Regent Street shoppers, like most people, will be keen to boost those New Year resolutions to lose weight, stop smoking or drinking and get fit. Fitbeats will give the public a chance to do just that with the help of some lively beats and training tips from world-class athletes, inspired by the London 2012 Games.

To supplement excellent music production and sports journalism, the Fitbeats tracks will also include expert training tips by John Powell of the Trackspeed1 athletics training squad, just back from the Olympic Youth Games in Singapore, where Trackspeed1’s David Bolarinwa won a Silver medal in the medley relay, and Bronze in the 100 metres sprint. He is currently top of the 2010 under-18 world rankings!

With guidance from University of Westminster lecturers Mykaell Riley, Jane Whyatt, and Paul Majendie, university students from music, audio production and journalism specialisms will create bespoke Fitbeats music tracks for participats. They will use different music genres and slower or faster tempos for warm-ups, sprints, interval training, stretching etc. The participants will test the different tracks using individual headphones whilst running, rowing, cycling or working out with weights. Or they may choose to join aerobics classes using other music tracks played through the speakers.

UoW Health Science students will measure the participants’ body mass index, height, weight, heart rate, recovery time and other vital statistics, correlating them with the different Olympic Fitbeats tracks to assess their effectiveness. Each will receive a printout of his or her results.

UoW Social Science and Psychology students will conduct interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. The information they gather will be made available to participants to help them meet their fitness goals.

The University of Westminster was selected to be part of the public engagement programme linked to the International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS 2012). ICSEMIS 2012 which will bring together the worlds leading scientists, academics and researchers in disciplines related to sport in advance of the 2012 Games. The pilot programme, being run by Research Councils UK and Podium, aims to engage the public with science, reasearch and the academic desciplines related to sport using the excitement and interest generated by the Games.