The success of the Lincoln City Foundation’s Fighting Fit Programme, which helps cancer patients improve their physical fitness, will see it spread across the county.
The weekly circuit-based workouts, which are aimed at improving the fitness of people recovering from cancer, will now take place in Boston, Gainsborough, Grantham, and Mablethorpe over the next few months.
Phill Watson, Health & Wellbeing leader at the Lincoln City Foundation, runs the sessions each week.
He said: “Generally, looking at everybody at the end of the session, happy and chatting away. For some of those people who live on their own, and are dealing with cancer on their own, this can be the only time they get to speak to other people.
“I’ve got my own reasons why I wanted to go into this. I lost my Mum to Cancer, so I want to make a difference in any way I can.”
In October, the sessions were recognised by Active Lincolnshire, and nominated for their Health and
Wellbeing award at the 2022 Lincolnshire Sport & Physical Activity Awards.
Although the programme didn’t win the award, that didn’t matter to those who benefit from it. Ian from the Lincoln group said: “There’s a sort of comfort to these sessions. You could do these sessions in a gym, but you don’t really want to go as an individual.
“You’ve got support here, in terms of other people. Nobody else quite understands the way someone with it does. It’s the fear, people here get it.”
Funded by Lincolnshire’s CCG, the first 10 weeks of the programme are free. But after that, any participants must pay for the sessions. When asked whether there were not enough of these kinds of sessions in Lincolnshire, the Lincoln group were adamant.
Sue from the group said: “Definitely. This is the only thing I come to, it’s difficult to find out what is around. To get more people involved we need to remove the barriers and market it as much as possible.”
The foundation is appealing for any funding to pay for the facilities in which the Fighting Fit sessions are held. If you can help, head to the charity’s website:
https://www.lincolncityfoundation.com/fundraise-for-us
