In the haze of an autumn sunset, dozens of people gathered on a jungle gym at McCombs Dam Park in the Bronx. The sun sank below the horizon, casting amber light on the more than 50 people who were there, some doing push-ups, others doing pull-ups, and a few laps around the track in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. I was running.
It was September 30th, the day the 15th consecutive Motivation Monday was held at the park. People came from as far away as Long Island and Yonkers to do one thing together. It’s a workout. As I set up my iPhone on a tripod to capture the movement, a crowd began to gather near the monkey bars and the countoff began.
“One, two, three… come on! You can do more than that!” a young man yells into a megaphone, encouraging someone hanging from a pull-up bar. By shouting encouragement, he was conveying a broader message to others in the park: “We’re here to support you.”
A year ago, a man named Jonathan Perez went to the park to get some exercise after a painful breakup.
“I started by running every day,” Perez, 19, said, sitting on a bench next to the track. “When I was running, all I could think about was how tired I was. My mind wasn’t anywhere else.”
The jungle gym kept calling out to Perez as he lapped lap after lap trying to overcome his heartbreak.
“I look at the bar every day,” he recalled. “One day I thought, ‘Let me do some pull-ups or something.’ And it took off from there.”
Outdoor training has long been popular in New York. In a stressful city where gym memberships cost thousands of dollars a year and apartments typically don’t have space for weight machines, what’s worse than bleeding in one of the more than 1,000 public playgrounds? may be possible. And fall is peak season for park training, when kids go back to school and equipment goes away. The weather also helps.
“When it’s cold, you don’t think about anything,” Perez said.
Perez began training every day after running. He started posting workouts on his Instagram account in January and said that since he started Motivation Monday, the number of followers has more than doubled to 54,000. He caught the eye of Christopher Sanchez, now a close friend of his in Brownsville, Brooklyn, who said he was desperate to escape the gang violence plaguing his neighborhood. He found Mr. Perez’s video on Instagram and sent him a message.
“I didn’t expect him to text me back, but he did, so we met,” Sanchez said. “We hit it off as soon as we met.”
It was June 24th, the first Motivation Monday. Soon, Perez’s videos were reaching a wider audience, and more people started flocking to McCombs Dam Park to work out.
Real estate agent Steven Faiella, 30, said he changed his work schedule in time for motivational Mondays.
“I’m a little older than everyone and I was a little late in finding my way in life, so when I see what they’re doing at that age, I have to come cheering,” he said, shirtless. He said cheerfully. pull-up bar.
“No matter where you come from, we’re all the same here,” Faiella, who travels to the Bronx from Bethpage, Long Island, said positively. “We train and teach each other life lessons. We have to take time off from work to do that.”
Suddenly the crowd started shouting and counting together. A tall man was doing pull-ups with his wheelchair close behind him, and several lifeguards were at the ready. Ever since Jonathan Rodriguez, 41, found out about them, he hasn’t missed a motivational Monday.
Rodriguez lost the use of his legs after being shot in 2016, but that didn’t stop him from doing 50 pull-ups every Monday, he said.
“We treat each other like family. That’s basically the basis of this,” he said. “We don’t focus on who is better than the other. One side is trying to push the other to the limit. This is because when a community comes together, it overwhelms everything they say. It’s a perfect example of what’s possible.”
Overcoming situations through the power of working out is something Xavier Ruiz knows all too well, as he promotes Motivation Monday on his Instagram page.
In May 2021, Lewis was involved in an accident while working as a FedEx driver. He had a fractured rib cage, dislocated elbow and two fractures in his wrist, he said. He was scheduled to spend two weeks in the hospital and undergo several surgeries that left him with rods and screws in his arm.
“I didn’t want that to happen to my body,” said Lewis, who was training alone on a park bench in Harlem. He declined surgery after being told he might not be able to fully straighten his arm. “I feel like I’m in a corner mentally. I knew it was a challenge and I had to work it out.”
He started training at home, doing push-ups once a day. Six months later, one push-up turned into 10, and I finally felt strong enough to go to the gym and go outside.
He created a fitness Instagram account and began encouraging others to attend Motivation Mondays at McCombs Dam Park. He also started a group called Sharks and Orcas, which frequently worked out in Chelsea Park in lower Manhattan.
“It’s a powerful energy because we’re all pushing each other up and trying to be better,” Lewis said. Sometimes, to find inspiration, “you have to go around like-minded people,” he added.
A search for inspiration from his crew led 27-year-old Isaiah Kadiri to Motivation Monday. In 2017, when Kadiri was 21 years old, his father encouraged him to join the Marines. After two months of boot camp, he was sent home. (“It wasn’t for me,” he said.)
In his short time there, he learned the power of discipline and the importance of group support.
“It was the perfect way to keep me out of trouble,” Kadiri, a Brooklyn native, said of working out at McCombs Dam Park, adding that she was happy to meet people who shared her interest in fitness. . “They’re really nice people.”
“It’s actually great to be around people who are motivated to do the same things you do. We help each other grow,” he added.
Exercising in a city playground can be scary. Seeing groups of large men frequently expending so much aggressive energy may have deterred some young mothers from participating, but not Marisol Gonzalez, 28. . Marisol Gonzalez is currently attending Motivation Monday with her three children, ages 5, 10, and 12.
Gonzalez said she initially took her kids to the track, but then decided to incorporate exercise into their daily routine. After seeing the men training, she reached out to Perez on Instagram.
“I’m here because of my kids,” she said, as another count of pull-ups erupted from the crowd behind her. “I don’t think I could have gotten here on my own,” she added. “I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. My children change the way I see them. I only have one boy, but he has all the examples of what a man should be. I want them to see that, and I want my daughters to understand that men aren’t just aggressive and incapable of expressing their emotions.”
While she works out, the men sometimes pause to help their children with their homework. That energy captivates her entire family.
“Everyone is happy, goofy, cheerful, motivating and encouraging,” Gonzalez said. “I think that’s the best thing I can give my children.”
