Your weekly physical activity bulletin

20 August 2024

We are working towards improving the health and wellbeing of the nation through sport, exercise and physical activity. For more information on our work visit our website or follow us on X @NCSEM_PAnews

Regular exercisers should be reassured by results of heart study, experts claim

A study investigating the belief that too much exercise can be bad for the heart has found that the heart’s structure and function does adapt to high levels of habitual physical activity but these changes stay within normal ranges.

The study, published on 13 August in the European Heart Journal, was carried out by researchers funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

Data on 5,977 women (61 years) and 4,134 men (63) from the UK Biobank were analysed in this study.

Levels of average daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, vigorous-intensity physical activity, and total physical activity in these participants (which had been assessed by wrist worn accelerometers) were compared to measurements of the structure and function of their heart.

More people in England using leisure facilities

Leisure facilities in England are playing an increasingly important role in their communities, a new study has revealed, with more people using them than a year ago.  

The Moving Communities Impact Report highlights the significant achievements of leisure facilities and the people who run them in fostering community engagement despite a variety of challenges.  

The report reveals that participation and throughput to leisure centres have both increased, with the average number of participants per site up by almost a thousand people (7%) and overall visits growing by over 10,000 per year (5%).

Improved sports facilities to capitalise on Olympic fever

Thanks to Sport Wales funding, many communities across Wales can look forward to enjoying five Olympic sports, plus netball, on new and improved surfaces.

During the last 12 months, around £800,000 has been invested by Sport Wales – using Welsh Government money – on ‘court collaboration’ projects to create better facilities for playing basketball, netball and tennis. 

Sport Wales worked together with Tennis Wales, Wales Netball and Basketball Wales, as well as local authorities, to select key locations which lacked modern facilities. Decisions over which sites to upgrade were driven by the demand in each area among children to play those particular sports, as indicated by the School Sport Survey 2022. 

Just over £1m has also been allocated to either upgrade or create new artificial pitches which will improve opportunities for playing rugby, football and hockey. Four projects have shared the funding during the last 12 months, with Sport Wales working in tandem with the Welsh Rugby Union, Football Association of Wales and Hoci Cymru to deliver the right types of artificial pitches in the right parts of Wales.

CPD and endorsed qualifications for those exploring a career in our sector

The sport & physical activity sector provides an exciting, diverse range of career opportunities through a variety of different job roles that can help you build a fulfilling and rewarding career.

Whether you have ambitions to become a high-performance coach practitioner working with different groups of society or an aspiring leader with the drive to become a senior manager, CIMSPA are on hand to support, nurture and encourage you every step of the way. 

With this in mind they have shared a selection of accredited CPD and endorsed qualifications from trusted, quality assured partners.

Last Leg's Alex Brooker backs campaign to bring inclusive physical activity to UK schools

Broadcaster Alex Brooker has backed a campaign to bring inclusive sports to primary schools across the UK. Super Movers for Every Body, a new partnership between BBC Education, the Premier League and ParalympicsGB, aims to harness the buzz of an exciting summer of sport in an Olympic and Paralympic year to get more children into accessible and inclusive sports.

Currently 1.5 million children in England have special educational needs or are disabled, but only one in four disabled children take part in physical activity at school. Super Movers for Every Body is designed to tackle this issue.

England stars urge kids to get playing as 2024 is on track to be record year for kids’ cricket

The latest ECB campaign is encouraging more people to find their way to play, no matter if that is casual cricket at home, in the street, at the local park, at school, or at a local club or community project.

England stars and school children have joined forces to urge more kids to pick up a bat and ball - showcasing all the ways in which people play cricket, whether in the back garden, at school, in the park, in the street, on the beach or at their local club.

Channel 4 backs major campaign to get every body moving

The campaign will run across Channel 4 channels from 28th August during the Paris Paralympics and will drive viewers to the Every Body Moves initiative. The project run by ParalympicsGB in partnership with Toyota links disabled people with inclusive opportunities to be active in their local area.

Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics will promote the campaign by featuring an on-screen QR code at least four times a day with guidance on how viewers can use it. Anyone who scans the QR code on a smartphone will be directed to the Every Body Moves website where viewers can find opportunities to be active locally or at home.

The weekly physical activity bulletin in a summary of news stories that appear across the physical activity sector. The National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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