Courtesy of lululemon experiential MOA
lululemon experiential MOA
lululemon experiential MOA // group meditation space
Beloved athleisure brand lululemon athletica is expanding its footprint once again—and this time it’s taking its #sweatlife ethos from the storefront to the forefront of workplace wellness.
In late 2019, Mall of America welcomed lululemon experiential among its roster of tenants, the company’s second-biggest location to date. Counting an in-house fitness studio, meditation space, cafe, and luxury locker rooms among its amenities, the 19,700-square-foot space offers the perfect storm of creativity and community. And its most recent initiative—designing experiences for corporate wellness—is a byproduct of just that.
These programs are targeted to employers looking to improve the physical, emotional, and social fitness of their teams and, by proxy, surrounding communities. “We’ve worked with agencies, corporate teams, co-working spaces, leadership groups, and more,” says Annie Ketcham, experiential sales and marketing manager at lululemon MOA. “We tailor each experience to the needs of the group and offer [curriculums centered in] mindfulness, meditation, mobility, nutrition, mental health, resiliency and more—all led by our ambassadors.”
(lululemon ambassadors are, Ketcham adds, the local doers and community leaders who “challenge us to sweat daily, connect with more meaning, and grow without fearing failure. From the day we opened our first store, our ambassadors have been woven into everything we do.”)
Exercising Emotional Fitness
Workshop categories like “Response: Managing Emotions” and “Compassion: Being in Relationship” aim to emphasize the importance of emotional fitness, the “practice of strengthening skills that make us better humans and, in turn better leaders,” says Ketcham. “Our research and development team started with three learning modules: awareness, compassion, and response.”
Another example, resiliency training is rooted in better identifying the physical and mental stressors that accompany our day-to-day, and learning how to manage them through a combination of mindfulness, self-regulation, and leveraging neuroscience to improve rest efficiency. “From there it’s all about releasing tension, finding gratitude, and connecting to your community,” she says. “Throughout the workshop, we give tangible tips so participants can walk away with a plan of action.”
Workshops and workout classes are available virtually and in-person to local businesses since its launch—a local law firm recently took advantage of a virtual yoga class, and a downtown Minneapolis creative agency hosted a wellness retreat on its rooftop deck, which included yoga/meditation classes and a discussion on burnout and resilience in the workplace.
Onward
“While community has always been at our core, offering up our programming in a private format is something we’re excited to explore further,” says Ketcham. “The MOA store gives us the opportunity to play and elevate.”
As for lululemon experiential’s next steps, Ketcham says the store will be partnering with Embrace North this winter to add an electric sauna and cold tub experience to the space. “They expose people to a high dose of feeling alive and breaking mental barriers through exercise, cold/heat exposure, and breath control,” she says. lululemon may make and sell comfortable performance clothing, but breaking out of comfort zones is its real specialty.
