Whenever someone wants to join our gym, the first step is to do a free intro. This is a 15-30 minute conversation about what their goals are, what they’re looking for, and just to get to know them. Over the last decade, I’ve run hundreds of these free intros and while some people sign up and others don’t, 99% of them have the same goals in common:
“I want to lose some weight and feel good.”
Or some variation of this. Which is interesting because many of these people also think the folks who do functional fitness are extremely athletic and hardcore. But I can tell you that at Kanna, we’re just everyday people looking to get fit and have fun.
The other interesting thing is that people’s perception of what they’re getting at Kanna shifts. It starts out as mainly aesthetic, but then shifts to what they’re capable of doing. So instead of “I want to lose five pounds” it transforms into “I want to add 20 pounds to my deadlift.”
For us coaches, we like to see this change from weight loss to performance focused, mostly for mental reasons. Because what happens when you do lose those five pounds? What then? How about we focus on performance where the sky is the limit and then let your body shed weight if it needs to perform.
Also, even beyond performance goals, there is an aspect of community that people don’t realize until they get here. How do we know? Just look at any of our member videos and almost all of them say something to the effect of “I came for the workouts, but I stay for the community.”
Most recently when we were considering dropping our affiliation to CrossFit, we polled our private member group and most of them said they were looking for either CrossFit specifically or just a gym to workout, but all of them find so much benefit in the community.
Why is this?
- Accountability – you’re not only accountable to the coach, but now you’re accountable to others in the class
- Fun! – when you are laughing and having a good time with people, you want more of that
- Commiseration – yes, our workouts are tough, but also modified to all levels. There’s something to be said when coach yells, “time!” to end a workout and you all look around at each other dripping in sweat and having a moment of solidarity about the tough thing you just went through together.
- Need for belonging – on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, “belongingness and love” appear right above things like food, water, and safety. So when COVID-19 hit and we all quarantined, there was a feeling of missing something. For our members, it was that belongingness they felt at Kanna.
So if you’re looking for a gym and come to check out Kanna, just know there is more than meets the eye.
-Coach Chris