Sheffield opticians named as the city's most active workplace

A Sheffield-based optometrist and his team have beaten more than 100 workplaces to achieve the ‘most active minutes’ as part of a competition in the city.

The workplace challenge, which was part of the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine’s Move More Month, saw Alex Gage and his team of five members of staff clock up a total of 52,132 minutes between them, which on average equates to 334 minutes each day per person.

Workplaces in Sheffield used the Move More app or pedometers to monitor employee movement, and then the results were displayed on an online league table.

Mr Gage said: "At Alex Gage Optometrist, we were determined to get active for the workplace challenge so we all did a lot of walking in the evenings. Four of us had Fitbits and were already quite competitive with steps."

"To get my active minutes up, I made small changes like parking my car a few streets away from the practice so I could get in a few more steps along the way. Placing top in the challenge proves that every extra minute adds up and we'll be trying to top our total minutes next year," he added.

The challenge also raised £50,000 for Yorkshire Cancer Research.