WIFE team supports the Women's Institute for the first ever fitness week.

This week commencing 12/09/16 Globe Fit founder Hannah Murphy will be joining the WIFE team to provide her fitness expertise and knowledge as a part of the Womens Institute fitness week:

On Monday 12 September, the first ever WI Sports Week will kick into action with a huge range of activities and events planned and run by federations across England, Wales and the Islands. The NFWI Facebook page will be dedicated to sharing as many of these as possible, as well as showcasing information and advice from our WIFE Expert Team.

WIFE are very proud to support the WI Sports Week. As professional women working in the health and fitness industry, we aim to engage as many women as possible in finding ways to enjoy a healthy and active lifestyle. We understand the pressures many women face today in juggling family commitments, work and children. Finding time to exercise, play sport and prepare healthy meals can be very challenging when life is hectic. Understanding what exercise is safe and effective at different times during a woman’s life can also be confusing but regardless of age, physical ability or body shape our WIFE team provide an inclusive approach to fitness.

We know that with the right support, encouragement and advice many women can benefit from leading an active lifestyle and so we are very excited to be playing an important role in the first ever WI Sports Week. With 220,000 members throughout the UK, and an organisation who celebrated their centenary in 2015, the WI plays a unique role in providing women with educational opportunities and the chance to build new skills, to take part in a wide variety of activities and to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities. WIFE will be connecting with these members throughout WI Sports Week through daily videos, exercise tips, nutritional informational and answering health and fitness questions.

Recently several of the WIFE team attended Elevate, a new cross-sector event recently held in London. It bought together the physical activity sector, academia, healthcare, government and performance experts to focus on an increasingly important and complex societal challenge: tackling physical inactivity.

In the opening session ‘Physical activity as preventative care’ Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer, outlined the physical cost of inactivity to individuals as well as the financial burden on government. Other panel members explained the potential of physical activity for the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases. The panel outlined how physical activity is our greatest defence against ill health and disease, and why we need to create a society where being active is the norm.

The Chief Medical Officer with the support of Public Health England has produced Infographics to simplify the guidelines of activity levels children, adults and older people should be aiming for to have the optimum impact on their health and well-being. A copy of the Infographic can be seen here.

We know that many things hold women back from taking part in physical activity. Finding time, fear of judgement, lack of knowledge, suitable social support or access to classes are all things that can stop women exercising. During the WI Sports Week we aim to explore solutions to some of these common problems, and for those who already enjoy a range of activities we’ll be introducing some fresh ideas and new challenges.

Our WIFE Expert team is made up of women with a wide range of experiences, ages and physical abilities. We have busy young mums to grandmothers, women who like to run and enjoy strenuous activity as well as those who prefer gentler pursuits such as yoga and pilates, and able bodied and disabled instructors. They represent some of the most inspiring women working in health and fitness today and are ready to share their collective wisdom, motivate and enthuse WI members into taking action this week.

WIFE Expert Team Supporting the 2016 WI Sports Week

Hannah Epps – Farnham Pilates

Pollyanna Hale – The Fit Mum Formula

Marion Foreman – All Together Better

Karen Laing – Fit School

Teresa Wheatley – Teresa Wheatley Fitness and Wellbeing

Vanessa Barker – Vanessa Barker Fitness

Sam James – Sam James Fitness

Lillie Pragnell – ReStart Coaching

Hannah Murphy – Globe Fit

Mary Huckle – Breakthrough Fitness

Donna Noble – The Noble Art of Yoga