Blink Fitness Will Cover Mirrors to Promote Body Positivity

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If you're a Blink Fitness member in NYC and showing off your cute athleisure outfits in gym selfies are important to you, maybe make Monday your rest day. InStyle reports that the gym chain is launching "Monday Without Mirrors," which is exactly what it sounds like, with paper placed over every mirror in the gym for one day a week.

The move, which has been done by other gyms before, is happening already in the Manhattan location and coming soon to Blink gyms in Long Island, Queens, New Jersey, Westchester, the Bronx, and Brooklyn.

Not everyone's a fan. A Facebook user wrote on Blink's page, "As I wrote on your 54th Street location's upper level, it's kind of hard to make sure one is using proper form without a mirror. And considering that your gym actively markets to beginning lifters, it's really odd that you'd make an issue of this, especially if it's just for the sake of alliteration."

But Blink Fitness’s vice president of marketing Ellen Roggemann told InStyle that Blink is hoping its members will focus less on their reflection and how exercise makes them feel, saying:

Mirrors in health clubs and gyms are great tools to check form to ensure you are doing exercises correctly. Yet, regardless of shape, size, or fitness level, the mirror can serve as a distraction when we focus too much on how we look, comparing ourselves to others around us. The majority of the fitness industry is blanketed by images of ‘perfect’ bodies, putting pressure on people to achieve them. We want to change the rhetoric around fitness to focus on the emotional benefits of exercise, and encourage our members to take a break from the mirror and concentrate on working out to feel healthier. We work out for the mood, not just the mirror.

That phrase, "Do it for the mood, not the mirror," is plastered on the paper along with "Reflect on this" and "Are you feelin' it." So on Mondays at Blink, checking out your sweet new leggings and sneakers is out, and staring at motivational phases is in.