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This Girl Can Classes are changing

1st February 2024

EMD UK and This Girl Can are rebooting our group exercise classes to support instructors to engage more women in their classes.

We launched This Girl Can Classes in 2021 in partnership with EMD UK - the national governing body for group exercise - and these are now evolving in an exciting new direction as we aim to support even more women to take part in group exercise. 

This Girl Can Classes currently feature branded, choreographed routines, but we’ll be moving away from this in the coming months. 

Instead, we’ll be focusing on supporting group exercise instructors to help them to increase the appeal of their classes to less active women. 

A woman instructs a group of women in an exercise class

We will aim to provide a variety of content to aid instructors with actionable support to help tackle the gender activity gap by widening the appeal of all group exercise classes to less active women. 

Our new approach is based on feedback from instructors, who told us about their challenges with delivering the existing classes, and insight from less active women. 

Claire Edwards, This Girl Can's head of campaign activation, said: “We’ve loved seeing the positive impact of This Girl Can Classes over the duration of the project, with classes taking place across the country achieving an amazing 92% participant satisfaction rate.  

“We’re excited by this new chapter, which will build on those successes as we continue to tackle the gender gaps in both activity levels and enjoyment. 

“We know that instructors have incredible power and passion to engage their local communities, so we want to give them ownership to motivate more women to get involved.” 

The classes were specifically designed with the needs and concerns of less active women in mind, after our research revealed that many women felt intimidated joining group exercise classes. 

Reasons included ‘not feeling fit enough’ and concerns they would not be capable of keeping up with the rest of the group, as well as feeling self-conscious. 
 

We’re excited by this new chapter, which will build on those successes as we continue to tackle the gender gaps in both activity levels and enjoyment.

Claire Edwards

Head of campaign activation, This Girl Can

This Girl Can and EMD UK set out to change this, but we know there’s more we can do to support instructors to reach a less active audience. Our revamped approach aims to do that.   

We’re working with instructors on the new-look offer, which will be launched later this year – so watch this space!

Find out more

To be the first to know when our new offer has launched or to read our instructor FAQs check the hub on the EMD website below.

EMD instructor hub