Obituary for Getfit
Saying goodbye to MIT's annual physical activity challenge after 21 years
I remember the first time I walked into the MIT Zesiger Center (Z-center for short) to try to fit a workout in the last hot days of September. I saw varsity athletes and crop tops abound, grunting around weights or running fast speeds on the treadmill. Meanwhile, I had never run a mile in one sitting, and I had only touched 5 lb dumbbells in my parents’ living room. I was trying to use a bicep curl machine, when I was unable to maintain my grip and the bar banged down. I averted my eyes to avoid seeing whose attention I grabbed, and scurried off to seek refuge in the locker room. I didn’t enter any of the fitness floors for the rest of the semester.
My experience at the Z-center wasn’t the first time I have felt out of place with the fitness world. In the world of social media and constantly-changing advice on body image and fitness, I have always felt very lost. I associated the sports and physical activity I had done as a child with overly-critical coaches and overly competitive classmates. When I joined everyone else in the world doing the Chloe Ting Challenge in early 2020, I quickly found it repetitive and isolating. Turns out, I had been approaching fitness all wrong: I was struggling to make working out a sustainable habit, because I wasn’t inherently deriving joy from a physical activity, and I was often doing it alone. I got the opportunity to try a completely different approach by participating in MIT’s Getfit challenge.
Getfit was a 12-week challenge for the entire MIT community including Lincoln Lab, in which you form teams of 5–8 people and try to hit weekly time goals of exercise, starting from 150 minutes and ending with 300 minutes. The timing lines up slightly before the spring semester starts and ends several weeks before the semester ends. There are community-wide events, like tunnel walks, exercise classes, and talks. From faculty, staff, and students, anyone can participate, all with the goal of encouraging physical activity.
As a graduate student, I had some inherent struggles with the challenge. First, to get credit for participating in the challenge, you have to remember to enter in your minutes. When you are also balancing academic pressures and deadlines, it can be an easy thing to forget. Next, Getfit starts during cold and flu season and ends when tree pollen levels are at their highest. Who wants to be working out when you can barely breathe through your nose?
Even with these obstacles, I have participated seriously in the Getfit challenge twice. I experienced the mental and physical health benefits of incorporating physical activity into my routine, and I wanted to jumpstart it again. My teammates and I had bonded over taking similar classes together in the fall, and the challenge helped us keep in touch. Unfortunately, on May 13, 2025, the managers of Getfit announced that due to cuts by MIT Health, Getfit was being discontinued among other community health programs. The news of it all seemed surreal, especially after we just celebrated the 20th anniversary of Getfit.
I hope MIT reconsiders their decision to cut the program, given that it brought so much of the community together by reminding everyone to take care of their health during the work-heavy academic year. But in the meantime, here are my tips to keeping active:
- Exercise with others!
I’ll be the first to say that I’m self-conscious and have a bad habit of comparing myself to others, especially in physical activities. Research has shown, however, that making exercising a habit is easier when you also consider it a social activity. Not only will you look forward to hanging out with other people, but you will feel a commitment to them. I am more likely to finish a run with the distance goal I had in mind when I am running with someone who agreed to do the same, even if I end up having to walk many portions of it, than if I was running by myself. Having friends with you can also make trying new things less daunting. I only tried rock climbing when my friend who has a membership offered me guest passes. It wasn’t for me, but I wouldn’t have had the courage to try if I didn’t have supportive friends who wanted to share their love for the sport, and who encouraged me as I struggled.
- Use the challenge as a reason to try new activities or new environments.
If you have had trouble sticking to an exercise routine, it could be possible you have not found the right sport or environment that you enjoy. I used to think I was not meant to be an active person because I disliked workouts with reps and felt insecure that I couldn’t do a full push-up. When I discovered yoga, I resonated with its practice of measuring a pose by breaths, modifying poses to match my own capabilities, and taking breaks on my own terms. MIT and the Greater Boston region also have many more athletic facilities that host activities and seasonal sports harder to find elsewhere, such as ice skating, skiing, sailing, and scuba diving. Feeling the wind in my face while sailing down the Charles and the sound of my skate blades scratching the ice at the Johnson rink are core memories I have of MIT.
- Aim for and celebrate every physical movement you go out of your way to do.
I have heard someone complain about people who used to count walking as their physical activity, which I highly disagree with. If you are recovering from a recent injury or dealing with chronic health conditions, sometimes an activity that people take for granted like walking requires a lot of effort. Accessibility is something we should strive to increase in our world. It also means sometimes I am tempted to take the elevator when I can easily walk up two flights of stairs instead. Actively choosing to take physical movement that you may resist doing, like biking instead of taking the bus, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, should be celebrated. Any decision you take to incorporate more movement in your day, no matter how trivial it seems, adds up.
Everyone is going through their individual journey of wellness, but you don’t have to feel alone in it. While it’s disappointing that MIT is taking away part of their investment and support in community health, the fact that participants of this past Getfit challenge logged 13,199,451 minutes of physical activity shows how many of us were committed. I hope when you come to MIT, you explore what we have to offer, from great athletic facilities, MIT recreation classes, and drop-in yoga sessions at the Wellbeing Lab. Even though there will be no more posters on the hallway and Institute-wide emails inviting you to a physical challenge, the Institute’s community of people who care about physical health are still here to support you in your journey. Maybe I will see you personally in a yoga class, the Johnson ice rink, or the alumni pool!
Share this post:
