Sport and Physical Activity

BuddyUp Bootcamp

Tackling inactivity levels in Basildon

Nikeeta; a Personal Trainer based in Basildon, wanted to help tackle the three key barriers to getting active; cost, motivation and lack of time. Due to high inactivity levels in Basildon, she set up BuddyUp Bootcamp to help people overcome their challenges to getting active and to increase the general health of residents.

BuddyUp Bootcamp is a fitness class that mixes traditional bootcamp workouts, with Zumba. Based at the Laindon Community Centre, the 45 minute class offer participants a chance to have fun with others and burn calories, whilst listening to a playlist that was created by them with their favourite tracks, to help with motivation. The location also provided free parking, access to public transport nearby and walking routes to residential areas, so everyone could easily get there.

Who's it for?

Inactive members in the community struggling to find motivation

Prime Objective:

to tackle some of the key barriers to getting physically active

Second Objective:

to highlight that physical activity can be enjoyable for all

The need for this project varied across the range of participants but the main reason was due to low activity levels and no motivation to exercise. Barriers to motivation varied, with some finding it difficult to engage in an exercise they enjoyed, others could not find a place that was affordable or close by, and some did not know what to do in the gym so never bothered to join.

Through Find Your Active funding, Active Essex were able to support the facilitation of a 4 week BuddyUp Bootcamp programme, which helped to remove the cost barrier for participants. Many of the participants stated that they found it hard to either go to the gym on their own or find motivation or time to get started. With busy schedules, children or other commitments, the 45 minute classes provided an opportunity to ensure that participants could still get active, without it causing to much disruption to their day. By encouraging them to bring along a friend or family member, helped remove the barrier of attending a class on their own, whilst also enabling them to increase social connections and have fun at the same time.

participants attended each BuddyUp Bootcamp class

80%

of participants had not been active in the last 6 months

30%

of attendees were from underrepresented minority backgrounds

There were many successes of the project. Targeting residential areas in and around the community centre helped encourage people to come and try a class, and numbers increased in the second week of the project starting, due to positive word of mouth. The 4-week programme also encouraged participants to stick to the classes, and soon built a healthy routine.

I’m not usually one to try out these sort of classes, but since being on my own for the past 3 years, I’ve tried to go to lots of the community centre classes as I live around the corner. I asked a friend to join me as she has done a few step-ercise classes at the centre and we had a right old laugh. It was the highlight of our Sunday morning, Lisa and I loved the energy and we met some great people in the class too.

Paul, participant