The city of Sikeston has started a new Shape Up Sikeston fitness program for its businesses. The program is modeled after Cape Girardeau's Shape Up Cape, with the purpose of encouraging employees of area businesses to work out and be more active.
Kylie Wibbenmeyer, fitness director for Restart in Sikeston, said she has been shocked at the amount of participation in the program's first year. Almost 500 people and 48 teams are participating in the event, which kicked off Dec. 1 and will end Feb. 1.
"I thought we were going to have maybe a dozen teams," Wibbenmeyer said. "I didn't have any idea it would be this big."
Wibbenmeyer said that Restart, the Missouri Delta Medical Center's physical therapy unit, had been wanting to do something to get people in the community involved in exercising and being active. After seeing the success of Shape Up Cape, she called the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce and asked for details on its program. Word of mouth quickly spread through Sikeston Chamber of Commerce luncheons and passing out flyers to area businesses, and the program was born.
The idea was also an extension of programs that Restart had offered for area students during the summer. "I wanted to do something like that for adults," Wibbenmeyer said. "We always have corporate games in Sikeston that get people excited, and were hoping that people would like to have this competition and be motivated to work out."
Wibbenmeyer said that different activities are worth a certain number of points. Participants can achieve a maximum of 15 points per day with activities such as walking, strength training, running and playing basketball. There is room for flexibility, however, in the activities. Wibbenmeyer said people have been calling her asking about the point value of activities not on the list, such as Pilates and raking leaves.
We also had a lot of questions about the snow and how much snow shoveling counted," she said.
Each week, the team captain reports each team member's points for the week to Wibbenmeyer, who then divides the number of points for the team by the number of team members to get the average for that week. Results are tracked in the Standard Democrat newspaper. At the end of the program, the winning team will receive prizes such as gift certificates, she said, but the benefits will extend beyond that.
"I hope that people realize how much better they feel once they put exercise into their daily routine," she said.
Jiggs Moore, parks and recreation director for Sikeston, is the coordinator of the city's eight teams. "We had been talking about trying to put together some kind of fitness program for employees, and then Restart came along with their program," he said. "We organized eight teams within city ranks to participate in this program. Of course, the underlying reason was to get in better shape and become more physically fit."
Moore said participating in the program has definitely motivated him to exercise more. "I have exercised now for 33 straight days," he said. "Today will make 34, and I've never done that in my life. I'm part of our team, and I don't want to be the one to drop the ball."
Judy Glenn with the Sikeston Convention and Visitors Bureau said she joined a team because other women in her office were doing it. "I hate to work out," she said. "But the good thing about this is that I'm not the only one. It's not as bad when you know there's a group of you."
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