Exercising at home has become a norm for many. Everything from resistance training and free weights to yoga and pilates have been molded into quick, no-fuss training self-directed routines between Zoom sessions for those wanting to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In addition to solo workouts, sweat sessions with quarantine partners and bubble mates for those who need motivational pushes, are still going strong.
“We’ve learned that wellness is not one-size fits all, and that it’s achieved by small habits like regular hydration that can really impact how you feel throughout the day,” said celebrity fitness trainer Harley Pasternak, MsC. “Collectively, nourishing both body and mind together as one makes holistic health a sustainable lifestyle.”
Pasternak and the experts at Propel Fitness Water are forecasting five fitness and wellness trends to watch for in 2022:
Accountability Buddies
When gym closures ran rampant, folks leaned on others for inspiration to get moving, so it’s no surprise working out in pairs (or more) is a continued way to focus on fitness. Feelings of burnout may be common heading into 2022, so having a partner who gives you a healthy sense of camaraderie and competition can help push you to show up on days when you’d rather rest and stay committed to your goals. It also provides a sounding board when you need suggestions for nutritious recipes or fresh at-home cardio ideas.
Versatility in Gym Spaces and Schedules
When a large segment of the workforce started working from home, the rituals of before- and after-work gym visits fell by the wayside. People grew more accustomed to improvising where they work out, whether it was their neighbor’s garage, their living room or a running path in the city. As exercisers are less beholden to studio or gym schedules, the “gym anywhere” mentality is a level of flexibility many are holding on to, even as they ease back into more normal work routines.
Health in Small, Achievable Doses
This trend is all about recognizing health transformations don’t happen overnight, and even modest steps can make a big difference in how you feel throughout the day. One example is paying more attention to your hydration. If you aren’t properly hydrated, few other things tend to go right either. Small habits like throwing Propel Powder Packs into your gym, work or school bag can make a difference. Filled with enough electrolytes to replace what is lost in sweat, they are handy for on-the-go hydration and are easy to add to a water bottle.
Wellness Goals vs. Fitness
Committing to overall wellness is more about lifestyle changes than numbers like weight loss or muscle mass. People embracing this trend are forgoing numeric goals based on performance in the gym or on the scale and instead emphasizing outcomes that affect life, nourishing both body and mind together as one. Fitness goals are an essential component, but so is supporting your mental health as well as being cognizant of what you’re putting into your body. When each piece is well taken care of, your body is better able to work like a well-oiled machine.
Low-Impact Workouts
This year, walking treadmill challenges gained virality on social media, marking the increasing popularity of workouts that are low impact yet effective. Getting moving is the key, even if it means taking your tempo down. You don’t need to do hours of HIIT every day to see results. In fact, less time- and energy-intensive workouts are easier to sustain and can often yield the same, or better, results.
Find more hydration options and wellness tips at propelwater.com.
Dear Editor,
My name is Amber Gumm and I'm the mom of #54 sophomore Tyler Gumm on Unity football. Unity played Byron in the state game and we took home second.
On our way home we stopped at Culver's in Rochelle. While in the ladies' room I got to talking to two ladies who were (from) Byron. When I told them I was (from) Unity....the oldest lady gave me the biggest hug and both said how impressed they were with how respectful our team was and how you could tell they were really great kids. They said their entire stands were impressed with the sportsmanship our boys showed. They praised them so high and said that we were the best team they have played. "It was an HONOR to play them"
Y'all, when I tell you I ugly cried, I'm not kidding.
Our kids may not have walked away with the trophy but they walked away with so much more.
The complete respect of not only the other team but the fans as well. Coach Hamilton and all the football coaches, please know we cannot thank you enough for what you instill in our kiddos. Football isn't just a sport, it's a family, it's a community.
I couldn't be more proud of these kids. Please let your players know that they didn't lose tonight, they won EXACTLY where it counts. On to next year!!!!!
Washington -- The St. Joseph-Ogden boys basketball team claimed their first win of the season with a 63-52 win over the Denmark Vikings at the Kevin Brown Memorial Tournament of Champions Tournament.
Ty Pence, who went 10-for-12 from the free-throw line, scored 36 points. The D1 recruit has offers from Illinois, Eastern Illinois University, Bradley and Illinois State also had eight rebounds.
Logan Smith, who was the leading scorer after the first quarter, contributed 10 points to the team effort. Meanwhile, Evan Ingram hit a pair of treys in the first quarter to finish with six points.
The Spartans led at 37-28 at the half and outscored the Vikings 26-24 after the break.
SJO returns to action next week at the Toyota of Danville Classic with tournament games against Cissna Park Park on Tuesday and then tipping off with Oakwood on Wednesday evening. After a day of rest, St. Joseph-Ogden will play Schlarman for its last pool-play contest. All eight teams will play on Saturday for their various places in the final standings.
Raegan Stringer delivered a 13-point performance in Unity's road game at LeRoy on Monday. Jumping out to a 20-point lead in the first half, the Rockets improved to 5-0 on the season after a 48-32 non-conference win over the Panthers.
Stringer, a sophomore, also had three rebounds and a pair of steals.
Maddie Reed, Lauren Miller, Taylor Henry, and Katey Moore combined effort netted 33 points for the Rockets.
Reed contributed 10 points, three assists, and like Stringer, two steals. Miller also grabbed the ball twice for steals and was the second leading rebounder for Unity with five boards. She was also credited with six assists to go along with her nine-point finish.
Scoring just eight points, Henry led the team with team-highs in rebounds (6), steals (4), and assists (6). Moore added another six points in the victory and had three rebounds. Like four of her teammates, she was credited with two steals, too.
The undefeated Rockets host their first home game on Monday when the Clinton Maroons invade the Rocket Center. A junior varsity game will start the evening with the varsity game to follow.
Meanwhile, the proportion of employers offering health insurance to their workers remained steady, and increases for health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health expenses were moderate, in line with the rise in pay. Deductibles were largely unchanged from the previous two years.
“With the pandemic, I’m not sure that employers wanted to make big changes in their plans, because so many other things were disrupted,” said Gary Claxton, a senior vice president at KFF and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
Reaching out to a dispersed workforce is also a challenge, with on-site activities like employee benefits fairs curtailed or eliminated.
“It’s hard to even communicate changes right now,” Claxton said.
Many employers reported that since the pandemic started they’ve made changes to their mental health and substance use benefits. Nearly 1,700 nonfederal public and private companies completed the full survey.
At companies with at least 50 workers, 39% have made such changes, including:
Workers are taking advantage of the services. Thirty-eight percent of the largest companies with 1,000 or more workers reported that their workers used more mental health services in 2021 than the year before, while 12% of companies with at least 50 workers said their workers upped their use of mental health services.
Thundermist Health Center is a federally qualified health center that serves three communities in Rhode Island. The center’s health plan offers employees an HMO and a preferred provider organization, and 227 workers are enrolled.
When the pandemic hit, the health plan reduced the copayments for behavioral health visits to zero from $30.
“We wanted to encourage people to get help who were feeling any stress or concerns,” said Cynthia Farrell, associate vice president for human resources at Thundermist.
Once the pandemic ends, if the health center adds a copayment again, it won’t be more than $15, she said.
The pandemic also changed the way many companies handled their wellness programs. More than half of those with at least 50 workers expanded these programs during the pandemic. The most common change? Expanding online counseling services, reported by 38% of companies with 50 to 199 workers and 58% of companies with 200 or more workers. Another popular change was expanding or changing existing wellness programs to meet the needs of people who are working from home, reported by 17% of the smaller companies and 34% of the larger companies that made changes.
Beefing up telemedicine services was a popular way for employers to make services easier to access for workers, who may have been working remotely or whose clinicians, including mental health professionals, may not have been seeing patients in person.
In 2021, 95% of employers offered at least some health care services through telemedicine, compared with 85% last year. These were often video appointments, but a growing number of companies allowed telemedicine visits by telephone or other communication modes, as well as expanded the number of services offered this way and the types of providers that can use them.
About 155 million people in the U.S. have employer-sponsored health care. The pandemic didn’t change the proportion of employers that offered coverage to their workers: It has remained mostly steady at 59% for the past decade. Size matters, however, and while 99% of companies with at least 200 workers offers health benefits, only 56% of those with fewer than 50 workers do so.
In 2021, average premiums for both family and single coverage rose 4%, to $22,221 for families and $7,739 for single coverage. Workers with family coverage contribute $5,969 toward their coverage, on average, while those with single coverage pay an average of $1,299.
The annual premium change was in line with workers’ wage growth of 5% and inflation of 1.9%. But during the past 10 years, average premium increases have substantially exceeded increases in wages and inflation.
Workers pay 17% of the premium for single coverage and 28% of that for family coverage, on average. The employer pays the rest.
Deductibles have remained steady in 2021. The average deductible for single coverage was $1,669, up 68% over the decade but not much different from the previous two years, when the deductible was $1,644 in 2020 and $1,655 in 2019.
Eighty-five percent of workers have a deductible now; 10 years ago, the figure was 74%.
Health care spending has slowed during the pandemic, as people delay or avoid care that isn’t essential. Half of large employers with at least 200 workers reported that health care use by workers was about what they expected in the most recent quarter. But nearly a third said that utilization has been below expectations, and 18% said it was above it, the survey found.
At Thundermist Health Center, fewer people sought out health care last year, so the self-funded health plan, which pays employee claims directly rather than using insurance for that purpose, fell below its expected spending, Farrell said.
That turned out to be good news for employees, whose contribution to their plan didn’t change.
“This year was the first year in a very long time that we didn’t have to change our rates,” Farrell said.
The survey was conducted between January and July 2021. It was published in the journal Health Affairs and KFF also released additional details in its full report.
Subscribe to KHN's free Morning Briefing.
America has been through a tough time. A national election separated friends and family, divided churches and took over our media. We’ve been intoxicated with poisonous rhetoric and toxic street gatherings that led to more division, injuries and even death.
Americans horrifically viewed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and said we aren’t going to take that anymore.
Over 762,000 people have died from Covid-19 in America. Over 47 million of us have been sick. Families who have buried loved ones don’t need convincing about the realities of Covid-19. Americans who have spent weeks in hospital intensive care units know they are fortunate to be alive. However, in the midst of America’s pandemic nightmare, Americans have debated with each other over vaccinations, masks, school and business closures. We have watched our businesses suffer. Our government’s finances have been further strained to supply money to hurting unemployed people.
Americans watched our departure from Afghanistan in horror. We argued among ourselves about how we should have left, the timing of our departure, and whether we should have left at all.
We continue to struggle with racism in America. People who have experienced it know the reality. At all levels of society we must rise above any and all words or actions that denigrate others.
We continue to have other crises impacting our nation. People pouring over our border illegally, an ongoing drug epidemic, homelessness, rising costs of medical treatment and insurance, unaffordable college tuition, unaffordable housing and unaffordable and sometimes unavailable groceries. Americans are now facing the fire of growing inflation. Groceries are becoming even more unaffordable for poor Americans. The cost of living adjustment coming for America’s retirees in January, which is reported to be 5.9 percent, might buy a small bag of groceries, maybe.
America has gone through a tough time, maybe better said, we are going through a tough time. This is why we desperately need Thanksgiving.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s "first Thanksgiving" — although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time — the festival lasted for three days.
That first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the Mayflower ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from a member of the Abenaki tribe who greeted them in English.
Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans according to History.com.
The early settlers who came to America suffered hardships that few Americans can comprehend. In the midst of so much death, sickness and starvation they found a way to stop and express gratitude. The friendship and humanitarian aid given to them by native Americans stand out as to what really makes America great.
We all need to learn from the first Thanksgiving. This year maybe we all could take time to be grateful, and do something to help each other.
Dr. Glenn Mollette is a syndicated American columnist and author of American Issues, Every American Has An Opinion and ten other books. He is read in all 50 states. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily representative of any other group or organization.
This article is the sole opinions of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Sentinel. We welcome comments and views from our readers. Submit your letters to the editor or commentary on a current event 24/7 to editor@oursentinel.com.
