By: Christin Everson, MS

Perfect form. Perfect attendance. Perfect bodies. The culture surrounding fitness makes many people feel that they must engage perfectly in order to participate in exercise settings. This creates a barrier for new and returning exercisers and requires fitness professionals to examine how we can create room for imperfect participation. When we allow for and celebrate imperfect exercise participation, we can reduce feelings of gymtimidation and increase self-efficacy and overall feelings of belonging, thus helping all exercisers to experience more wellness.

The Problem with Perfection

Compared to the perceived expertise of regular exercisers, new and returning exercisers often feel a range of emotions when entering fitness spaces. They can fear being judged for their lack of knowledge or experience, have concerns over their body's ability to complete movements comfortably, fear getting it wrong and calling attention to themselves, and experience a general lack of belonging in exercise environments.

Without meaning to (or maybe even noticing it), we have created environments that are perceived to require perfect participation in order to belong: Perfect adherence. Perfect form. Perfectly completed work sets. Perfect equipment choice and usage. Perfectly formulated SMART goals. Not to mention the existing challenges of body image, fitness fashion, etc.

The combination of anxious or fearful engagement and the pressure to exercise perfectly makes it highly challenging for new and returning exercisers to be successful in fitness spaces. We are not leaving room for nuance. For play. For practice. For reflection. For learning. For imperfect attendance. We have created environments that produce even more pressure for new exercisers, leaving many still not engaging in fitness because of it.

Here’s one way we can fix it: Acknowledge the current culture as it exists and, instead, celebrate imperfect participation.

Benefits of Imperfection

When we celebrate imperfect participation, we validate the effort and intention a participant experiences with movement, helping bridge the gap between their involvement or not. It also creates a more welcoming, safe space without the pressure to be perfect.

Before I go any further. Let’s distinguish between safe and imperfect, as acute safety is still an important consideration.

Questions to ensure safety:

• Is the participant at risk of acute injury?

• Are surrounding members or staff at risk of acute injury?

• Is there a risk to the facility or equipment?

If the answer is no, we can most likely allow the participant to continue in the name of imperfect participation!  If the answer is yes, then we, with care, educate the participant and guide them to a better alternative.

Self-Efficacy

The most significant benefit of imperfect participation is an increase in self-efficacy. Research demonstrates that self-efficacy is the strongest psychological correlate of physical activity behavior (Higgins et al., 2014), specifically that higher levels of self-efficacy are closely associated with exercise adherence. So, the more opportunities a new exerciser has to engage in what they deem successful movement experiences, the more likely they are to have a higher self-efficacy, thus engaging more regularly in physical activity.

All-or-Nothing

While we know that many new exercisers struggle with cognitive distortions that interfere with their well-being, we may actually be contributing by creating a culture that enhances the need for perfection. An example is all-or-nothing thinking: The idea that I either do it right or not at all. A common example may include a previously sedentary participant seeking to exercise 5 days a week. While fitness professionals can easily spot this and try to temper their goals or ambitions, we must also look into where else all-or-nothing thinking is showing up in fitness spaces.

When we leave room for nuance, practice, or play in exercise form, we reduce the occurrence of all-or-nothing thinking and broaden the perception of what’s defined as a successful experience. Imperfect participation becomes a valuable tool in creating successful experiences, thus raising participant self-efficacy and increasing adherence and belonging.

Implementing Imperfect Participation

Here are a few ways to implement the idea of imperfect participation in your facility:

Check yourself

When implementing a culture that celebrates imperfection, the first place to start is with yourself and the message you portray to others (or even quietly to yourself). Work to identify where you can celebrate imperfect participation in places you previously haven’t. An example might include seeing a member exercising independently: Rather than making a conclusion about their form, check your initial analysis (after using the questions above to ensure their safety) and internally celebrate them for showing up and moving their body imperfectly. You are in charge of creating the culture in the exercise spaces you occupy, so check yourself to ensure it’s the culture you want.

Demonstrate your Imperfection

In classes and sessions, be mindful to use kind language about yourself. Whatever encouraging language you use with participants will be quickly negated if you speak poorly of yourself in front of them. Give yourself the grace of having imperfect participation.

Communicate It

Create an intentional plan to modify the culture of perfection by communicating just that. Create marketing campaigns around it. Mention it in your emails, include materials about it to new members, and put signs up in designated spaces that remind other members to give grace to each other. Instructors and Trainers can broadly communicate the acceptance of imperfect participation in their classes and sessions.

Teach It

In classes, give permission for participants to be imperfect. More than that, celebrate all the different variations of movements you see. Celebrate the learning, trying, playing, and even more simply, celebrate the attendance over all else. The biggest goal is that your participants leave feeling successful, so create experiences that allow them enough comfort to feel their success.

Leverage your Community

Your community's collective behavior influences culture beyond your intention, so you must ask them to engage in a specific way that meets your vision.  Ask your community to also celebrate the imperfection! Hang signs reminding members that you want people to engage with respect and care, removing judgment and increasing celebration.

As fitness professionals, when we require any form of perfection from our new exercisers especially, we’re actually gatekeeping them from health. Provide more opportunities for all exercisers to feel successful in their physical activity behaviors. It’s our job to let participants know they are not required to be perfect. That they belong either way. Audit your culture and devise a plan to better create space for imperfection.

REFERENCES:

Higgins, T.J. et al. (2014). Physical activity interventions differentially affect exercise task and barrier self-efficacy: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, 33, 8, 891-903.