ChooseWell Community Chose Well

Morinville, Alberta

Alberta communities are a lucky bunch, considering they have their own Alberta Recreation & Parks Association. ARPA has a program called the Communities ChooseWell, and within this program they "recognize and empower" communities with various initiatives in order to create a healthier Alberta (ARPA)

While the ChooseWell program promotes eating healthy along with staying active, this article will put a focus on Morinville's ChooseWell participation and more specifically their 4.7km trail featuring outdoor fitness equipment.

This trail has a total of 6 fitness stations. . . well stationed throughout the trail, totally 22 pieces of fitness equipment ranging from a chest press to lateral pull down. The outdoor fitness equipment on this trail is weather proof and colorful, so while it catches the eye and the wrath of Canadian winters, it will remain aesthetically pleasing to trail goers.
Morinville news on the ribbon cutting ceremony

The Great Outdoor Fitness Debate

Prince Rupert, British Columbia


As with any idea (especially a new idea), there will always be opposition and apathy. Outdoor fitness is no exception.

Recently The Globe and Mail posted an article about the impact and views of outdoor gyms in Canada. Quotes were from various outdoor fitness companies (including our own company president Guy Chaham), community groups, and fitness trainers.

A general consensus seems to be fitness and outdoor activity are relevant, and the worst opposition seems to be that it is just the equipment that is unnecessary. But attached to the very same article, their exists a public opinion poll.
The results speak for themselves, but. . .
it seems that a good majority would prefer to use outdoor fitness equipment despite necessity. Regardless of planned use, 93% of people support the idea of outdoor fitness equipment.
See the comments of The Globe and Mail article for some more opinions.

This bodes well for the future of outdoor activity for Canadians!

Not Just A Beautiful Face ... errrr Place

Lake Aquataine, Mississauga, Ontario


"Parks and other green environments are an essential component of a healthy human habitat." Professor Ming Kuo

For over a century there have been advocates for the psychological and physical benefits of people embracing nature and not necessarily of the tree hugging variety! Unfortunately for as long as there have been advocates for the benefits of nature, there has been skepticism towards those benefits.

For a long while a majority of the research conducted to prove this relation between health and nature was done by people with something to prove. This lack of objective research only proved to make people more skeptical of these supposed benefits. For too long the most notable research on this idea was too subjective to be taken seriously, but now there is no excuse!

The National Recreation and Park Association has recently released a number of top scientific research articles relating to parks (obviously) and the benefits of outdoors. The research titled:
Parks and Other Green Environments: Essential Components of a Healthy Human Habitat by Professor Ming Kuo delves deep into evidence that proves nature, parks, and other various green space does actually provide a noticeable benefit to social, psychological, and physical aspects of life. The research done in this study proved that even with the elimination of other quality of life enhancing factors such as income that "... people of the same socio-economic status who have greater access to nature have better physical health outcomes."

So long, skeptics!

Source: NRPA: Essential Components of a Healthy Human Habitat

Chemainus Gets Free Park Courtesy of Canadian Government!

GreenGym Chimainus Facebook Gallery

The Government of Canada paid for a GreenGym park that was installed in Chemainus, British Columbia for the purpose of their Recreational Infrastructure Plan a part of the Canada Economic Action Plan. 

The Chemainus community (or Chimainiacs according to the coordinator of Chimainus Community School's Association) will now gleefully participate in outdoor fitness with their new black, yellow, and green colored fitness equipment.  Of course in order to increase participation they have "fitness circuit challenge" in order to create some healthy fitness habits amongst the users of this new fitness circuit.  The Chimainia never ends. 

Source: Government of Canada

We Might Be GreenGym . . .

We are GreenGym, an outdoor fitness equipment producer, distributor, and seller!  We manufacture all of our equipment in Canada (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to be exact).

While our blog will have important GreenGym updates, we will also create posts about interesting material relating to outdoor fitness.  This blog is dedicated to not being a long, written, commercial, because that would be boring!

You may notice our blog name is very long, that may change if we undergo creative naming inspiration sometime in the near future.