About

Who I am

I'm Shernelle Francois, a coach with over five years in the fitness industry.

I made this directory to share my collected knowledge and information easily: training, calisthenics, nutrition, mobility, recovery and mindset.

It was originally made for our LGBTQ+ training group and our first session on 24 October 2026. It now stays as a free directory of information for everyone to use.

How this started

It started with one message. I asked a group chat whether anyone fancied a calisthenics session, and people said yes.

We're a group of Black LGBTQ+ people who share a love of training, and that's how the community began.

I'm autistic and have ADHD, and fitness is my outlet. Socialising doesn't come easily to me, and meeting people from my community is hard when so much of queer social life happens in clubs and around drinking.

Training gives us another way to connect: real conversation, shared knowledge and people who get it.

That's why I built this directory: to share what I've learned with like-minded people. Now I want to share it beyond our group, for free, with anyone who wants it.

Why fitness matters to me

Grief is a big part of my story. I was in America on a football scholarship when my mum died suddenly.

She had lived with three different cancers since 2010, and had a stroke not long before the cardiac arrest that took her. That was a big part of why I wanted to be healthier.

When I came home I felt like I had nothing. The only thing that made me feel anything was putting my body under stress I could control.

The skill element of calisthenics kept me occupied and constantly entertained.

Fitness can give you control when you feel you have none.

Why calisthenics

I fell in love with calisthenics straight away. Maybe it goes back to playing dead hang on the Tube with my dad, seeing who could last the most stops without letting go.

I love that every move is compound. It teaches you posture, core and hip alignment until everything else clicks.

There's always another skill to learn, and it builds a body like nothing else.

Why research about health, nutrition and fitness in Black people matters

My mum's stroke and cardiac arrest are part of why I care about this. Research shows these conditions don't affect every community equally.

Stroke

This gap isn't new. A South London study published in 1999 found that Black people had strokes about 2.2 times as often as white people, and that this wasn't explained by age, sex or social class (Stewart et al., 1999).

The newest data from the same area shows Black African and Black Caribbean people still have strokes about twice as often as white people, and that the gap has widened over the last ten years. This study hasn't been peer reviewed yet, so treat it as early findings (Pantoja-Ruiz et al., 2026).

Black people who have a stroke are, on average, about ten years younger than white people who have one: 65 years compared with 75 (Gulli et al., 2016).

Before their stroke, Black patients were more likely to have high blood pressure (74% compared with 60%) and diabetes (30% compared with 13%) (Wolfe et al., 2005).

Living in a poorer area plays a part. Stroke rates were highest among Black people in the most deprived areas, but the gap between ethnic groups remained even after taking this into account (Pantoja-Ruiz et al., 2026).

Cardiac arrest

A cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly stops pumping. In a South London hospital study of people resuscitated after a cardiac arrest outside hospital, 57% of Black patients had died within a year, compared with 41% of white patients (Roy et al., 2023).

In the United States (not the UK), a registry of over 600,000 cardiac arrests found that CPR from a bystander improved survival in every group, but the benefit was smallest for Black patients (Chan et al., 2024). I couldn't find an equivalent UK study.

Who's missing from the research

Black people, and Black women especially, are underrepresented in medical and sports research. When our experiences aren't documented, our difficulties are easier to dismiss.

In four leading sports science and sports medicine journals between 2018 and 2022, only 1.3% of authors were Black, and just 0.34% were Black women (de Freitas et al., 2025).

These figures describe trends across groups, not what will happen to any one person. If any of this affects you or your family, your GP can check your blood pressure and other risk factors.

A section collecting studies and data projects working to change this is coming to this directory.

References

• Chan, P. S., Girotra, S., Blewer, A., et al. (2024). Race and sex differences in the association of bystander CPR for cardiac arrest. Circulation. Advance online publication. (United States data.)
• de Freitas, J. V. R., Morais, N. S., Santos, J. T., et al. (2025). Examining the under-representation of black researchers in sports science and sports medicine publications: "You can't be what you can't see". British Journal of Sports Medicine, 59(6), 367. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-108497
• Gulli, G., Rutten-Jacobs, L. C. A., Kalra, L., Rudd, A. G., Wolfe, C. D. A., & Markus, H. S. (2016). Differences in the distribution of stroke subtypes in a UK black stroke population: Final results from the South London Ethnicity and Stroke Study. BMC Medicine, 14, 77. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-016-0618-2
• Pantoja-Ruiz, C., Khanolkar, A. R., Ismail, I., et al. (2026). Widening ethnic inequalities in stroke incidence: A 30-year population-based analysis of the South London Stroke Register [Preprint, not yet peer reviewed]. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.13.26343995
• Roy, R., Kanyal, R., Abd Razak, M., et al. (2023). The effect of ethnicity and socioeconomic status on outcomes after resuscitated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: Findings from a tertiary centre in South London. Resuscitation Plus, 14, 100388.
• Stewart, J. A., Dundas, R., Howard, R. S., Rudd, A. G., & Wolfe, C. D. A. (1999). Ethnic differences in incidence of stroke: Prospective study with stroke register. BMJ, 318(7189), 967–971. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.318.7189.967
• Wolfe, C. D. A., Smeeton, N. C., Coshall, C., Tilling, K., & Rudd, A. G. (2005). Survival differences after stroke in a multiethnic population: Follow-up study with the South London Stroke Register. BMJ, 331(7514), 431. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38510.458218.8F

My qualifications

• Level 4 Advanced Nutrition Essentials for Fitness and Leisure (AFN, Virgin Active Academy, 2024)
• Level 4 Sports Massage Therapy (ProActive Training, with the Sports Therapy Organisation, 2026)
• Level 3 Diploma in Gym Instructing and Personal Training (Active IQ, The Training Room, 2020–2023)
• Express Pilates, Dynamic Reformer Pilates and Introduction to Group Exercise (Virgin Active Academy, 2024)
• Level 3 Diploma in Increasing Participation in Sport and Active Leisure in Community Settings
• Level 3 BTEC Sport
• Former NJCAA student-athlete, football (Broward College, 2017–2019)
• Currently studying: Level 3 Education and Training

What this is for

Sharing information and experience, and most of all encouraging and engaging with my community.

Everything here is general education, not medical advice. If something affects your health, speak to your GP or a qualified professional.

How entries are checked

I review every entry before it's published. Each one is written in plain English and checked against current research, with the studies listed at the bottom of the entry.