Airdrie City Councillor Darrell Belyk has doubled his goal by aiming to do 4,000 push ups in February to raise awareness for mental health in Canada.
People across Canada are being challenged to complete 2,000 push-ups or a similar exercise between February 1 and 23 to push for better mental health outcomes in Canada.
“Everyone you know has some form of mental health [issue] throughout their life, whether it be [positive] or negative, and I just feel that people need to to break the stigma of mental health,” Belyk said, adding people can talk to professionals like physicians or counselors. “Just to open up the door and not hide those feelings of a mental health issue that could be happening, maybe pressures at home or at work or a combination of both.”
Belyk has been completing 200 pushups every day, while taking Sundays off.
As a past professional athlete, Belyk knows there’s an advantage to taking Sundays off to recuperate his mind and muscles, he added.
“At the end of the challenge, which is the 23rd [of February], I'll donate $0.05 per push-up that I've done, and right now I'm doing 200 push-ups a day,” Belyk said. “I believe in the cause, so that's why I'm doing this.”
When Airdrie City View spoke with him, he was not yet halfway through the challenge and already at 1600 push-ups.
If he keeps up with doing 200 push-ups per day, he will finish with well over 4,000 push-ups by the end of the challenge.
When asked how the challenge was going, he said he was active long before and doing ten sets of 20 push-ups throughout the day has been very manageable.
Belyk found out about the Push-Up Challenge the day before it started and invited his colleagues at work to join him.
“I said, well, if no one else will join me, I'll do it solo, [but] within the next couple hours I had 24 people that wanted to join in,” he said. “So we're all pushing up, pushing for mental health.”
For anyone interested in joining the challenge, Belyk said to first make sure you’re able to complete several push-ups or any other type of physical activity.
“It can be sit-ups or any physical activity that you do,” he said. “Even walking can be accounted for in this challenge.”
“It’s more of a physical challenge to get people up off their seat from sedentary work or sitting in front of the TV. Getting up and enjoying the outdoors or just physical activity to get those brain functions to work again.”
Funds raised through the challenge will go to Calgary’s chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association to raise awareness of mental health.
Participants receive a daily target with a corresponding mental health fact. Push-ups can be substituted with alternative exercises or a smaller target can be set if the full target is too challenging.
Go to thepushupchallenge.ca for more information.
