March Back to Fitness!

1st March 2021

With the Government’s recently announced roadmap out of lockdown suggesting that organised outdoor sports will be able to resume from 29th March, we are all looking forward to the possibility of being able to get out on the pitch again at last.

However it’s fair to say that many of us haven’t been getting as much exercise as we might normally during the lockdown, so with football on the horizon and the weather improving, we’re encouraging everyone to step up their activity levels over the next month to get ready for football’s return.

Today we are launching our ‘March Back to Fitness’ challenge, where we ask our players, coaches and even parents to track their exercise throughout this month, with the aim of increasing their efforts over each of the four weeks of March, meaning they will be much closer to ‘match fit’ by the time the game restarts.

We know that everyone has their own approach to exercise and that their personal fitness goals may be very different. That’s why this isn’t about competing with others to see who can do more – it’s simply a way for each of us to challenge ourselves to push a bit further each week as we work our way back to normal life.

We are looking forward to getting back out playing football again

You might go out for two runs in week one, increasing that to three or four in week two, maybe extending the distance covered in week three and before you know it by week four you are doing miles more than you could manage at the start!

But it doesn’t have to be running, it could be cycling, rowing, dancing, dribbling a ball up and down the garden over and over, whatever - as long as it gets you moving, your heart pumping, and you do a bit more of it each week.

We hope this will be a great opportunity for parents and players to discuss their activity levels over the lockdown and where they feel they need to be to be ready for playing football again. By making a commitment and tracking their progress this should add a bit of extra motivation to get out and do it.

We’ll be hoping there will be some inspirational examples that we’ll be able to share over the coming weeks to keep us all going. So if you are successful in building up your fitness over the coming weeks let us know!

Remember with any new exercise regime it’s important to build up slowly. We don’t want anyone doing themselves an injury by trying to run a marathon on day one when they haven’t left the house since December!

We’ve created a simple form for recording activity and setting goals which you may find useful.

Most importantly, have fun and we look forward to seeing you all back soon.