Pound®️ drum fitness for all ages & all stages

Description

Pound®️ fitness is a fitness program that uses drumming with choreography to provide a whole body work out. It is designed to be adaptive to meet the needs & abilities of all participants that want to take part. The inclusive nature of the program welcomes members of our over 55 community to participate as they feel best suits them. It encourages movement to suit the individuals needs & abilities – so for someone that isn’t comfortable doing balance work or a lot of leg work they can focus on the arm movements. It is a form of strength & resistance training completed in a fun, social way that works for the individual. The class is designed & facilitated to show the lowest intensity & highest intensity moves allowing participants to choose what is right for them. It encourages a mix of ages & allows grandkids attend with grandparents / elderly parents & children attend & have fun together

Aim of Initiative

Social inclusion
Promote movement
Offer alternative means of engaging with exercise
Promote a fun activity that works to improve wellbeing
Offer the opportunity to exercise mind body & soul simultaneously

Who is it aimed at

An inclusive community mix – elderly community members / middle aged / people with no previous engagement in fitness / people living with disabilities / participants that enjoy regular exercise / participants with limited English – the initiative aims to bring any & all of the above together in an integrated community fun experience

3 Steps critical to success

1. Advertising – to ensure anyone interested knows they are welcome to join
2. Experienced facilitator – to facilitate Pound®️ you must be licences but in this case the facilitator is a qualified music therapist which participants have described as highlighting a sense of safety knowing this. Feedback states that due to the facilitator not being of a primary fitness background made them give it a go as they felt the facilitator had the knowledge to help them meet their needs
3. Positive experiences – participants that have engaged from the over 55 age group shared feedback that because they were continually encouraged & shown how best to engage in a way that suited their abilities, enjoyment levels were enhanced & they felt confident to engage well & return to future classes

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. Ensuring a balanced & safe space in classes – the focus of these classes was to ensure everyone that wanted to felt welcome & equal in the class. This at times meant explaining the values & aims to participants attending from a competitive fitness perspective that this is a purely non competitive & heavily social & inclusive based program. This required the facilitator to at all times be true to the programs core objective & have those difficult conversations when needed, even if it meant loosing a participant who didn’t wish to share the same social value
2. Advertising- ensuring advertising campaigns highlighted the program values & that all community members interested felt confident to ring & enquire about it
3. Balanced material – to ensure that routines were accessible to everyone, allowed for higher intensity participation if desired & using a variety of music to cater for all participants tastes & to enhance motivation

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. Enhanced physical activity – in particular in the form of resistance training. New WHO guidelines recommending the need for this form of activity was described as daunting by some participants whereas they didn’t think of this program as being resistance training, they thought of it as fun
2. Integrated community experiences- participants enjoyed being able to spend time with family attending the same events instead of being ‘two ships passing’ attending separate activities. Participants made social bonds with younger community members leading to chats & conversations in town outside of classes & sustained social experiences
3. Improved wellbeing- participants described feeling empowered by the program & enjoyment of learning new routines that boosted moral & ‘made them dance around the kitchen between classes’