This is the story about Friskis&Svettis
In 1978, Johan Holmsäter had an idea. It was about how to make people move. Not just once, but throughout life.
Johan created a social meeting place; open to everyone, with a relaxed and unpretentious atmosphere. It made it easier to get started.
He also realized that if people want to train their whole life, it must be pleasurable; both the training itself, but also in everything around. Lovely training and a nice social context increases the likelihood of you longing back.
Johan Holmsäter launched Jympa, a new groundbreaking form of exercise that trained everything the body needed in less than an hour. It was fun and easy to keep up with! But Jympa was not just a form of exercise. It was also a philosophy.
Jympa acted as much about the experience as it was about the physical exercise effect. It was not about having a body, but about being one.
Friskis & Svetti's activities combined knowledge from the healthcare and sports movement under the same roof. During the first few years, the training was divided into two parts: "Friskis" was a passport for those who could not participate in the usual training: injured, elderly, pregnant and others who needed training. "Svettis" was the training for the others, alert and healthy.
But the most important thing in the idea was the &. It symbolized the lock between Friskis and Svettis. Through it, people could train in all stages of life.
In the first story of the story, only one person came. But within a few months the success was a fact. Jympa pulled full houses and Friskis & Svettis associations started to start up around Sweden. Friskis & Svettis grew from a small, cocky student movement and spread to more and more ages, places and social strata. Today, 40 years later, we are Sweden's largest sports association with over half a million members only in Sweden!
Over the years, the division between "Friskis" and "Svettis" disappeared. Instead, our training range grew ever wider. We introduced dancing, spinning, working out-pass, Indoor walkning, opened gym and trained coaches. Exercise development is ongoing and the idea of training throughout life remains.
Today we have around 80 different types of training. All associations do not have all kinds of training, but all have Jympa. And no matter what you practice, the same basic philosophy is at the bottom: We have as much focus on shattered training quality as on a really good experience. It's not about having a body, but about being one.