I tricked 70 people into drastically improving their life in 21 days. Here’s how.
Everyone who participated in this experiment did it voluntarily, and it wasn’t actually a trick. It’s a fun thing we do every year at Rampage called Fitness Bingo. We’ve found that if you gamify anything, you can get people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t be motivated to do on their own. Assign points, line up a few competitors, set a deadline, and you’ve got a recipe for success.
The Game
Over the course of 3 weeks, we offered up a fun game of Fitness Bingo to the members of our gym. About 70 of them opted in. By doing so, they all improved their lives by implementing seemingly small, yet impactful habits into their daily routines.
The game: Complete as many health & fitness related tasks, often referred to as “squares” as you can in 3 weeks. There are 25 squares, with one being a freebie. The squares are broken down into 1 of three categories.
- Fitness task
- Health/Nutrition task
- Social task
The Incentive
Every square completed gets your name in a hat 1x. Every BINGO (full line down, across or diagonal) gets your name in the hate 3 additional times. After the deadline, we’ll tally up the numbers, put everyones name in a hat and draw winners at random. If you get over a certain # of squares completed you get put in a drawing for a bigger prize. If you complete the entire card, you automatically get a free t-shirt.
If you want to encourage someone to do something to improve their health by simply saying it’s good for them…. good luck.
If you want to encourage someone to do something to improve their health and tell them they’ll get a chance at a prize and possibly a free shirt (no guarantees on either, only a “chance”)…they’ll sign up immediately.
The game is anchored on the fitness tasks, as they’re the real fun, but here’s where the “Trick” comes in. All of these folks are already working out consistently about 3 days per week, so we didn’t need to convince them to workout. Instead, we used the appeal of fun fitness challenges to also get them to complete the other challenges on the bingo sheet. We do this in the heat of the summer, when it’s not actually that fun to be in the gym, yet people flock to the gym for these 3 weeks to play Fitness Bingo! It works.
The Results
Now I can’t say for certain how many of these habits stuck, for how many people, but I’d have to guess that everyone found something here that they’ve continued to do even after the game ended.
Here are the ways everyone drastically improved their lives in 21 days:
They,
- Worked out slightly more per week than they were used to. Realizing that maybe we’re not as busy as we say we are, and we can do that one extra exercise session per week.
- Drank 16 oz of water first thing in the morning before any other food or drink.
- Ran a total of 10 miles over the course of 3 weeks. (Keep that up and you’d run 173 miles in a year)
- Turned their phones off 1 hour before bed, which likely led to more connection with their families.
- Ate 50 grams of protein before noon. Protein is the most under consumed macronutrient and arguably the most important for health.
- Went on a hike, in the outdoors, without any distractions from a phone.
- Performed an hour long easy-effort cardio workout with a friend. This proves that workouts can be long, and still doable.
- Carried a heavy weight for a mile. Which builds confidence that should you have to carry something in real life, you’re capable of doing so.
- Publicly shared personal wins improvements on social media. Sharing wins, builds confidence and inspires others.
- Worked out with a person who you typically wouldn’t hang out with. There are lots of cool people out there. Doing this forced folks to meet others!
- Encourage a friend to come workout with you. Maybe your friend never knew how fun exercise can be.
- Do some stretching for 10 minutes a day, every day for 5 days in a row. As we age, we get less and less flexible. Stretch regularly.
- Walk at least 8,000 steps per day. This is by far the simplest way to maintain some level of fitness.
After reading all of that, it sounds like quite a lot. However, when you just start doing it, regularly, it’s honestly not that much. Drink some water when you wake up. Move your body around plenty throughout the day. Workout consistently throughout the week. Socialize with friends. Eat enough protein. Stretch a little. Get outside daily.
All of these are simple habits, that when done consistently will have a massive compounding effect on your health on a long enough timeline. Pick one and start. Invite a friend and you’ll be even more likely to do it!
If you’re interested in doing this challenge yourself, shoot us an email to support@crossfitrampage.com and we’ll email you a copy of the bingo card!