Major operators such as Fitness First, Parkwood Leisure and Places for People Leisure have signed up to offer free health and fitness sessions to members and non-members alike across their sites as part of National Fitness Day.

This year’s National Fitness Day – which is the largest celebration of physical activity in the UK – takes place on 9 September. It will see thousands of people don their exercise gear and flock to gyms, health clubs, leisure centres and parks around the country to take part in free ‘Power Half Hour’ exercise events. Last year saw nearly 2,000 venues open their doors to run free exercise sessions – reaching 27 million people – and more than 800 sites have so far signed up for this year’s event.

“To already have these major operators on board is a testament to the importance and value of National Fitness Day, because when we all come together on a single campaign we can more effectively raise our sector's profile in the eyes of the public,” said ukactive operations director Geraldine Tuck.

“With the help of these significant partners we will be able to deliver on our promise to make it the most active day of the year and get more people moving and enjoying being active. Last year was a huge success and this year promises to be even bigger.”

A fundamental aspect of this years’ National Fitness Day is getting schools involved. Having recently renewed its efforts to tackle childhood inactivity ukactive will be working closely with the education sector to help them promote the benefits of being physically active in school. Primary schools across the UK will be asked to pledge to take part in the day by running activities designed to get their children more active.

Each school taking part will receive a tailored toolkit of information to help them put on whole day of activities across the curriculum. Efforts will focus on getting children of all ages to positively engage with physical activity, building habits that will set them up to be an active adult.