Along with countless sportspeople and teams performing at the top of their respective games, Sheffield is also at the top of its game in promoting physical activity and encouraging the local population to move more.
Move More Month, which is currently in its fourth outing, is an Olympic Legacy project being overseen by the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine (NSCEM) – a collaboration between universities, healthcare trusts, local authorities and private and voluntary sector organisations.
The initiative is aiming to make Sheffield the UK’s most active city– and given Move More’s success to date, that target appears more than achievable.
In 2018, Move More Month engaged a record number of businesses – more than 600 teams from 140 firms signed up to take part. To date, it has seen individuals across Sheffield collectively record tens of millions of active minutes during the month itself.
Move More is Sheffield’s physical activity strategy and sets out a whole systems plan to make it easier for everyone living in Sheffield to be physically active as part of everyday life.
While Move More Month itself may only last a few weeks of every year, its objective is ongoing – inviting the whole city to engage with physical activity in a variety of fun-filled and social ways.
Professor Robert Copeland is Director of the NCSEM, and was one of Move More Sheffield’s founders back in 2014. He said: “We’re really excited for Move More 2019, which is set to be the city’s biggest and best yet.
“Move More is a city-wide initiative – anybody and everybody is invited to join in. It’s all about making physical activity easy, fun, and social, with the aim of transforming Sheffield into the UK’s most active city.
“People can move more in a huge variety of ways, with so many physical activity challenges and initiatives to get involved in this June. Activities will be going on in social housing, care homes, schools, workplaces and in public spaces all across the city, everyone is invited to join in the fun.”
As well as key part of the initiative is the Move More Workplace Challenge, which quite literally provides a bit of healthy competition for businesses and employees across Sheffield.
The challenge can be entered by first of all visiting the Move More website – www.movemoresheffield.com – and registering online. Physical activity is then recorded and logged using the ‘Move More Sheffield’ app, which is downloadable to any smartphone.
With this in mind, Move More organisers have this year set a target of 10 million active minutes for the city to achieve – an ambitious yet achievable objective for the Outdoor City.
