Led by well-known industry figure Lynne Briggs, who has substantial experience in all areas of fitness operations, training, and development, the MH1 movement is the ‘go-to’ place for mental health support and expertise for the health, fitness, and wellness sector.
MH1 will provide mental health training, education, consultancy, and talks for the health, fitness, and wellness community. Education, researching, innovating, and talking, we stand to serve the individual, operators, and wider community.

A mental health movement specifically for fitness professionals and to improve their engagement with customers is stepping up its development from its origins within the LFX business network for the UK fitness industry.
Named MH1, it is being led by well-known industry figure Lynne Briggs, who has substantial experience in all areas of fitness operations, training, and development. It will deliver mental health training, education, consultancy and talks for the health, fitness and wellbeing sectors aimed at improving staff and customer engagements as well as member programming.

Lynne says: “We want to be the go-to place for mental health support, education, training, talking, research, and innovation in our industry. Our target audience is all those who work in the industry, from leaders and managers to lifeguards and receptionists. The aim is that they will be able to help themselves, their colleagues and guide the members that come into their leisure centres and clubs.
“Physical and mental health is one continuum. When people come into a gym as a new member, for example, they must fill in a physical activity questionnaire; we do all that but traditionally we didn’t ask them about mental health because people didn’t talk about it. We want to change that. Obviously, Covid has had a big impact on mental health and has put it at the forefront of people’s minds, although we’ve been looking into this way before the pandemic.
“Our goal is to support operators and staff by providing mental health awareness and first aid training, education, and courses. With the implementation of the MHQ, we will provide data driven evidence of improvements in key areas of mental wellbeing.
The movement will provide global research and industry insights into delivering quality mental health support, initiatives and developments that will improve customer and staff engagement’’.
The Active IQ Level 2 MHA/First Aid and Level 3 Behavioural Change for Health and Wellbeing will form the foundation for the MH1 Coach certification and enable those qualified to adopt the MHQ (See below) to assess and programme clients with a more holistic approach.

MH1’s first innovation is the development of a peer reviewed and validated mental health questionnaire, with a working title of the MHQ, created by psychology masters graduate Paula Litherland of Edge Hill University.
Lynne, who is combining her MH1 role with her work at FitPro, adds: “The MHQ is a psychometric tool that measures the trajectory of mental health using lifestyle factors as markers. There are lots of questionnaires out there but not one that’s been peer reviewed and validated for use within the industry.”
MH1 has evolved from the LFX network, where Lynne and LFX founder Graeme Hinde first started the focus on mental health to enable fitness professionals to share stories and support colleagues in a community setting.

Lynne, who has qualified as a mental health first aider and delivers the Active IQ Level 2 Mental Health Awareness qualification, took over the reins of MH1 at the beginning of 2022 with an ambition to make it self-funding and to take it to the next level based on four pillars: