Pushing For Better, Australia Edition

Earlier this year, I signed up for and completed a push-up challenge in which I had to do 2000 push-ups between Feb 1-23. With a team of friends, we raised a bit over a thousand dollars for Canadian mental health organizations. It was a great chance to challenge myself physically and it felt great to contribute a little bit toward the cause and raise awareness. Some of our group was willing to add push-ups in exchange for donations and it made for a lively group chat where we could freely share about arm pain.

One member of our group lives in Australia and he’s enlisted us to answer the call. Their 2024 challenge takes place from June 5-28 and the stakes have been raised calls for 3,249 push-ups (one for each person lost to suicide in Australia in 2022). It’s quite a gut-wrenching statistic to think on for too long but motivates me to hit the increased target.

I’m expecting a little more muscle pain than my first time around but I’m also a little bit wiser and more experienced now. I’ll aim to complete sets of 20-30 at various points throughout the days and allow my body to rest in between. Some days reach higher totals than others and I’ll also hopefully be able to fit in a full day or two of rest in there somewhere but the increased total will make that interesting. (My full schedule from the last challenge pictured in the note below).

I’m not one to turn away from a challenge so I’ve signed up and made a donation to get myself started. You can check on my progress & see how the team is doing from this page.