Ever since I was in high school, I loved going to the gym.

I saw it as a solo pursuit. I would go alone, and I never had much of a plan. I would dabble with the bike or the elliptical and finish with some ab exercises and simple bodyweight movements, all the while tricking myself into believing I was working hard. Deep down, though, I knew I was capable of working harder.

I continued training this way through university, and there was always a low hum of boredom beneath my workouts. I showed up because I believed it was good for me, because disciplined people go to the gym. And if I’m being honest, there was also a small, hopeful part of me that imagined the gym might double as a meet-cute. That maybe between sets or beside the water fountain, I’d lock eyes with someone who might ask me out.

But that fantasy never materialized. The gym was a sea of headphones and downward gazes, everyone sealed off in their own private world, moving around the gym like commuters in a subway station.

After university, I moved back home to Vancouver, B.C., and I found Madlab School of Fitness, which offered group classes. I still remember my first class. The coach called everyone into a circle and announced the question of the day: “Would you rather give up your phone for one month or your morning coffee?”

It got people talking, debating, and laughing, something I had never seen in a gym environment before. After that, I was personally introduced to each person as it was my first class, and we all fist pumped before dispersing to start the warm-up.

Fast forward six months and Madlab School of Fitness doubled as my new community. It was a social house. A place I couldn’t wait to go to each day. In fact, I had to force myself to take a rest day here and there because I didn’t want to skip the gym. At the same time, something else started to happen that never did when I trained alone for all those years: my fitness level improved to a place I didn’t know was possible. I was finally pushing myself in a way I never knew I could.

Two years into my journey, pretty much all my closest friends were people I had met at the gym, and I was fitter and more motivated to train than I had ever been.

What Happened Next

I began competing in functional fitness in 2010 and started to take it quite seriously.

By 2013, I followed my own individualized program designed to attack my weaknesses, and included more volume than the one-hour group class provided. As a result, I stopped going to group classes entirely and returned to training on my own, isolated in the corner of the gym.

All of a sudden, what had been the best part of my day became stressful. To be totally honest, training was considerably less fun. But my priorities had changed, and I assumed it was a necessary part of taking my fitness to a new level.

And in 2014, I finally did it. I qualified as an individual for the 2014 CrossFit Games. I finished 37th. I competed one more year after that, and in 2016, I decided my competition days were over. I assumed I would just happily return to group classes, to the days where the community motivated me and lifted me up.

But this isn’t what happened. So much of my self-worth was attached to my scores on workouts, and I didn’t want to feel myself becoming less fit. So I kept training on my own, mostly lifting and working on gymnastics skills and sprinkling in some manageable conditioning workouts three days a week.

Fitness had become such a non-negotiable habit in my life that it wasn’t difficult to continue to work out. But it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t exciting. I wasn’t motivated. I wasn’t laughing and connecting and bonding as I suffered alongside others. I was merely going through the motions.

Fitness had become, once again, like brushing my teeth: A habit, and a necessary part of my day, rather than an enjoyable, fun, uplifting activity.

This continued until 2024.

Enter Kea Athletics

After giving birth to my son Ozzie in September 2023, I returned to the anti-social globo gym for a few months, focusing on getting some strength back and recovering my core after my C-Section. But it was hard to find the time to get to the gym with a newborn.

That’s when I decided to, finally, check out Kea Athletics in Surrey, B.C., a group class, community-centric gym that is 200 meters away from my house. At the time, I had no intention of re-joining group classes. The thought of going for a one-rep max snatch or attempting Fran or Murph were still associated with a certain amount of pressure from my competition days. Instead, I was hoping Kea had an open gym membership option, and that I could bring Ozzie with me.

To my luck, they did. And so in April 2024, I started going to open gym at 8 a.m. with my little man in tow, and continued to do my uninspired maintenance workouts on the side. Until one day, when Ozzie slept in. ‘I guess I could join the 9 am class,’ I thought to myself.

I showed up for the class, and something surprising happened at the outset. I found myself chatting to other moms, smiling, laughing, and I had the most fun working out in more than a decade.

And so began my group class, community fitness journey 2.0.

Two Years Later

Fitness is back in my life in the most enjoyable version I’ve experienced. Group classes at Kea are social, fun, and without stress, and I’m seeing postpartum PRs all over the place.

I’m nowhere near as fit as I was in my competition days, but I’m still way more fit than I was in my training alone days (and I’m way more motivated to be there).

Tomorrow begins a three-week intramural in-house competition at Kea. The playful trash talking between my husband and I has already begun. Though it’s a competition, I don’t feel any kind of pressure. I’m competing to be part of the social community. I’m competing because I know the environment at Kea will make it hard not to push myself. And I’m competing because I know, like always, the post-workout high will be palpable.

And then, we’ll turn around the next day, and, like every week, we’ll show up on Saturday with Ozzie and hit a partner workout to start the day. Not because we have to. Not because we’re chasing a leaderboard. But because working out together with a community, while our little man plays with other members’ kids, is the best, most enjoyable way to start our weekend.

Turns out, fitness was never meant to be a solo pursuit. It was always meant to be shared.

Author Bio:

Emily Beers is a fitness writer and journalist who has been working in the industry since 2009. She also spent a decade-and-a-half as a personal trainer and CrossFit coach, and competed at the CrossFit Games twice with a team and once as an individual