Group Fitness as a Form of Serious Leisure among Part-Time Le ...

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Abstract

Les Mills International (LMI) is a global fitness company specializing in the delivery of group fitness classes, which have standardized choreography. The classes are conducted in more than eighty countries by instructors who have undergone similar training modules. LMI has been in the Philippines since 2002, and has since expanded its pool of instructors. There are full-time fitness professionals who teach classes, but this article focuses on instructors who have employment outside of the industry. Their teaching of LMI classes is a form of “serious leisure.” They have undergone training in order to acquire the requisite skills and knowledge for an LMI instructor, and they use time outside of regular employment to study, rehearse, and transmit choreography in their classes. They are in a situation in which they effectively do two jobs, thereby blurring the work-leisure dichotomy. This article makes use of data from semistructured interviews with part-time group fitness instructors, and explores three main questions: What factors made them decide to become group fitness instructors? How do they comply with the attitudinal and behavioural expectations of being an instructor? And how do they reconcile the situation of teaching LMI classes and simultaneously having full-time employment?