In November 2015, sixteen inactive females from four different workplaces took part in a ‘This Girl Can’ Tri challenge.
The challenge provided the ladies with 6 weeks FREE access to the gym to use whenever they wanted and an hour per week (on a set day and time) with a personal trainer for 5 weeks. They were shown how to use the rower, treadmill and bike and on the 6th week of the challenge, the workplaces went head to head to collectively complete in the quickest time possible, 10Km on the bike, 5Km on the rower and 5Km on the treadmill. Participants paid a minimal fee to take part with the remaining funding coming from Sportivate and Suffolk Sport.
As part of the package, each participant was offered a FREE health assessment via the Boditrax machine (a body composition tool which provides 16 different measures about your health), before, immediately after and 3 month post challenge and provided with a ‘This Girl Can’ T-shirt to complete their final challenge in.
IMPACT
All four teams successfully completed the final 20 Km challenge and they found the experience thoroughly rewarding.
“I really enjoyed the experience and got much more out of it than I had originally planned. It was great to see us progress week on week as a group and I was really proud of all our efforts. I have refused to run since I was 16, so this challenge certainly helped me overcome my fears and I found myself running for a full 9 minutes! I was pretty inactive prior to the challenge, but as a group we signed up to a number of classes which was great fun. We had a great group of girls and it was nice to socialise in a different atmosphere. I would love to see a group sign up again and would certainly recommend this to those who are a little fearful of exercise” – Philips AVENT
BODITRAX RESULTS
The ladies saw improvements in the majority of their Boditrax measures after the challenge. The graph below shows the average figures for a number of health measures assessed by Boditrax:
On completion of the challenge all ladies were offered discounted membership rates at their local gym, and 12 out of 16 ladies have taken up this offer and are continuing to enjoy exercise at their local gym on a regular basis! The remaining ladies are continuing to be active in their own time (boot camps, Great Run Locals, walking).
Since hearing about the success of the Tri Challenge, one lady has been given an amazing opportunity by her workplace:
“I have just been asked to take part in a charity fundraising event in October following the tri challenge which involves raising £3K to take part and is 10 days walking a section of the great wall of China, so that means 10 months to get fit & shift 3 stone in weight and raise the finances so the timing of the challenge could not have been more perfect” – Mid Suffolk District Council