The Winchelsea Health Club has been recognised as one of the top five health and fitness teams in Victoria to complete this year’s Push-Up Challenge in support of Lifeline.
The team of 29 members and trainers were left with very sore arms and a lot of pride after achieving a massive combined effort of 80,631 push-ups in 23 days. That placed them fifth in the leaderboard for Victorian health and fitness clubs competing in the challenge.
For their efforts, the team raised $2,690 for Lifeline Geelong, making them the 10th biggest fundraisers in their category for the state.
“I think we were all motivated knowing that it was going towards helping local people,” said Darren Burgess, the Health and Wellness Team Leader at Winchelsea Health Club.
“It wasn’t easy. We started off doing 75 push ups on the first day and by the end, we were averaging around 220. One of our teammates couldn’t do five push ups on her toes when we started but she was easily doing 20 by the end of the month.
“It was a great personal challenge while also being a way to give back to the community.”
All participants in the Push-Up Challenge were tasked with completing 3,144 push-ups across the first 23 days of June, putting the spotlight on the tragic number of lives lost to suicide in Australia in 2021.
“I want to congratulate the members of the Winchelsea Health Club on their incredible achievement and thank them for raising both money and awareness on the importance of mental health services,” said Surf Coast Shire Councillor Adrian Schonfelder.
“I hope they’ve all treated themselves to a good long soak in the bath afterwards!”
The Push-Up Challenge has raised just under $15 million for mental health services this year, with more than 314 million push-ups being completed nation-wide.
