A NEW initiative is being launched at a Southampton university to help boost the fitness of staff and students.

Teams from the University of Southampton are being urged to sign up to the GofIT challenge that aims to increase the mobility and physical activity of those on campus in a bid to help them reach their full potential.

Starting this week, teams of five to eight people can sign-up to the web-based challenge site, where the goal is simply to boost the minutes of physical activity each week.

Participants will have weekly minute targets to achieve this, and teams can be pitted against each other.

Professor MC Schraefel from the electronics and computer science department at the university, who designed GofIT, said: “There are sufficient studies now to show that more active, mobile knowledge workers like our students and staff perform better academically and professionally, and are ill less often.”

Teams can sign up now at gofit.soton.ac.uk.