There’s a good chance that the return of the Premier League, Tour de France, the success of the Lionesses or the heroics of the athletes at the Commonwealth Games have inspired your clients to start (or return to)exercising. That’s fantastic, and we need to support these ambitions given that a lack of physical activity is responsible for 1 in 6 deaths in the UK.

However, the nature of our programmes means that many service users are likely to have comorbidities, meaning that gradually building up exercise levels and intensity is crucial. It is worth remembering that the greatest return of investment comes from getting someone who is doing nothing to doing something, than getting someone doing something to doing lots lots (as illustrated below, taken from the UK physical activity guidelines).

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We should inform our clients of this low hanging fruit, rather than have them think it’s 150 minutes per week or bust. We just need them to be a bit more active tomorrow than they were yesterday, or at the very least less sedentary.

Our excellent GP Lead, Dr Richard Pile, has helped to get this message across in this short, informative video, which can be shared with your clients.

The recent extreme heat we’ve been experiencing adds a further complication. I’ve been working with our Man v Fat colleagues to produce a thorough risk assessment to determine when it is safe for play to continue, and when we need to postpone, based on the latest scientific consensus on exertional heat illness. If you are running physical activity programmes in your service and are concerned about the risk of excessive heat, feel free to get in touch with me.

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