MoveWell - Why are we doing this?

Why we set up MoveWell….

This is a question we are often asked and the answer is fairly straightforward…..‘to offer a better choice’

Lifelong friends, we have grown up with a love of the outdoors and have always been inspired by movement and performance.  Realising the simple benefits of these interests in combination, we have spent years as Physiotherapists working across the spectrum of human performance, demonstrating the fundamentals of rehab, training and living well, and their key role in gaining good outcomes.  These fundamentals are simple, and so often missed.  The health and fitness industry can overcomplicate the message.  An ego driven message creates fear, which can paralyse, paralysis rarely leads to effecting change.  Our experiences have led us to believe in simple, effective solutions that have a butterfly effect and create significant change – we want to build a brand that helps to deliver that message, leading to a healthier, happier community.

Alongside this, healthcare is often reactive, seeing a problem for the first time, when it is very much a problem.  Working in elite sport, simple preventative strategies are integral in fending off both physical and mental complications.  These strategies are often simple everyday practices.   Thankfully, there is a paradigm shift towards active participation in preventative health strategy beyond elite sport, however we still see ever increasing levels of reversible illness and chronic disease, the message still struggles to get out there – MoveWell aims to encourage movement, make it fun, progressive, accessible and anywhere – one step at time chipping away at a reactive culture.

Perhaps our greatest drive to start MoveWell was to create a better choice for the planet and do our best to protect the planet for our children to enjoy.  Environmentally, we know we are at a tipping point, the facts are clear.  We now need palatable solutions.  Although population health and the health of the planet are intrinsically linked, we continue blindly onwards, seemingly separating the two.  It’s a stark fact that globally, healthcare accounts for a disproportionate 4.4% of carbon emissions per annum, more than the global aviation industry.  The health and fitness of our planet is our health and fitness, in the past 40 years it is estimated we have wiped out 50% of the biodiversity on our planet, whilst seeing an unprecedented rise in chronic reversible physical and mental illness across the globe.  For too long we have tried to separate our species from the biodiversity surrounding us, our health from the health of our  planet, now we know this has been to the great detriment of our population’s health.  We were warned 30 years ago, but the impacts of climate change are no longer subtle.  There is still time if we act now, with determination and urgency, we can’t leave this up to the politicians, it’s up to all of us.   As health and fitness professionals we have been part of this, the NHS alone produces more than 25 million tonnes of CO2 per year, that’s more than Sri Lanka and more than the combined total of all of the planes taking off from Heathrow Airport in a year.  Everything we buy has a carbon footprint, in the past 40 years we have been using and recommending cheap petrochemical products, loaded with BPA’s that are manufactured in port conditions and air freighted around the world.  We pile-up single use products, passive ineffectual modalities that create reliance and no long-term benefits.  This is our small contribution. Without education there is no awareness and a better choice there is no change.  

MoveWell is here to offer sustainable rehab and fitness products for sustainable healthy living….in our minds the perfect combination.  Let’s do this.