Identify a suitable space in your local community for parkHIIT. Who owns the park? Most likely it will be a local authority (i.e. Dublin City Council).

You will need to engage with the local authority to ensure outdoor group exercise is allowed at your intended location and find out the process for obtaining approval to run parkHIIT.

We can help you with this conversation.

The Location Director takes overall responsibility for their location and can be considered the chairperson of the local community team. You shouldn’t have to do this alone. parkHIIT is a community, a team together with one purpose. While each location can have a Location Director, no one person ‘owns’ a particular location and one person is not sufficient to run parkHIIT consistently at a given location. You will need to bring a group of passionate people together in your local community to help you run parkHIIT consistently every week in your chosen location (see the next step).

How long are you prepared to commit to being a parkHIIT Location Director? If the answer to that question is at least 12 months, great – lets work together to build something!

Why Volunteer as a parkHIIT Location Director?

This is your chance to give back to your local community. You can make an incredible difference and change the lives of people living in your local area. You can build lasting relationships, develop new skills and grow your self-confidence. Regardless of your motivation, we can guarantee that volunteering with parkHIIT will be an incredibly rewarding experience, one that you will not regret.

We need a group of individuals like you to volunteer to bring parkHIIT to their community and help build positive outcomes and attitudes to health and wellbeing for all. 

You can have people to help you with general tasks but when getting started, at least one member of your new team should be a qualified fitness professional (ideally, we recommend having two instructors before you get started). Each instructor must have minimum EQF3 and up to date public liability insurance. 

What’s Expected of a parkHIIT Instructor?

parkHIIT is a people inspired initiative – that inspiration can be you! parkHIIT Instructors lead a pre-programmed 30-minute workout on a weekend morning once a month (or more if they wish) at a dedicated location.  Leading at parkHIIT doesn’t need to be time consuming but there are key considerations. A healthy and safe workout is top of the list and this will include a pre-workout site safety inspection and open communication and visual check ins with attendees.

parkHIIT Workout Structure

5 minute warm up –> 20 minutes of intensity –> 5 minute warm down

Great news – the hard work is done!  We have five rotating pre-programmed workouts so you don’t have to plan any workouts. As part of parkHIIT’s DNA, it’s important that we stick to these workouts so attendees can expect the same workout structure at parkHIIT no matter what the location. After all, we all live busy lives that need flexibility yet consistency.

Why Volunteer as a parkHIIT Instructor?

parkHIIT exists to support people. You can be the person that makes parkHIIT happen in your local park. You can make an incredible, tangible difference using the skills you have and change the outlook and lives of people living in your community.  Volunteering also gives you an opportunity to develop new skills and build on existing knowledge and at a simple level it’s often a buzz to be involved in something positive in your community. You could grow in your role to become a mentor for new parkHIIT Community Leaders in your area.

Each free weekly parkHIIT session is a taster; participants are encouraged to exercise more during the week. As you build relationships with parkHIIT attendees you open the door to potential new clients. 

- Decide on a time and day (Saturday or Sunday) that parkHIIT will take place at your chosen location. It’s important to stick with the same time each week once you have established parkHIIT.

- Draw up a schedule for a 6-week trial period and confirm an instructor against each of the 6 dates.

- Confirm approval with the local authority for the 6 week trial.

- Confirm your start date and start advertising in the local community.

Consistency is Key

Consistency is essential as we start at a new location and look to grow a local parkHIIT community.  Experience informs us that we need a minimum of 6 weeks at a dedicated, well signposted site but as important is the consistency of leaders. As with all training, consistency is key to deliver results, therefore it is key that parkHIIT can rely on its leaders to show up each week and support those looking to get fit, get active and get connected with one another. We start well and we build on that.

- All going well with the 6-week trial, we can move to establish parkHIIT permanently in the park every weekend by again confirming this with the local authority .

- As Location Director, you will be responsible for ensuring there is an instructor rostered to lead each upcoming parkHIIT workout. Cosistency is key. When we start in a park we stay in a park. We don't skip weekends.

- To make this weekly activity sustainable after the trial, we recommend recruiting a team of regular attendees to volunteer to become parkHIIT Community Leaders (see below). 

- As you build your team of Community Leaders, the qualified instructors who helped you get started can transition to mentor and support the newly qualified Community Leaders providing oversight and guidance.

What is the parkHIIT Community Leader Programme?

parkHIIT is not a class, it’s a group exercise session. In order for parkHIIT to scale and run consistently every weekend in local parks, we upskill and empower community leaders to lead parkHIIT sessions. We do this through the parkHIIT Leader Training Programme.

The training programme is provided to those interested in leading parkHIIT workouts in their local communities. parkHIIT Leader Training will only be for those that have an existing understanding of how resistance training works (you don't need a fitness qualification but if you don’t know a lunge from a squat then this training is not for you). Leaders must also demonstrate a genuine passion for health and wellbeing AND their local community. Once a leader successfully completes the training, they will be covered under the parkHIIT insurance policy to lead parkHIIT sessions in any of our designated parks.

parkHIIT Community Leader Programme - The Training

The parkHIIT community leader training consists of an online and an in-person practical element. The online element is self-paced and can be completed at any time. The practical training requires would-be leaders to support qualified instructors at parkHIIT workouts on a minimum of five occasions.

The training covers:

- The parkHIIT Ethos

- Organisation and Safety

- The Workouts (there are only 5 bodyweight workouts which rotate each week)

- Getting started as a parkHIIT Leader

How Do I Become a parkHIIT Community Leader?

If parkHIIT is already established in a park close to you then you can contact the Location Director for that park to find out when the next training programme is taking place. If parkHIIT doesn’t currently take place in a park close by but you’d like to bring it there then it sounds like you need to become a parkHIIT Location Director first!

A parkHIIT Location Director can also be a parkHIIT Community Leader and vice versa. Anyone that wishes to lead a parkHIIT workout MUST have completed the training and have received confirmation that they are included on the group insurance policy. The insurance only covers the leading of the 5 pre-set parkHIIT workouts at one of parkHIIT’s established locations.

Why Volunteer as a parkHIIT Community Leader?

This is your chance to give back to your local community. You can make an incredible difference and change the lives of people living in your local area. You can build lasting relationships, develop new skills and grow your self-confidence. Who knows, it could even be a stepping stone for you to progress to a formal fitness qualification. Regardless of your motivation, we can guarantee that volunteering with parkHIIT will be an incredibly rewarding experience, one that you will not regret.