Blyth and Berwick race to the top 20 in UK fitness challenge

Berwick Sports and Leisure Centre secured 15th spot, and Blyth Sports Centre ranked just behind at 17th in the national Let’s Move for a Better World challenge which is run by leading fitness equipment provider Technogym.

The challenge ran from March 14 to 31 during which time gyms and sports centres competed against each other to try and clock up the highest number of MOVEs.

A MOVE is a measure of physical activity that has been created by Technogym to give everyone the same chance and opportunity, irrespective of age, sex, and level of physical ability.

During the challenge, individual members logged into their mywellness account on Active Northumberland’s Technogym equipment to track their workouts and document their MOVEs. Each participant’s MOVEs were automatically added to their centre’s grand total.

Berwick Sports and Leisure Centre clocked up an impressive 514,829 MOVEs and Blyth Sports and Leisure Centre were close behind with 512,880 MOVEs, which placed both centres on the national leader board.

As a combined total, Active Northumberland teams achieved an impressive 2,155,152 MOVEs across the eight centres taking part.

Mark Warnes, chief executive of Active Northumberland, said: “Active Northumberland is passionate about inspiring people to embrace a more active lifestyle, so we jumped at the chance to join the challenge.

“The beauty of the challenge was that it didn’t matter what your age, your fitness level, or your chosen activity as each individual's contribution, no matter how big or small helped their sports centre to reach MOVE targets.

“As well as joining the national challenge, locally we saw eight of our centres battle it out to see which could ‘Move’ the most. This created plenty of enthusiastic and friendly rivalry with customers and staff members pulling together as a team to help their centres!

“A huge thank you to everyone who joined the challenge. It was an amazing achievement and I hope it helped all those who took part to build up their own fitness level in a fun and interactive way.”

Now as the Technogym challenge comes to a close, it has proved a tremendous success with over 45,921,811 MOVEs logged in the UK.