Get Moving project launched to encourage conscripts to exercise

Launched early last year, the project has inspired every military training unit to organise sports activities. Activities organised and instructed by the conscripts themselves are motivating conscripts in 25 Defence Forces and two Border Guard units to exercise.

Amount of exercise up by a fourth following project launch

Conscripts completed 70,400 units of exercise in the first half of last year and 88,581 in the second half. The amount of exercise rose by 25.8 per cent after the project team and training units began promoting sports clubs activities.

Through these clubs, conscripts take up their favourite sports and try out new ones. For this reason, a wide offering is available. Last year, this offering included floorball, aerobic, zumba, indoor climbing, disc golf and gym training. In all, 45 activities were offered.

Sports club activities began 25 years ago

In 1985, the Finnish Military Sport Federation conducted a survey to establish whether sports clubs operating in the conscripts’ leisure time could and should be established. As a result, sports club activities began in training units in early 1987. Together with the physical education officers in each training unit, member clubs of the Finnish Military Sport Federation were responsible for promoting sports activities. Individual conscripts and conscript committees took charge of club activities.

The nature and scope of club activities varies between training units. The highest level of activity is typically seen in units where a member of Defence Forces’ staff has taken an interest in club activities and offers support to conscripts serving as club instructors. Seamless co-operation between staff and conscripts is the key to success.

Support from Patria helped develop activities

Together with the Finnish Air Force Technical School, the Finnish Military Sport Association carried out a sports club activity development project in 2003–2004. The results of the project were extremely positive.

The Finnish Military Sport Association has made every effort to share best practices with all units that train conscripts. Unfortunately, sharing has not been very active due to the Association’s scarce resources.

With Patria’s involvement as a sponsor early last year, full-scale development of conscripts’ sports club activities began. The objective of the three-year Get Moving project is to make sports club activities available to all conscripts.