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European Network of Academy Sport Service Fitness Experience

Written by Giovanni White – Active Lifestyles Advisor (Participation)

I had the pleasure of representing Imperial College in the annual European Network of Academy Sport Service Fitness Experience. This took place at the USC of the Radboud University on May 22nd and 23rd in Nijmegen. Representative from other universities were also present. The purpose of this visit was to develop networks and exchange idea for university sports service.

We started the day with a tour of the university sports centre which is the largest and most versatile in Nijmegen. The indoor facilities include a 1000 m2 state of the art fitness area, four squash courts, four multipurpose halls, two sports halls, a gym an indoor cycle room, a dojo and a climbing wall. Outdoor facilities include twelve tennis courts, two beach volley ball court, artificial football rugby and hockey pitches, a basketball court, 400m running track, a small artificial turf practice field and several bowling courts.

Throughout the conference we had many different lectures. These lectures covered topics such as the relationship between inactivity and the development of chronic diseases, diabetes awareness, and developments in sport and sports participation. They were presented by leading expert within the health and fitness industry such as:

Prof. Dr. Maria Hopman Radboud University Nijmegen

The research of Maria Hopman is best summarized by the theme Healthy Aging or Preventive Medicine.

Prof. Dr. Koen Breedveld Radboud University Nijmegen

Koen Breedveld is managing director of the Mulier Institute – institute for social scientific sport research – since 2007 and professor in Sportsociology at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen since 2013.

Bas van de Goor Olympic champion

Bas van de Goor, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2003. He founded the Bas van de Goor Foundation. A foundation that the quality of life of people with diabetes improves through sport and exercise.

The lectures were really informative and detailed; my favourite lecture was the development in sports and sports participation, with Prof. Dr. Koen Breedveld. I enjoyed this because it links directly with my job role as Active Lifestyles Advisor – Participation. I learnt about the different type of barriers to participation and how to overcome them, I can now take this information and use it in my everyday working.

In addition to the lectures, we took part in various exercise classes. I found this really helpful because we had the opportunity to learn different methods of training. The classes started with a warm up session using broom sticks; during this we learned how to activate joints in a fun way. We then moved on to other classes such as power lifting, Outdoor boot camp, kettle bell, testing and neck and back pain treatment.

This experience overall was fantastic and I am happy and thankful to have been giving this opportunity. I met a lot of great people and learn a lot of new thing.

Weight Management Weeks 1-3

As I write this a group of hard working and dedicated members of weight management crush out circuit classes, body pump and spin sessions. All 34 people have done exceptionally well so far, with everyone starting their weight loss journeys to success. Sporting our fab Energia lime green t-shirts and snacking on our sponsors beef treats (Coan Beef Jerky) the group has utilised small group based sessions within the Ethos Sports Centre for the past three weeks. The picture of the week was from today’s morning fitness circuit at 715am, we had 6 people attend from weight management! Great job everyone. Keep up the hard work.Coan Logo Crop fitness circuit

FREE CLASSES ON THE NEW STUDIO TIMETABLE! LAUNCHING 28TH APRIL

The new studio timetable launches on the 28th April with 5 new studio classes, 21 Active Lifestyle classes and best of all 8 free classes on the timetable! Free classes are available to all of Imperial College and you do not have to be a member of Ethos to join in. Click this link to see the timetable! * please note if you are not an Ethos member you will be asked to complete an HCS for cenre based classes.

https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/sports/Public/Class%20Timetable%20April%202014_small.pdf

For more information please contact actlife@imperial.ac.uk

The Active Lifestyles Team launches 52fit!

The Active Lifestyles Team launched 52fit today in Prince Gardens in front of Ethos. 52fit is a free Active Lifestyles class based outside. The class incorporates functional movements in a circuit style. Each person picks a giant card from the dec of cards and the circuit begins! Exercises include burpees, squats, plyometrics, running and fun group tactical based tasks. Created in the style of boot camp and army based training 52fit brings a more fun and fresh approach to training using the unpredicability of picking exercises out of a deck of exercise cards. The class emphasis is fun, friendly and available to all abilities.

If your interested in joining in anyone can attend the class including all staff, students, external members of Ethos and non-members. Meet us at Ethos reception every Wednesday 1315-1400 and for more information contact us on actlife@imperial.ac.uk

Bring all your friends come along and have some fun outdoors.

 

52fit alex

Zahra’s experience with the Active Lifestyles Team

Zahra SharifI have been a member of Ethos for over than 5 years now. I have been an ative member, attending a wide range of classes offered by the gym. Over the past year Energia team has introduced a whole new set of classes from circuit training to weight lifting !! Also, every now and then they arrange health weeks which includes lots of interesting nutrition seminars, range of free classes and free t-shirts!! So I recommend trying out any of their classes, you could have an hour of a proper core workout to get tight abs just in time for summer or go for boxing where you can get rid of all your stress for the day.

– By Zahra Sharif

Robert’s experience with the Active Lifestyles Team

robertIn July last year a strange couple wearing red t-shirts wheeled a cart through my office handing out fruit and leaflets advertising the weight management program. I was already a regular gym attender (5 times a week) but hadn’t got round to acting on my resolution to ‘try out a class sometime’. The next time I was at the gym I sought out a member of the active life styles team just to find out more.

I had no intention of singing up on the spot, I never do things like that, but this initial chat was with the most friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable fitness instructor I had met. (This was Shannon, she was also wearing a red t-shirt.) I didn’t believe a lot of what I was told (90% of health information including that from the NHS is wrong) but Shannon’s extensive knowledge (Well backed up by scientific studies and background knowledge) convinced me to at least find out and I walked out of the gym signed up to the Weight Management Program.

During the program I met the rest of the team and enthusiasm for fitness must be contagious as they all worked hard to encourage, help and push me to achieve more in my gym sessions. Soon the enthusiasm spread to me and I was doing fitness circuits, running round Hyde Park (in the running club), doing weights and even started attending (my now favourite) Grit classes. I learnt how to exercise properly radically changed my diet and did this all as part of the group of ‘regulars’ also on the program. Exercising with others massively increases the effort you put in.

It changed my gym experience forever and I will never go back to just hopping on a few machines. If you have one of these ‘resolutions’ to try a class one day I would recommend finding Shannon (home in on the red t-shirt) and having that conversation.

-By Robert Metcalf, Technical Project Services

Healthy Living Week 2014 was a great success!

Healthy Living Week 2014 was a true success with over 460 people attending the week. Imperial staff and students had full access to a wide range of free activities – ­body MOT’s, free classes, gym challenges, sports massage, nutrition and back pain management seminars were all on offer.

HLW14 The gym challenge involved over a hundred people and was an exceptionally hard press-up challenge, 1 set 1 rep and so on. The pyramid only stopped if members couldn’t complete any more repetitions or were timed out on 10 minutes. Congratulations to Giulia Ferretti who won the women’s gym challenge and received a huge goodie bag of prizes! Giulia is a student at Imperial and a committee member of the Imperial Cheerleading team.

A huge thank you to Paul Smithhurst and Ali Al Ramahi, Ethos’ s very own personal trainers for providing online fitness support, sports massage and back pain assessment seminars. If you are interested in any personal training please contact activelistyles@Imperial.ac.uk for a referral. Michael our residential osteopath completed free postural assessments throughout the week coupled with some back and neck pain analysis.

Finally we had free classes galore and they were all brilliantly attended! Boxing, GRIT, salsa, spin and boot camps were ran throughout the week with fast classes running throughout the day in the gym. Ethos also teamed up with Les Mills who provided us with the resources to run a GRIT PLYO class. Thank you to Les Mills for allowing us to run this one off featured class.

The Active Lifestyles Team will be running new studio classes in the summer and more events across the year. If you would like to receive more specific information on our services, please contact our email address, actlifestyles@imperial.ac.uk