Your recent workplace wellness article (see HCM July 16, p50) highlights the fantastic work being undertaken by a range of employers who, with a growing evidence base, are realising the benefits of an active workforce. Inactivity has a huge impact on the health of employees and the economy, and more employers can follow the excellent examples featured in your article.

CSP Network is keen to help employers get their workplaces moving with our own Workplace Challenge. We’re asking for employers’ support to change the way we work in the UK, by introducing flexibility into the working day. This isn’t about creating new rules and formal policies. Instead, we’re urging employers to consider their workplace culture and – if it’s creating sedentary, unhealthy behaviours – to encourage their employees to be active in and around the working day by adopting simple steps outlined in our manifesto… making it fun, creating challenges and so on.

We have evidence to show that this shift in culture could not only improve the wellbeing of the working population, but also save businesses across England an estimated £2.8bn.

Thousands of businesses have already become active with the help of the County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) and the Workplace Challenge, providing inspiration and opportunities for employees to become more active.

We’re now reaching out to organisations that wish to work in partnership to develop a compelling workplace physical activity and employee wellbeing programme across England. Find out more at www.workplacechallenge.org.uk

Is heart rate training the magic bullet to help all members get results? This question was asked in a recent feature in Health Club Management (see HCM July 16, p66) – and it’s such a specific question that the answer has to be ‘no’.

However, do people achieve results if they train in the right heart rate zone, with an effective and balanced programme and a balanced nutrition plan? Yes.

It’s also been proven that, when wearables are used in a group, they create cohesion – which in turn improves member retention.

Working out at the correct heart rate is therefore an important part of our programmes. For example, GRIT – our HIIT programme – has been widely recognised by global research institutions to be a true HIIT programme, due to the specificity of the rest intervals built in to the music and choreography.

The real question, as the tech revolution continues to gather pace, is how operators best incorporate HR training. Customers want insightful guidance – they don’t just want their data to pile up in yet another training diary. They also expect the data to be accurate and the technology discreet and easy to use.

We’ve partnered with Polar, as its heart rate monitoring devices and Polar Flow app offer guidance for improvement, as well as logging results and tracking progress.

We encourage all customers to embrace heart rate training. But it isn’t a magic bullet: programming and motivation for the individual remain at the core of success.

The editor’s letter in HCM May – on the topic of the new Healthier You diabetes prevention programme – rightly posed the question of whether the fitness sector can step up to the mark to engage positively in the interventions being planned by the NHS in 27 locations across the UK.

This programme needs exercise professionals with higher skills in the specialist area of pre-diabetes training – a huge opportunity for REPS UK and CIMSPA to have put into place a positive response to support their high-achieving members to gain a qualification in this area, and with it a route into the delivery teams.  

Based on some excellent work already underway in the Netherlands, EuropeActive has developed Level 5 training standards for pre-diabetes – standards that are recognised by the European Register of Exercise Professionals (EREPS). Hopefully it isn’t too late for the responsible people at REPS UK and CIMSPA to also embrace this, encouraging members to attain this Level 5 knowledge to gain the respect of other health professionals who will be delivering the Healthier You programme.

EuropeActive has also put into effect a graduate entry programme through EREPS at Level 6, and invites the UK fitness sector and its leading exercise professionals to become more involved.

If we truly want to see the sport and physical activity sector in the UK evolve and become not only inspirational but aspirational, we need the organisations that represent us to be fully aligned.

We need to ensure that those already working in the sector, as well as those considering it, are 100 per cent clear on what the available pathways are – and that we’re equipping people with the right skills.

Clarity is also vital if we truly want to inform and influence the way in which governments, education bodies, citizens and health boards understand and support us.

CIMPSA and SkillsActive have to work together to enable decisions to be made, and to develop a collaborative and cohesive body that represents, informs and supports us. If they cannot work together then we must, as a sector, rally behind one voice.

CIMSPA is gaining momentum because the message it’s delivering to the sector is not only what it wants, but also what it needs. SkillsActive is almost non-existent at present and has delivered no reassurances to the sector, or anything of value, in recent months or years. Frankly it has become a distraction to us all.

The next few years are crucial as funding, apprenticeships and associated long- and short-term skills shortages are negotiated and hopefully resolved. 

We need one set of recognised qualifications and standards, one body that accredits and monitors, one skills strategy. We need one set of guidelines and one place to go when we need to understand latest legislation or changes in policy.

Either the two bodies will have to work closer together and come to some agreement on the way forward, or the decision will be made by employers and providers voting with their feet.