BLF Active was a project set up in 2007 with funding from Air Products.
Many people with lung disease express how exercise during pulmonary rehabilitation has been the most life changing treatment they have been offered. The BLF wanted to provide people finishing rehabilitation with the opportunity to continue exercising safely.
BLF Active collaborated with Loughborough College and leading Health Care Professionals to produce a course for fitness instructors to provide specialist exercise for people with chronic respiratory disease on completion of pulmonary rehabilitation. Between 2007 and June 2011, BLF Active provided bursaries for over 148 instructors to take the course. The BLF no longer provide bursaries to fitness instructors.
The training in Chronic Respiratory Disease Exercise (CRDE) still runs at Loughborough College. Instructors all over the country continue to qualify through the course, resulting in an increasing number of people having access to safe maintenance exercise.
The original BLF Active project finished successfully once the CRDE qualification was established and funding for bursaries ceased. We are left with the legacy of a reputable course at Loughborough College and a growing number of over 200 instructors around the UK qualified to give maintenance exercise to people with lung conditions. With funding from Air Products, the BLF continue to engage with fitness instructors who qualify to give CRDE through Loughborough College and facilitate the set-up of new CRDE classes.
