Push Ups for Charity - the winner is...

Congratulations to Raffaele Faro, of Pazzo Restaurant here in Surry Hills!! Raffaele is the winner of the Next Generation Voucher for raising the most money in the Surry Hills group.

Not only did Raf manage to knock out 95 pushups in 90 seconds, but he raised a total of $1,250 in the process!!

Outstanding work from a dedicated (and obviously very fit!) man.


A special mention to Tim Michalas as well, who raised close to $1000 - a close second.

The total raised so far is now over $3,600 just from Surry Hills - and over $20k nationally (up to the 2nd December).

Well done again to all our participants and a big thanks to our sponsors. Let's make next year's Push Ups for Charity even bigger!

Lower body strengthening

Every man knows that he need to have a solid base of support – the occasional grounding so that he can stride forward into achieving in life. In terms of the physical body, our lower halves support and carry us around day to day, year by year. When something goes wrong with our legs, hips, lower back, knees or ankles, we surely know about it.

Your lower body needs strengthening exercises almost as much as your upper body – although it does get a good workout on a daily basis if you’re keeping an active lifestyle walking, taking stairs instead of elevators, cycling jogging or rowing.

Balanced lower body strength is essential if you want to remain injury free, mobile and fit for as long as possible. Exercises like squats, deadlifts, lunges, weighted step ups, leg presses and hamstring curls are excellent at developing a balanced lower body. You need to incorporate some heavy resistance to most of these exercises to overload the muscles, as they are used to moving your bodyweight regularly.

Start off with 2-3 circuits of 15 bodyweight-only squats; 15 deadlifts with a barbell or kettlebells; 8 lunges on each leg, holding dumbbells for added weight; then a few short 30 m laps jogging forward, backward, and shuffling sideways; before repeating the whole circuit. Build up the weights and speed of the movements week after week, adding an extra circuit to the routine once a week for challenge. Cross train with some walks and runs, hiking, cycling, rowing and stair climbing, and you’ll start reaping the fuel-burning benefits of bigger, beefier, better functioning lower body muscles. 

Push Ups for Charity!

Last Saturday 27^th November was the first-ever Push Ups for Charity (PUC) event here at Golds, raising funds for Make A Wish Foundation. With about 25 people in attendance and 15 keen push uppers, all aiming to bust out as many push ups in 90 seconds as they could – it was a great morning!

Push Uppers in action !

The PUC fundraiser was held around Australia with nearly 50 locations and around 700-800 participants all getting up and out there on Saturday to get fit, have some fun and give something to children with life-threatening illnesses. As a new charity event, it’s a fantastic way of raising funds and heart rates – and seriously, what other fundraiser could be over in just 90 seconds?? It was great stuff and happy to say we’ll need more people for next year when we run it!

In total here in Surry Hills we had 23 participants. Saturday was our main event, marked with speeches from both myself and Caz Lederman from Make a Wish, who told her very heartfelt story of how the charity has helped her niece. I think that helped inspire a few extra pushups when we ‘dropped and did 90 (seconds)” shortly after!

When all were done and the count was tallied, we’d completed over 1300 pushups, with preliminary reports that we’ve raised over $4000!

Whilst there were some notable performances (Mark Inwood best male 114, Lisa Aronson best female 57 on the toes!), Make A Wish foundation and the children they support were ultimately the winners.

Special mentions to Mark Inwood as well for convincing a number of his clients and even his Monday night Blitz class to participate! Francois Deacon for his event photography on the day, Leah Hanchard for helping with the materials and information packs for everyone, and Ian Barnett for a generous donation.

Caz Lederman from Make A Wish shares her story 

I’d like to see the next PUC be even bigger and better with more Gold’s members either doing a push up or 2 for charity, or getting in and sponsoring! There’s no restriction on entering and it’s certainly not a competition – heck even my mother got in on it having not done a push up in many years (I’m not at liberty to mention how many years, but she did manage 24 pushups!! We’ll be able to make a great donation to charity like this first event, and next time show that Surry Hills is THE best in Oz J

Fantastic work to all the participants, sponsors and donors !! You pulled out an enormous effort and should all be proud of yourselves.