Boosting Resident Engagement with NuStep Fitness Challenges
Fitness challenges are a great way to increase resident engagement and participation in senior living wellness programs. The success of these challenges depends on providing activities that are safe, enjoyable and accessible for all residents. That’s where the NuStep recumbent cross trainers take center stage.
Accessible and easy to use
NuStep’s recumbent cross trainers make total-body exercise achievable for users of virtually all fitness levels and functional abilities. Features include:
- 360-degree swivel seat, sturdy grab bar and locking function for accessibility
- low starting force, smooth motion and low impact workout for ease of use
These inclusive features and more make the NuStep a great choice for a fitness challenge by making it possible for nearly every resident to join in and feel like they can contribute to the challenge.
NuStep Fitness Challenge
Eddy Hawthorne Ridge, an independent living community in East Greenbush, New York, is a great example of a community using NuStep fitness challenges to engage residents and encourage them to exercise more frequently.
Their first challenge coincided with the arrival of their NuStep T6 Recumbent Cross Trainer in the Fall of 2024. To encourage the residents to try out the T6, the community designed a challenge: exercise on the NuStep and accumulate enough steps to reach Plymouth, Massachusetts, the site of the first Thanksgiving.
Thirteen residents participated and over the course of six weeks, they stepped 197 miles, tracking their progress on a map. Through their combined efforts, and with the community cheering them on, the group completed their journey the day before Thanksgiving.
Hawthorne Ridge High Peaks Club
The second, more recent challenge was built around a mountain climbing theme. Their goal was to “climb” five of the Adirondack mountains on the NuStep. Participating residents got Hawthorne Ridge High Peaks Club t-shirts to decorate and wear during the competition. Students from a nearby school contributed artwork with drawings of the mountains that decorated walls of the gym. Small cutouts of mountain climbers represented the participants’ progress on the mountains.
The climbers logged their steps on the NuStep and by the time they “scaled” all five mountains – and the miles in between the mountains – they had conquered a total of 61.1 miles on the NuStep.
“I know it was good for me to do this.”
The competitive nature of the contest made a difference for resident William Dufur who said, “I don’t think I would have gone in there and done 2 ½ miles a day, every day on my own.” He added, “That was an initiative…And I know it was good for me to do this, health wise.”
Forming Healthy Habits
Beyond stepping to the site of the first Thanksgiving or climbing the Adirondacks, the ultimate goal of these fitness challenges was to empower residents to form long term healthy habits. Top of the list? To move more and get regular exercise to maintain strength, mobility and endurance, all to increase residents’ length of stay in independent living.
Keys to Successful Challenges
- Make it accessible: offer options for all ability levels and include adaptive exercise equipment like the NuStep.
- Involve residents in organizing: Enlist residents to come up with ideas or themes for a challenge, help with decorations or promote the event.
- Track and display progress: post scoreboards or goal trackers in several common areas to build excitement.
- Show community support: make announcements about the challenge, invite residents and staff to stop by and cheer on participants.
- Celebrate Success: Recognize participants for their achievements and volunteers for their contributions.
Sparking Enthusiasm and Building Community
Fitness challenges on the NuStep can turn exercise into a shared, goal-driven activity and transform routine workouts into social events that not only foster physical, but emotional wellbeing.
For a look at the Eddy Hawthorne Ridge’s High Peak challenge click here.
