Since I was young, I always loved building forts. Growing up in the woods of New Hampshire in the 90s, there wasn’t much to do other than go into the woods, clear some brush, and create a hangout spot for myself and my friends to claim as ours. When winter came and our driveway would get plowed, the plow would create an 8’ snow pile off to the side of the driveway. Burrowing into the side of this snow pile and hollowing out an area to sit, sheltered from the world, led to some of the best conversations with friends about growing up, crushes, family issues, and big life stuff (what me and my friend Trevor would call ‘philosophizing’).
In these spaces that we curated with the best old stumps and leaf piles, growth through unfiltered conversation became the building blocks of friendships that have sustained to this day. Between moments of finding cool spiders or stick fights, blossomed dialogues about topics that were messy and complicated; ideas that felt scary to talk about with anyone who wasn’t in our fort. But the fort was the ultimate safe space where we were removed from the roles and identities that were expected of us, and where we could just be people. We could share ideas – even the bad ones, and we knew that we were safe to share those ideas. We’d push back on each other and challenge each other, but inside the fort that push back always came from a place of trust and empathy.
Not realizing it at the time, these forts and the bonds that were built inside of them were our first attempts at consciously building community. We were designating physical spaces as ones where you could be unabashedly yourself amongst other people who wanted to understand you better.
The fort, and the community possible within, has become the cornerstone of what we are building at Moore Than Fitness. Through personal training and small group training, our goal is to create a space where people feel cared for and supported. One where people can walk into the gym as their full messy and complex selves and be surrounded by other folks, members and staff alike, who are equally messy and complex. Our personal trainers are great at the Xs and Os of what we do. We love fitness and we want you to come in and move your bodies in ways that feel successful and strong. We want to instill a belief in the power of movement and exercise for you to take with you the rest of your lives.
But honestly, it’s bigger than that. We want this to feel like your third place. We want you to be able to walk in and hang out with your friends. We want the gym to become a place where you can feel safe to talk about growing up, crushes, family issues, and big life stuff. We want you to be able to philosophize. We have all grown up and are no longer building forts, but the need for and the urgency of community has never been stronger in all of us. Now we’ve all got big life responsibilities and even bigger life stressors. And somehow we’re just supposed to deal with it. Maybe with the help of a therapist who we see once every 2 weeks. And that just ain’t it. We need our support systems and our friends. We need to be able to give and receive support from people who aren’t our immediate families or work colleagues who maybe we have to play it a little safe with.
Inside of our gym fort, we love when people hit a new deadlift PR. We get so excited when people tell us that their knee no longer hurts or that they were able to climb with ease the hike that smoked them last year. Physical exercise is such a powerful tool for feelings of agency and self-worth. Without exercise or movement in some capacity we lose the ability to trust our bodies and that leads to feelings of vulnerability and insecurity. Feeling strong, feeling fast, feeling not in pain lets us live lives that are rich and full and adventurous.
But so many of the moments we cherish so much inside our gym have nothing to do with exercise. We love when members bring in a laptop so they can work on our couch because they need a peaceful, friendly atmosphere to get their best work done. We’re thrilled to see people go to the Smoky Mug after a Saturday group class and get to know each other better. We love having a space where people come in and have real conversations with other members and staff about difficult things they’re dealing with in their lives. Child-raising, aging parents, health concerns, romantic strife, existential dread about US politics…these are all topics that we’ve been conditioned to talk about in hushed tones behind closed doors. That the complexity and anxiety behind all of these topics is not for polite conversation and we sort of just need to process it on our own. That people will think we’re a lot if we don’t stay scripted with the things we’re supposed to think and the words we’re supposed to speak.
I believe there’s no more powerful a driver of progress than opening up about an issue with someone else who has been there and ‘gets it’. True progressive conversation results from vulnerability and messy self-expression. People always say they want real, deep, and authentic connection with other people and I believe that is true. However it’s impossible to fully access that connection while staying on the script you’re supposed to give. It requires a vulnerability that can be terrifying. Our anxiety gets the better of us and although we want to say the things that feel the most true, we get scared about what peoples’ reactions might be.
And so while it’s a work in progress, every aspect of our gym has been intentionally designed to help foster the real, deep, and authentic connections that people crave. From the silly chicken decor, to our gym’s extracurricular events, to the bridges we strive to build between members…our goal has always been to build a community where people feel empowered to be their wonderful messy selves. Where people feel that initial anxiety about exposing themselves and become brave enough to do it anyway. This is why I believe that we offer the best personal training in Richmond.
If you like what we’re about and want to become a part of our community, please don’t hesitate to book in a consultation with us today. Our consultation process is nothing to be intimidated by. We’ll just sit down together and have a chat. We can’t wait to get to know you.