Worthing fitness team complete more than 20,000 burpees for St Barnabas House

The Armoured for Life team are honouring the 1,740 volunteers at St Barnabas House in Titnore Lane with a burpee for each of them, spread out over ten days.

That comes to 174 burpees per person, per day, starting from last Monday. With 12 people taking part, that is more than 20,000 burpees.

One of Armoured’s directors, Lizzie Ellen, said it was great to support such an important charity.

“St Barnabas is close to all of our hearts, it’s a local charity and we thought it would be a nice thing to do,” Lizzie said on the eighth day of the challenge.

“We picked burpees because it’s the worst exercise of them all, we’re all tired but we’re going to finish them.”

Armoured for Life runs fitness classes out of Oak Grove College in The Boulevard, with a focus on using physical exercise to improve mental health.

The lockdown has seen their business rely on Zoom, and every morning at 6.30am the team met to complete their 174 burpees over the course of an hour.

But the challenge was also opened up to the whole community, with everybody encouraged to take part. Armoured’s team of 11 were joined by one member of the public.

They have also been recording themed videos and sketches at the start of each session, from Star Wars to Home Alone, which they plan to collate into a long video as a ‘thank you’ to the volunteers and staff of St Barnabas House.

Their initial target of £500 has already been smashed and the team have now raised almost £1,300.

A burpee is a full-body exercise beginning in a standing position, down to a squat, into a plank back into a squat and then upwards back into a standing position.

They are named after American physiologist Royal H Burpee, who invented the exercise as part of his Ph.D thesis in 1940.

St Barnabas House provides specialist palliative care for adults with advanced, progressive, life-limiting illnesses and support for their families.

To donate to the fundraiser, visit: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/armoured-for-life