The Ferns Workout Crew (#fwocrew): an explanation

There’s recently been some confusion about what the Ferns Workout Crew (twitter hashtag #fwocrew) is and isn’t, and I started to explain on twitter, but it was all TOO HARD. So here it is.

I started the ‘Ferns Workout Crew’ forever ago when I was struggling to stay motivated to go to the gym.

I did a callout for folks who were willing to commit to workouts with me, and who would commit to supporting each other on twitter.

The crew has since grown to 15 17 20 people now, which is awesome!

However I recently had a few people wanting to join possibly thinking that it was just what it seemed to be on the surface: ‘people working out and logging it and using a weird hashtag’, but that’s not what it is.

It’s a support network: a bunch of (people who become) friends who pay attention to each other’s workout efforts and struggles and triumphs and whining (that’s mostly me to be fair) and who help each other to succeed. THAT’S the value in it.

And it works great. This is what it looks like in practice:

fwocrew1fwocrew2

For the record, the lovely @fitstepd (and his sweet booty (there, are you happy now?! :P)) then went off to do his workout, so yay!

But it relies on active participation from all members. It’s not enough to just do your own thing without supporting the others in the group. Then you end up with a few people throwing their energy into cheerleading and motivating and everyone else being passive recipients of that attention without giving anything back. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t work.

So when people ask to join, I ask them to commit to three things:

  • Working out regularly
  • Publicly logging the results (we use Jefit or Fitocracy for this)
  • Actively supporting all the other members of the group

Of those, the third is what makes it work. Of course ‘actively supporting’ doesn’t mean everyone has to rabidly respond to every #fwocrew-related tweet that goes by, but if they see one in their timeline and have a second to respond, I expect them to show interest and support.

In addition to that, the #fwocrew gets an extra level of attention from me: I do weeks where we set specific goals, I create beautiful graph porn about us, I expose all members’ logs on my workout page, and if anyone goes AWOL, I WILL come and find them to see what’s going on.

The Fitocracy fwocrew Group (or ‘yeep, people are a bit confused’)

Fitocracy is a workout logging tool that some of us #fwocrew-ers use, and there is a Fitocracy fwocrew group which is run by DualDrew, one of our fine #fwocrew members. Other #fwocrew members have joined it. As have non-#fwocrew members. In fact anyone can join that group and participate in the logging, points gathering, and the challenges. It’s a great motivational tool in and of itself and I think it will work a treat for 99% of folks. You don’t have to make ANY commitment to me or to the group or to anyone to join it: work out, don’t work out, participate in group stuff, don’t participate, it’s all up to you.

But to clarify: if you join that group and start logging workouts, you don’t suddenly fit the criteria for the #fwocrew because that requires an explicit agreement with me about your commitment to your workouts and about your willingness to support other #fwocrew members (some of whom (like me) are NOT using Fitocracy).

In short: If you want to join a friendly group of D/s folks to help motivate you with your workouts, and like Fitocracy as a tool, go and join the Fitocracy fwocrew group. Completely obligation-free!

But if you want to join the #fwocrew ‘proper’, then I will ask more of you than just working out and logging it.

And to think, I considered trying to explain this in a series of tweets *laugh*. Silly me.

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