National Fitness Day gets 100,000 people active

This year’s National Fitness Day (NFD) on 7 September encouraged more people to get physically active than ever before, with more than 100,000 estimated to have taken part in activities during the day.

In total, the day saw a record number of 18,000 events being held across the UK, with thousands of UK gyms and leisure venues throwing open their doors to engage the public in free physical activity taster sessions.

NFD’s main sponsor, retail giant Argos, celebrated the day across its 800 stores with activity operators hosting a range of fun fitness classes including in-store circuits, Body Jam sessions and outdoor workouts.

The event even got the Houses of Parliament moving, with more than 40 MPs – including sports minister Tracey Crouch – trying their hand at hula-hooping, boxing, tai chi, tennis, boccia and samba as part of an outdoor activity taster session from ParkLives.

Now in its sixth year, the event is organised by ukactive, which wants to establish NFD as the “most active day of the year” in order to highlight the importance of physical exercise.

Steven Ward, executive director of ukactive said: “National Fitness Day 2016 was our biggest and best event yet and we’re delighted to see the physical activity sector and wider partners such as Argos team up to get the nation moving.

“It’s a fun day with a serious message and the important thing now is to build on this momentum and make serious ground in overcoming the UK’s physical inactivity crisis.

“We’re already working on next year’s event and want to engage more members of the public and our sector to ensure that National Fitness Day in 2017 reaches wider than ever before.”