Plogging: The popular fitness trend on Tik Tok that has taken the world by storm
How many times have you been running down the street or through the woods and stopped to pick up the trash someone left behind? Collecting discarded tissues, corks, plastic bags and other types of waste is one of the main reasons why more and more people are delighted with the trend that is slowly but surely spreading around the world. It's about plogging - an increasingly popular trend that combines jogging with an unexpectedly interesting side activity – garbage collection.
Namely, plogging is a fitness trend that is actually a combination of fitness and ecology, originally created in Sweden where it is called "plogga". The name is actually a play on the Swedish words "plocka upp" or "pick up" and was created by Eric Ahlstrom, a skier and racer who started the Plogga community in 2016.
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In the last few years, plogging has started to spread around the world, so today there are many runners, but also recreational people who contribute to the preservation of the environment.
Ahlstrom also organizes plogging tours, and the popularity of this environmentally conscious way of running is evidenced by the many plogging communities outside of Sweden.
Although it has existed as a trend for several years, only last year it experienced a real viral boom on social platforms, and it is especially a big hit on Tik-Tok, where it has almost 7 million views under the hashtag #plogging.
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What is plogging?
As can be deduced from the definition itself, plogging is actually very simple. All you need is fitness clothes, comfortable running shoes, gloves and a trash bag. Pay attention to things like discarded pieces of plastic, tissues or glass bottles, collect them while you run, then throw them away or recycle them when you get home. You can do this in the park, on your street, at the beach, or while running around town – literally anywhere.
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Vanessa Liu, a fitness trainer and nutritionist, who decided to try plogging, believes that this trend is popular because it has a positive effect on how we normally approach exercise.
"In the past, people thought that exercise had to be grueling, that we had to sweat and suffer for exercise to 'count'. Today the situation is completely different. "People are realizing that exercise can be fun, enjoyable and beneficial," she told Bustle.
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Plogging not only improves the environment, but also transforms classic running into something completely new. It gives us more motivation to maintain our physical shape.
"And it's all more motivating when you're working out with a group of people because you get a shared sense of purpose," believes Liu, who adds that plogging is also a fantastic workout. "In addition to running, plogging involves a lot of muscle activity. While picking up trash, you must bend, lift, carry, pull, turn, and balance. There's a lot of lower body movement and there's handwork involved," she explains.
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