West Midlands boom expected in post pandemic fitness

There are currently 660,000 people in the West Midlands living with heart and circulatory diseases and BHF is urging the people of the regionn to take up regular running as a way to help their heart health.

The survey found that two-thirds of people in the West Midlands say that exercising is a priority for improving their physical and mental health in the wake of coronavirus, up six per cent compared to before the pandemic.

The survey also shows that 29 per cent of respondents expect their physical health to improve as lockdown lifts and 28 per cent expect their mental health to benefit.

The good intentions come at an important time, with 31 per cent of those surveyed saying the pandemic has led to their fitness deteriorating. Of those, 61 per cent say this is because they’ve been staying in the house more and 43 per cent say they have been less motivated to exercise during the pandemic.

But for others, months of lockdown has had the opposite effect. One in five say they are are fitter now than before the pandemic, citing having more free time to try new forms of exercise and a desire to get out of the house more as some of the motivators. More than a third of people surveyed who exercise, say they have been exercising more frequently albeit in shorter bursts.

As England starts to open-up, the British Heart Foundation is urging residents in the West Midlands to take small steps to improve their heart health in June by taking on the charity’s MyMarathon challenge which asks participants to get sponsored for running the distance of a marathon over a month.

Regina Giblin, senior cardiac nurse at the BHF, said: “It’s promising to see that more people are prioritising the physical and mental benefits of exercise as we emerge from the pandemic.

"A year of lockdown has affected us all in different ways. For some it’s given us the time to make healthy changes to our lifestyles, while for others it’s made things understandably more difficult. Regardless of your situation, the lifting of lockdown provides the perfect opportunity to build on the healthy habits you’ve already adopted or change the unhealthy ones you may have picked up.

“Regular physical activity can reduce the risk of developing heart and circulatory disease by up to 35%.  Running regularly can strengthen your heart muscle and make it more efficient, which means it requires less energy to beat and can pump more blood around your body at a lower heart rate or pulse. Therefore, running can help reduce your risk of heart disease and benefit both your body and mind.

“MyMarathon is the ideal challenge for beginner and novice runners from the West Midlands to take on and make a difference to their own health whilst raising money for the BHF’s life saving research.”

Currently 1,300 people in the West Midlands die each month from heart and circulatory diseases, causing heartbreak on every street. The BHF fund medical breakthroughs into these conditions which sadly kill one in four people in the UK.

To sign up to MyMarathon visit bhf.org.uk/mymarathon