Healthy Pathways
Featured Glocalizing Fitness : Les Mills Instructors’ Changing Discourse on Virtual Fitness View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Karin Andersson
This paper summarizes my PhD research, which examines how Les Mills (LM) group fitness instructors across eleven countries perceived and adapted to virtual fitness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research began with an initial survey, followed by 22 semi-structured interviews, and later focus group discussions conducted over sixteen months. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as the primary analytical framework, the study also engages with Serious Leisure and Healthism to examine how fitness professionals framed virtual exercise in relation to broader cultural understandings of commitment, discipline, and health responsibility. Findings reveal that, initially, LM instructors perceived virtual fitness as a “last resort” primarily suited for those they described as “afraid exercisers”—individuals who were overly cautious about COVID-19 and hesitant to return to in-person training. Simultaneously, resistance emerged among instructors and participants who strongly opposed gym closures and viewed digital fitness as an inadequate substitute for live group exercise. Over time, instructors’ discourse shifted. Through the linguistic analysis of their narratives, it became evident that virtual fitness was gradually reframed as a more legitimate option—though still associated with what instructors labeled as “non-normative exercisers” such as “new mums,” “busybodies,” and “introverts.” These categories reflect how instructors positioned digital fitness within existing social norms of fitness participation rather than an equivalent alternative to in-person training. As a case study of a globally recognized fitness brand, this research provides insights into how corporate fitness structures and global-local dynamics influenced the transition to virtual training and professional identity.
Effect of Dance Movement Therapy: An Experimental Study about Stress Levels View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Obdulia María Bustos Rodríguez, Marta María Sáez Casas, Sheila Gonzalez Salvatierra, Norberto Marrero Gordillo
With this work we intend to demonstrate the benefits and improvements in the bio-psycho-social state of people who practice Dance Movement Therapy compared to people who do conventional physical exercise, and people who do not directly carry out any type of regular physical activity; For this purpose, these three work groups will be used (made up of 10 people each group), establishing the age range of these participants between 25 and 55 years. Our aim is to separate the playful and creative factor that dance provides from the purely physical one. We carried out several intragroup assessments, one at the beginning, another half of the established period and another at the end of the study (with each group), using objectives and quantifiable parameters, such as: Satisfaction with Life Scale “SWLS”, Borg Scale of Perceived Effort, salivary cortisol levels (pre and post study assessment), serum lactate levels capillary (pre, intra and post study assessment), heart rate (assessment before and after each practical session), blood pressure (assessment before and after each practical session). Our results were encouraging in relation to cortisol, blood pressure levels and heart rate being favorable to Dance Therapy, as well as the results of the SWLS scale and the mood questionnaire; The participants defined our practice as a light effort aerobic exercise according to the Borg scale.
Adding Faces and Voices to the Teaching Population View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aubrey H. Shaw, Sharon Kay Stoll
Sixteen percent of the world's population are people with physical disabilities. However, teachers in physical education are mostly abled-bodied. This presents a unique problem for teachers to understand the lived bodily experience of a person with a physical disability. Every person has a different body and their experiences and perspectives about the world come through their body. An able-bodied person, though well meaning, cannot know the lived bodily experience of disability. In physical education settings, students with physical disabilities are excluded from physical education experiences because of the teacher's lack of education and experience (Martin, 2018). People with physical disabilities have different perspectives and experiences and thus need to be included in the physical education profession. As teachers, people with physical disabilities could support the mission of a physically literate society no matter their ability. Charlton (2000) discusses the limitations of society when seeing a person with a physical disability. Unfortunately, as Buber (1970) would say, people with physical disabilities are often seen as objects. The student with a physical disability should be seen as a subject who has something to share with the world instead of an object; this is where a teacher with a physical disability could help immeasurably. Thus, the purpose of this paper is threefold: 1) to discuss the lived bodily experience of disability in physical education, 2) to examine the power of bringing these different voices and faces to physical education, and 3) to offer strategies to include this population in physical education.
