Workout Weekly December 16

ISSUE 1 May

WEEKLY

Issue 124 - 16 December 2022

YOUR REGULAR ONLINE UPDATE FOR THE UK FITNESS SCENE

Chain announces £1.1m investment into its clubs to improve member experience – page 2 #DoingOurBit launches new platform to future-proof free fitness for the NHS – page 3

WORKOUT WEEKLY

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Chain announces £1.1m investment into its clubs to improve member experience TOTAL Fitness has made a series of investments into the refurbishment of four of its clubs – Prenton, Chester, Altrincham, and Teesside.

The refurbishment works are all due to be completed by early 2023, with a total investment of £1.1m across all four health clubs.

Paul McNicholas, operations director at Total Fitness, said: “We’ve always been passionate about ensuring our members have a supportive and motivational place to workout with the best facilities and equipment.

“Following the successful refurbishment of our Whitefield club and the positive impact this has had on our members, it’s been fantastic to be able to refurbish additional clubs and improve our offering further.

“We want to ensure every club has usable and effective fitness spaces where our members enjoy spending time and working out. Providing these four clubs with a fresh new look and feel and investing in new equipment has enabled us to do this.”

The first two clubs to be completed, Prenton and Chester, have each seen investments made to improve the look, feel and overall experience of their gym

and studio spaces.

This includes new equipment, including newer strength and functional kit, as well as an upgraded spin studio with state of the art bikes which have been installed as part of their new spin experience.

Paul added: “We’re also extremely excited about the launch of our new spin

studios with upgraded equipment which allows us to bring our members a new explosive, power-based spin experience.

“The new bikes give members the power to personalise their intensity and track progress so they can own their workout– and we’re excited to support them on every step of their journey.”

As well as the investments made

in new equipment, Total Fitness has transformed the interior look of each club, making it an enticing space for members to work out and improve their fitness.

The refurbishment work at both the Altrincham and Teesside clubs is underway, and will see similar improvements to the other clubs, designed to support Total Fitness’ ongoing commitment to offering their members the best fitness and health experience each time they visit.

The estimated completion date for the refurbishments will be early January.

The individual investments made towards each club include Chester and Prenton receiving a £350,000 refurbishment and £300,000 investment at Teesside, whilst £100,000 will be spent on refurbishments to the Altrincham club following the previous investment of £500,000 in 2019.

Total Fitness champions the importance of the middle market health club sector by offering a variety of ways to workout and access to more diverse facilities.

The continued investment into their clubs is to ensure all members have the best fitness experience possible.

Team swells at Right Directions to support demand RIGHT Directions, which manages Sport England’s quality mark, Quest, has grown its team to support demand.

The health and safety and quality management company has created five new roles to cover all aspects of the business, from managing Quest accreditations and mystery visits to looking after client contracts and handling day to day administration.

Phil Lown joins as a senior Quest assessor, having spent the previous five years working in public health.

Dave Chivers joins Right Directions as operations manager (South), having come from Serco UK and Europe where he was suitably head of quality, health, safety, security and environment for the Citizen Services business unit.

Health, safety and quality support manager Jack Bernard will be working on the newly won Lee Valley Regional Park

Authority contract as part of its dedicated health and safety team.

With a background in both local authority leisure and private health clubs, Michelle Dorsett was self employed offering first aid training to businesses, parents, schools and individuals before also joining Right Directions as a health and safety and quality support manager.

And newly appointed health and safety and quality support manager Gary Milne has enjoyed a long career in private, public and trust-run leisure, from the basket room to the board room and from single site facilities to multi-site contracts including events and hospitality, as well as running his own spa business for 13 years.

Day to day Gary will carry out health and safety auditing, mystery visits and Quest assessments, as well as delivering a range of IOSH safety management training courses.

WORKOUT WEEKLY

#DoingOurBit launches new platform to future-proof free fitness for the NHS #DoingOurBit – a bespoke, free online fitness platform for NHS and social care staff – has launched a new website to future-proof the platform that initially launched in June 2020.

Born out of necessity during the first lockdown, the new platform paves the way for even more NHS and social care staff across the UK to be more active. #DoingOurBit is the largest free platform supporting the wellbeing of frontline workers in the UK. With fitness sessions added every month and a new mental wellbeing hub now added, the #DoingOurBit platform has grown significantly since its launch two years ago, currently offering over 50 fitness sessions and programmes from leading instructors across fitness and wellness. #DoingOurBit started as a passion project for Julie Davis who works as the deputy chief operating officer at the Clinical Research Network West Midlands. Seeing the toll Covid-19 took on her colleagues, she set about sourcing some free workouts and relaxation sessions to help them cope.

The initiative caught the eye of The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust which wanted to offer the workouts to its staff of nearly 10,000.

Suddenly, Julie needed a bigger

platform and professional support.

Training provider Study Active, awarding organisation Active IQ and fitness platform hosting company fibodo joined forces to bring Julie’s ambitious idea to life.

Today, the #DoingOurBit initiative is having an impact across 130 NHS and social care organisations with a reach of 750,000 staff, answering a need that has been around for a long time but was perpetuated by the pandemic.

“The dedication, focus and

commitment of the collaborating partners – Active IQ, fibodo and Study Active – is as strong today as it was in March 2020 when we first came together,” said Julie.

“With staff doing shift work and many on lower incomes, a free fitness service that can be accessed 24/7 is a blessing.

“The new platform shows that #DoingOurBit is going from strength-tostrength and the continued commitment of each partner to develop and futureproof the platform is simply wonderful.”

The collaboration between Active IQ, fibodo and Study Active took Julie’s idea and turned it into reality. The team continues to generously donate their time to the project meeting regularly to add new workouts, features and updates.

Recently, David Monkhouse, director of Leisure-Net Solutions, joined the #DoingOurBit steering committee to lend his expertise to the initiative.

“I am really pleased to be able to offer some of my time to the #DoingOurBit steering group,” he said.

“I was really impressed by Julie’s vision and her achievement at the ukactive awards of 2021.

“The progress to date is impressive, more importantly the opportunity to enhance the wellbeing of the NHS workforce cannot be overlooked. The scalability of this project is immense.

“This, together with the opportunity for fitness and health professionals to demonstrate directly to healthcare workers the value of moving more and being more active, made it an opportunity I could not turn down.”

NHS and social care staff simply register on the site using their work email address to access the library of free workouts and mental wellbeing hub resources.

Sport England announces partnerships with charities SPORT England has announced new long-term partnerships with disability charities Sense, Mencap and Special Olympics GB. The three charities join more than 120 organisations that Sport England has partnered with this year, chosen for their unique influence and ability to level up access to sport and physical activity across England and create system-wide change.

Physical activity is proven to help physical and mental health, with people described as active reporting lower levels of anxiety and loneliness.

But Sport England’s Active Lives survey shows that more than half of disabled people are inactive – compared to a third Director of Operations: Dominic Musgrave Tel: 01226 734407 dm@scriptmediagroup.co.uk Studio manager: Paul Hopkinson ph@scriptmediagroup.co.uk Assistant studio manager: Scott Firth sf@scriptmediagroup.co.uk Sales: Tony Barry Tel: 01226 734605 tb@scriptmediagroup.co.uk

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of people without a disability.

Furthermore, Sport England’s research shows almost half (40 per cent) of those living with a disability or long-term health condition currently feel they have experienced a negative impact on their ability to get active, due to the cost-ofliving crisis.

Tackling inequalities in activity levels is at the heart of Sport England’s Uniting the Movement strategy, and the new partnerships (totalling £6.5million of National Lottery and government funding) have been announced at a particularly challenging time for disabled people.

The pandemic disproportionately affected disabled people, and the cost-

of-living crisis is likely to as well.

Mencap is a UK charity for people with learning disabilities. Services they provide range from around-the-clock care, to helping someone engage with local leisure activities for the benefit of their physical and mental wellbeing.

They have been awarded £2.7million, with the funding award helping the organisation improve access to physical activity and their presence in multiple locations across England. They will also create resources and networks, to showcase learning, develop best practices, and advocate for change.

Special Olympics GB is a sporting organisation which uses sport to empower children and adults with an

intellectual disability. Sport England has awarded the charity £1.5million to help ensure that it continues to deliver innovation and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities. This funding will help to ensure that the organisation develops its specialist expertise in this area of work.

Sense is a leading charity that supports children and adults living with complex disabilities in the UK. Services range from round-the-clock care to support in the community through its short-breaks, arts, sports and wellbeing programmes. £2.2million has been awarded to Sense, to enable them to help more people with complex disabilities to become active in their local communities. This

PORTUGUESE-based start-up BHOUT has developed the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) enabled punching bag, which is due to launch in the UK during 2023 (and US) in a bid to capitalise on the consumers who find traditional physical fitness concepts outdated.

Six years in design and development, the AI solution is predicted to take the UK market by storm.

Benefiting from machine learning, BHOUT opens up entirely new opportunities for boxing training.

The sleek, modern, attractive bag comes fully fitted with smart technology and biometric sensors.

It’s the world’s first heavy bag with a brain; capable of studying the Bhouter’s strikes and strength and tracking data through the BHOUT app.

Using data, BHOUT can continuously

challenge and motivate; as well as teach the sweet science of boxing. What’s more it can even match your fight intensity to your mood.

In addition to its tech capabilities, the bag’s body is multi-layered and boasts life-like tactility, with the core

composed of 85 per cent water to avoid the risk of injury.

Inspired by video games, the bag has an integrated nudging system, made up of colours and music aimed at each type of training and intensity, which helps to improve the player’s motivation.

BHOUT unveils world’s first AI boxing bag

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PHOTOGRAPHY Thanks to everyone who attended the event, it was a wonderful evening and we’d like to congratulate all our winners plus those runners up who were all worthy of being winners, there was a lot of tough decisions for our judges!

If you had your photo taken and would like to see this and purchase copies to share and remember the occassion, please visit our online photography portal: www.script-events.co.uk/photography-2

You can view a low resolution, watermarked version of your images on our online platform.

Any images purchased will be supplied as an 8x6 high resolution print, with no watermark present.

If you’d like to purchase images please visit script-events.co.uk/ photography-2/ or by scanning the QR code on the right.

Photographs purchased are £12 inc P&P each.