VIDEO: Bury trails new fitness scheme for women

I WILL IF YOU WILL (IWIYW) is a new fitness programme designed to get more women active. It is being piloted in Bury for the first time.

The programme is led by Bury Council and Sport England and aims to get women to overcome phyiscal and emotional barriers that stop them from exercising.
Classes and activities are currently being subsidised thanks to a £2.3m investment from Sports England. Bury Council are delivering the campaign with the help of local businesses.

Mike Owen, executive director of resources at Bury Council, said: “We were really pleased that we were given the funding to go ahead with this project. Health and fitness is something we should all make time to do and this can only be a good thing for the women of Bury.”
The scheme has a variety of activities to get women started ranging from netball, dance classes and led walks taking place at a variety of locations in Bury.

Recent statistics have shown only 52.3 per cent of local adults are active, lower than the national average at 56 per cent and 22.7 per cent of adults in Bury are obese. IWIYW aims to tackle some of these percentages by encouraging women to 'do it together'.

Jenny Welsby, community activator for IWIYW, believes the campaign will help women to become more energetic, "sometimes women just need that extra push and we want to try out lots of different things to find out what it is that gets women active. So for all the women in Bury and the surrounding areas, there's lots of new opportunites for them at the minute."



IWIYW wants to target women of all ages and circumstances by providing classes such as Pilates for older women and 'buggy baby boot camp' for ladies with children.
The scheme hopes to develop into a national campaign supported by open funding in late 2014.

By India Greenhalgh.