The Things That Can't Be Automated
Open your phone at the moment and it can feel like the world is ending a little bit every day. Every second post is about AI taking jobs, writing books or running companies. Some of it is hype, some of it is real and most of it leaves you feeling a bit smaller and more alone than before you started scrolling.
We're not going to pretend we know how any of that plays out. But we do know there are some things a machine can't do for you. It can't squat for you (although sometimes in that 7th rep at RPE 8/10, it'd be nice if it did), it can't do those last burpee box jump overs when you're adamant that your legs are made out of lead and it sure as heck can't can't stand next to you, out of breath and high-five you when you finish your workout.
There's a whakataukī that always fits so well in a CrossFit gym community -
He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.
What connection looks like at Hypha
Connection at the gym isn't some grand gesture, it's the small stuff that builds up over months of turning up at the same time as the same people.
It's meeting a member in the gym who recommends your new favourite sourdough bakery down the road.
It's connecting with another member over how hard it's been through sleepless postpartum nights, only to have them leave you dinner in the gym fridge, unexpectedly, to pick up the next time you're in.
It's being borderline on going to class in the morning, then remembering you told your gym mate you'd be there. So you go and you feel better for it.
None of that shows up on a leaderboard yet all of it matters more than we think.
What the research says
Connection is a health behaviour. A 2010 meta-analysis pooled 148 studies and more than 300,000 people. Those with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the study periods, an effect comparable with well-established risk factors like smoking. It held across age, sex and starting health.
Many of us are running short. In 2023 the US Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic, estimating that the mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. The advisory also asked all of us to take a hard look at our relationship with technology.
We train harder together. Researchers at Kansas State and Michigan State universities have studied what's called the Köhler effect: when your effort counts towards a team and your partner is a little stronger than you, you dig in. In one study, women cycling alongside a partner they believed was more capable kept going significantly longer than when they rode alone. That's the "I said I'd be there" effect, measured in a lab.
It's what lasts. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has been following people since 1938. Its clearest finding is that the quality of our relationships predicts health and happiness in later life better than wealth or status.
Why it matters more now
As more of life moves onto screens and we work remotely or from home, places where people of different ages, stages and backgrounds show up regularly, in person, become rarer and even more valuable. The gym can be one of those places.
You might be in a class with someone at a completely different stage of life to you, doing the same workout, getting through it together and that doesn't happen much anywhere else.
Small ways to build connection
Learn one new name a week and use it.
Make a plan with someone "See you Thursday at 6am class" is accountability that works.
Stay five minutes after class. That's when most of the good conversations happen (and great coffee)
Notice when someone's missing. A quick message goes a long way and having been in this game for years now, trust me, it's a long long way.
Bring someone with you. A friend who trains with you is a friend you'll see more of.
Leave the phone in your bag. The hour (and your hauora) is better without it.
Bringing it together
We can't control what happens out there. But we can control whether we turn up, who we turn up for and how we treat each other when we're here. Movement, feeling great and longevity - connection runs through all three.
References
Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316.
Office of the US Surgeon General. (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community.
Irwin BC, Scorniaenchi J, Kerr NL, Eisenmann JC, Feltz DL. (2012). Aerobic exercise is promoted when individual performance affects the group: a test of the Köhler motivation gain effect. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 44(2), 151–159.
Waldinger R, Schulz M. (2023). The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Simon & Schuster.
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