SIV helps get Sheffield fighting fit

13th September 2016

Leisure operator SIV teamed up with Sheffield City Council to get the city moving by running a series of events and health and wellbeing initiatives as part of National Fitness Day.

To encourage staff to become more active, SIV held fitness classes in the Council's Health and Wellbeing Space in Moorfoot, and urged employees to use the stairs when moving around the building. Sheffield City Council's Director of Public Health, Greg Fell, led from the front along with SIV staff over the course of the day, encouraging more than 562 people to climb the stairs at Moorfoot. Between them, staff clocked up a combined 21,000 steps. This meant that staff climbed the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower 30 times, the Shard 14 times, the Empire State Building 13 times and Dubai's Burj Khalifa seven times. It's also the equivalent of walking around 10.5 miles, based on 2,000 steps equating to a mile on average. Staff could also get active by taking part in Core and Stretch, a class aimed at building vital core strength and improving flexibility as well as high energy spin classes on brand new Matrix spin bikes, which were held at the SIV-run health and wellbeing facility at Moorfoot. Greg Fell, who took part in two fitness classes held during lunch time hours, said: -Next time I'm down here at lunch time I'll definitely come across to a fitness class. I think it's a great day, a great initiative and there's plenty more that we can do. -There's this thing about the fact that we come to work to do work, and of course we do, but everyone has a lunch break, and half of us, me included quite often, spend our lunch break mooching around town and doing nothing in particular. -But coming to a place like this, there's one obvious thing we can do, and even if you don't come here, make sure you're not just shuffling around town, get a sweat on and get moving it's the move more message which we've all been so keen on pushing recently. -I think it's been a successful day and hopefully will have an impact in the future. Rob Womack, Healthy Partnerships Manager at SIV, said: -We know as a nation, as a city, we all need to move more. It's so good for us but not enough of us are doing it because either we simply don't want to or we're doing office jobs when we're sat down all day. -So this is a really great example of how we're working in partnership with Sheffield City Council to get people active in the workplace. It's brilliant to see this happening and is a big chance for us to advocate moving and fitness and how it makes you feel. -The impact from today really will be how we're getting people moving, before, during and after work, and how that's impacting on our lives inside and out of work. We're so keen to get more people through the door and more active so there's more to come. SIV is part of the not-for-profit Sheffield City Trust (SCT) whose primary objective is to improve the health and wellbeing of Sheffield people by providing facilities for sport and leisure activities. For more information visit www.siv.org.uk.