Resistance Training: (Re)shaping Extreme Forms of Workplace Health Promotion

Abstract

As the number of workplace health initiatives grows, so does the variety of programming. This study examines a fitness apparel company's attempts to promote a fitness culture through a particular brand of "extreme" fitness known as CrossFit. CrossFit is an intense fitness regimen that has generated controversy with a cult-like reputation. We looked at the evangelical promotion of CrossFit as a new corporate wellness initiative. Based on interviews and participant observations, we used a critical-interpretive lens to understand employee reactions to the extreme wellness initiative. The evangelical introduction of this program by management led to high rates of participation, influencing employee perceptions of health, fitness, and identity. Yet, we also found that employee resistance emerged, which helped to mark the limits of this managerial intervention in workplace fitness. Ultimately, the study advocates for more co-construction of workplace wellness initiatives.

For Better or For Work: Dual Discourses in a Workplace Wellness Program

“…All of the organizational discourses found here (e.g., becoming a better employee) epitomize Zoller's (2003) idea of managerialism, focused on control, instrumental logics, efficiency, and profits, and reinforce Deetz's (1992) point that these logics take over other areas of life. Thus, like previous studies of organizational wellness, our findings exemplify corporations' colonization of employees' health perceptions (James & Zoller, 2017) and use of regulatory practices that control health and fitness (Johansson, Tienari, & Valtonen, 2017). However, results of our study extend the notion of managerialism in WHP by showing how this form of control extends beyond the corporation and into universities.…”

Men, Masculinities and the Modern Career

“…This manifests itself in both informal organisational discourse in which bodies signalling unhealthy lifestyles are increasingly stigmatised (Amsterdam and Eck 2019;Huzell and Larsson 2012), as well as in the rise of formal workplace health promotion that involves physical exercise programmes, nutrition assessments and mental wellbeing screening (Cederström and Spicer 2015;Dailey, Burke and Carberry 2018;James and Zoller 2018). Although the presence of workplace health promotion is apparently justified by its indubitable benefits for both employers and employees in the form of increased stamina, productivity and personal wellbeing (James and Zoller 2018), doing visible work on one's own health is also widely perceived by employers as a way of expressing professionalism, loyalty to the organisation and commitment to the work (Amsterdam and Eck 2019;Cederström and Spicer 2015;Kelly, Allender and Colquhoun 2007;Meriläinen, Tienari and Valtonen 2015). Therefore, this development contributes not only to the repertoire of practices that prolong and boost working life but also to the possibilities of climbing up the career ladder.…”

“…However, men's explicit criticism of masculinities centred on paid work may also result in resistance to organisational health discourses. Health discourses in working life, when viewed as a visible form of organisational power distinct from work assignments, can form a site of resistance to the organisation's power over employees (James and Zoller 2018). Concern for one's own wellbeing can also constitute a struggle to survive under conditions of increasing expectations at work or troubling power relations in the workplace (Amsterdam and Eck 2019).…”

“…Moreover, participants experienced themselves as subjects of workplace health promotion during work hours. Although participants found these interventions potentially helpful, the criticism of lifestyles centred on work provided them with the ability to consider the meanings of this phenomenon and partly resist it (see Dailey, Burke and Carberry 2018;James and Zoller 2018). Thus, men's awareness of traditions and expectations surrounding them as men and workers did not determine their actions but gave them the opportunity to question and resist these modes of being.…”

“…However, usefulness and rationality from the individual viewpoint also marked the boundary of acceptable organisational power on the self-care practised by employees and constituted resistance (see James and Zoller 2018). For example, Miska interpreted workplace health promotion as an attempt to use power over employees in order to fulfil the needs of employers, and against this particular background he expressed concern for his own wellbeing: Miska: The models of self-care are pretty much learned.…”