MBG Youth Fitness

Update December 2024 (Project Completed)

We have been addressing the following local neighbourhood priorities:

Health and Wellbeing – We have been providing Free session to young people from poverty-stricken backgrounds to address health inequalities and educating members on ways to stay fit and healthy.

Community Safety – Whilst delivering sessions we are doing outreach to find more young people on the streets to make the streets safer and create leaders amongst our participants to ensure they look after the community.

Youth Empowerment – Our sessions are youth led and the young people are empowered. We provide support to all our members, and they are given opportunities to feedback and lead.

Community Development and Participation – Although we predominantly deliver fitness sessions, we are creating individuals to become leaders in their community. We deliver some social action workshops, bring on some members for work experience and increasing participation but having them bring in other members of the community.

To date we have carried outreach, promote and advertised the project via leaflets, posters, social media accounts and have left a sign outside the gym too. We have achieved over 100 members attending weekly and all of them being retained. We are delivering 2 x 2hr sessions weekly and young people are really enjoying the project.

Our sessions are delivered every week Tuesday 5pm to 7pm and Saturdays 3pm to 5pm. We have also started delivered extra sessions every Sunday 8am to 10am for girls. All sessions are delivered by Level 3 qualified Personal Trainers who are all safeguarding, first aid, and DBS checked/qualified. The sessions are risk assessed and all health and safety protocols are in place. The sessions are accessible for all and inclusive for all people. When individuals join, they all receive an induction, a welcome pack of hydration drinks and protein bars as well as a MBG T-shirt. We have safeguarding measures in place by having 2 staff members always present, cameras in place, rules explained to young people as part of induction, and mentoring carried out.

The costs we have included as part of the project contribute significantly to the sustainability of the project, sustainability of the members and also to enhance the project in becoming more attractive and healthier.

We have bought all participants t-shirts for the duration of the project to promote equality. As many young people are from poverty-stricken backgrounds, we understand many feel ashamed to come gym with clothes ‘different’ from others. By giving them all the same t-shirts, we are eliminating obstacles of clothing. The marketing budget is to attract members from the local area, create content and promote the work. With any 2-hour sessions young people will fatigued or tired, thus we have decided to order everyone protein bars and protein water as hydration refreshments. This will allow all members to give it their all in our sessions. For safeguarding purposes, we bring in cleaners prior to all session to ensure the place is clean and young people friendly. Ensure dry space to prevent slippery surfaces and gyms are known to have a lot of bacteria thus we prioritise cleaning to ensure no young people falls unwell. As for staffing all sessions are delivered by 2 qualified staff and 6 volunteers. The admin staff is there to complete the registers, send email reminders, register new young people and carry out all paperwork necessary.

Proposal 2023:

Muscle Basin Gym is a calisthenics-focused gym made for our community to be able to access the health benefits through calisthenics at an affordable cost. The gym aspires to be inclusive of all ages, genders and provide a pricing strategy that strives to tackle income inequality. We are here to provide a service that takes away the financial burden keeping fit can sometimes bestow up us. Our business plan incorporates community workshops, holiday activities and projects for beginners to start their fitness journey. Whilst the pandemic had crushed fitness goals and threatened the physical/mental well-being of many, our founders sought to bring inspiration and educate millions across the world about the beauty of keeping fit through calisthenics. We recognised that going to the gym is more than just chasing gains, it's about building and being part of a community that strengthens each other through unity.

With the current economic climate along with the fact that 49% of children in Newham are living in poverty – one of the highest rates of poverty in the UK, many young people find themselves struggling to access gyms. This is leading to many young people being forced to neglect their physical fitness as a means to survive. As excess weight is associated with a wide range of health problems in both childhood and later in life, reducing obesity in Newham is a key public health priority locally. We look to provide a solution to this by providing free access to our gym and resources to support the continued health and wellbeing of young people in Newham and other deprived areas in London. 

We aim to deliver 2-hour health and fitness workshops taught by professional fitness instructors twice a week at Muscle Basin Gym to young people aged 14-18. We will be delivering our fitness workshops every Wednesday and Friday from 4pm-6pm. Each workshop will be split into two-parts. The first 30-minutes will be theoretical where participants will receive advice on diet and nutrition as well as being educated on how to live a healthy lifestyle. The remaining hour and a half, the participants will be physically training and exercising under the guidance of our fitness instructors. Young people will engage in a variety of calisthenics exercises such as push-ups, crunches, and burpees. Young people will also be able to use our competition-grade calisthenics rig, which is professionally designed to consist of pull-up bars, freestyle bars, dip bars, and a Swedish ladder, where they can perform different movement and exercises. As well as engaging in non-equipment-based exercises, young people will also be able to utilise our state-of-the-art gym equipment to work on their fitness.