This Girl Can x Strava

Challenge
Following the pandemic, millions of women across the UK had stepped away from regular physical activity with many feeling unfit, demotivated, or left behind. Research revealed that almost half of women felt held back by fear or self-doubt. This Girl Can and Strava needed content that would gently counter these barriers, showcasing authentic stories that reflected women’s lived experiences, and inspire a collective return to movement without judgement or pressure.

Approach
Rather than promoting perfection or performance, we focused on connection, care, and community. Working closely with a casting agency, we found real women with real stories and created a set of honest, uplifting films with women from diverse backgrounds opening up about why they stopped moving and what brought them back. Each film was grounded in the idea that movement is not linear — it’s personal, messy, joyful — and every comeback, no matter how big or small, is worth celebrating.

Watch the series now:

These stories became the heart of the campaign, driving nationwide engagement and providing a human anchor for This Girl Can’s return-to-movement initiative. The campaign exceeded all targets: tens of thousands of women joined the Strava club, encouraged each other through 30,000+ messages, and reignited their own movement journeys.

But the impact went beyond numbers. By featuring real, imperfect stories, the films dismantled myths around fitness and perfection and replaced them with empathy, humour, and strength. For many women, these weren’t just comeback stories, they were permission to begin again.