?!”.
I want people of all shapes and ages to understand that there is an exercise program out there for you, something that you can even enjoy, all while getting the benefit of a healthier heart and longer life. I see the area of most need is in the average male farmer. Providing high quality care to machinery, our land and animals is given no second thought, and yet we overlook the biggest driving force behind the farm operation, ourselves.
The average farmer is not just running the “old family farm” anymore, they are running a business and in most cases a company. They are busy with forecasting, marketing, selling, taking care of sick animals, seeding, fertilizing, spraying, swathing, baling, harvesting, fixing, learning new techniques and technologies, doing books and the list goes on. The care that goes into the farming operation is taxing on a person, and yet the work must get done, so it does. Because of that hard work, we reap the benefits of that level of organization and hard work.
If this were any other company there would be a manager, some administration, and multiple employees, but on the farm it’s you and maybe a hired man or two. Why are we not more concerned about the well being of ourselves? Old habits die hard. Our parents and our grandparents didn’t workout, so we never grew up working out, this is a new concept to most of us. Things change and we have embraced that change in every way of convenience and technology with the exception of our health.
Exercise should no longer be thought of as just for the 22 year old female trying to get her bikini body. It’s for the rancher that needs endurance pulling a calf, or the power to hoist his own body weight over the fence when that one cow comes charging at you. It’s for the farmer that needs extra energy to last the 14 hour shifts in the Spring and Fall. It’s for the dad that shouldn’t be having a heart attack at 55 and heaven forbid leaving the 20 year old son or daughter behind that isn’t ready to run the farm. It’s for the hockey mom that needs to have the stamina to last a season of running with two teams. Or maybe it’s for the 65 year old grandparent that wants to be around for the next 20 years, not 5.
So why Rural Fitness?
I want to find a way to introduce new opportunities to get our bodies moving, that will benefit you, the rural community directly. I want to help in creating new habits and so that health can be made a priority.
The farmer takes care of the land, the animals and feeds people around the world. Rural fitness wants to invest time and care into the people that run these operations, so that rural communities can prosper and be sustainable for years to come.
