How The University of Surrey uses FITR

How did you get into this profession?

I witnessed my best friend’s treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma - blood cancer. The treatment itself was tough, but I also felt that support was lacking for her during and afterwards. Her medical team would recommend walking and light yoga when she wanted so much more. She was 29, not 80. It was then that I knew I had to get qualified to help people in the same situation. 

How did you come across FITR?

I knew a lot of PTs using the app, and I’d been coached on it as a client before - so I knew it was worth checking out.

Did you check out any other platforms? What made you decide to use FITR?

A lot! FITR has various functions that are really useful for us on these medical trials - such as the option for clients to add their  ‘mood and energy’ for each session. We can use this to look into their performance and look at when treatment has an effect on this and how their mood/energy affects their training.

How are you using FITR?

To kick off, we have launched two trials with FITR - one for Post Op Bowel Cancer patients and one for those with a Prostate Cancer diagnosis.

For our Bowel Cancer patients, we spend 12 weeks with them Post Op. We have one to two in-person sessions, then provide them 1-2 further sessions to complete at home/in the gym via FITR. The sessions can be managed based on how they’re feeling but are designed to give them something in their lives to focus on that isn’t cancer. 

After their 12 weeks, we hope to give them access to a program they can follow remotely so we’re not leaving them to cope alone. 

Our Prostate Cancer Study is 100% remote. Due to the nature of this particular cancer and its treatment, we know that patients sometimes prefer not to train in a gym setting. Using FITR we can prescribe training and check in with our patients regularly to make sure they’re getting the support we need. As with our Bowel Cancer patients, we want to provide a program for them to follow for life, not just 12 weeks. 

What program types will you be using?

Due to the nature of what we do, most of our programs will be 1-2-1 programs. Using FITR, we’re still able to create customised programming for patients following the same program - completely independent of each other. 

How has your experience been so far?

Great! The team has been super helpful with any queries I have had and even helped me make sure the White Labeled account was up to scratch. 

Any future plans for expanding your work with FITR?

At the University of Surrey, our students have the option to get their Level 3 PT qualification as part of their Sports Science Degree. Soon, they’ll be given access to FITR for free during their studies so that we can assign them tasks to complete and help them set up a personal training business. We’ll be added as a Coach on their account so that we can provide feedback on how they market themselves, their programming and how they coach their clients during their studies. 

FITR has offered to give our students access for free during their studies, as well as a discount when they have completed their course so they can hit the ground running.

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Image credit @roamcapture