40 Hours in The Gym
Once when I was living in Worcester (home of the sauce yes.. it’s a small town in England) as a fulltime rowing coach we did a 24 hour erg (rowing machine) thing where the goal was to accumulate as many metres as possible. I presume it was a fundraiser, I can’t remember what exactly for. I do remember we were in a little atrium in the middle of a kind of mall kind of not mall because it was undercover but there weren’t any doors? More like a covered walkway with shops off it. Anyway we were there and what I remember is that I stayed awake for far too many hours, actually went a little bit delirious, and it got very very cold over night.
This is like that but both better and worse; warmer, but longer.
My primary employment is at Waikato Diocesan in Hamilton in the Sports Department. The part I love most about my job is running the school Fitness Centre. It’s a very cool facility any school would be proud to have, and I am particularly proud of how well equipped this one is. I have the ability to work with students of all experience levels in a resistance training capacity- and provide a first taste for many of them. I’ve also had the opportunity to introduce many students to weightlifting- either to support other training or be involved in the sport itself. Yes that does make me excessively happy.
Anyway, the School is a big supporter of World Vision and the ‘40 Hour’ fundraiser. When I was a kid it meant 40 hours of consuming nothing other that brand partners Heards (fruit flavoured) Barley Sugars and Just Juice. It seems times have changed and instead of 40 hours of ongoing sugar highs, participants are encouraged to design their own personally relevant challenge as a fundraising opportunity. Which is how we’ve ended up here.
Next weekend (which incidentally happens to be Matariki long weekend) three of our Year 13 students, who also happen to have been weightlifting with me for almost a year now, are going to spend 40 hours in our School Fitness Centre. It was their idea.
We’ve come up with the following parameters;
40 hours, from 6am Friday July 14th until 10pm Saturday July 15th
A goal to lift a total of 400 tonnes
This will be achieved with no more than two barbells in action at any one time
The lifts are restricted to; snatch, clean & jerk, front squat, back squat or deadlift
400 tonnes sounds kind of major, and it would be if it was just the three organising students- but with the help of our wider community, I think we can smash it.
Split evenly the challenge requires 10,000kg to be lifted every hour, or 5000kg per barbell. That’s approximately 83kg/min per barbell. If we can keep them in use, we can do it. Preferably a bit more at times so we can snooze through the middle of the night, but deal with that when we get there.
This is where we need your help. We’re asking anyone from Waikato Dio, local weightlifting, CrossFit gyms, and honestly anyone who can rep out a few deadlifts or squats to join us at some point during the 40 hours in support of reaching our goal.
How You Can Support
Join us- get in touch and let me know what time works for you so we can schedule you in and make sure everyone is spread out. When you come it would be awesome if you can bring a koha in support of our fundraising efforts. See the roster HERE. We will add to this as people confirm, or sheet settings should allow you to comment on a time slot to add yourself in. So long as you know, and we know, we’re good.
Contribute directly by donating to our World Vision fundraising page. If you’d like to do this, this link will take you there
Bring us snacks, maybe a coffee (we will nap but guna be a loooong 40 hours)
Thank you in advance to anyone who jumps in and lends a hand in this insane plan. It’s the kind of thing where yes, we are promoting awareness and giving for a good cause. We’re also doing a really cool thing together I hope everyone will be proud to be a part of. Hope to see you there x
Conditions of participating
This event is taking place on School grounds and outside of usual hours so anyone coming in will need to be known about ahead of time- we will need to give directions and let you in. Please ensure you are in contact with myself, or one of the leading students beforehand
Any participants under the age of 18 (who are not already Waikato Dio students and DioFit members) will need parental permission to take part- this can be done in person or online
As much as we are grateful for anyone wanting to come in and support we reserve the right to reduce load/ask you to stop if we feel continuing would be dangerous
Sumo, low bar and powers are acceptable, squats above parallel are not (we need some standards)
If you are determined to contribute by performing snatches but have never done them before- you need to agree to let me teach you first
