We’ve asked all six of the Bethnal Green Ventures teams to blog about their ideas here over the coming weeks.

Next up is the Good Gym.

The Good Gym connects runners with members of the community who need some help. The idea is to help you do good and keep fit at the same time.

Simple.

Ivo Gormley first entered The Good Gym into Social Innovation Camp December 2008.

The thinking behind it is that gyms are a waste of human potential. They sap your energy and don’t do anything useful with it. It’s also very easy to talk yourself out of exercising when the only person it’s affecting is you. However, add an elderly person or someone else expecting some help from you and you have a reason – and a good one – to get running.

Runners get matched to people in a local area and set a frequency and distance they want to run for. Runners can then begin their fitness regime with their ‘coaches’. In some instances the runner may bring a newspaper to their coach or even help lift some boxes for them.

The Good Gym also organises group runs on the second Monday of every month. Runners collectively complete a task, such as lifting bags of soil to the top of a school to help with a rooftop garden.

The team are currently running the Good Gym in the Tower Hamlets.

You can check out their blog for more information and watch the video in this post for a taste of what it’s like to run with them.