“Oh man”, I thought to myself as I rolled over in bed and smacked off the alarm, “I reckon I could just stay in bed.” It’s the middle of winter on a cold and wet Mountain Monday morning. Bec is sound asleep beside me and Molly, my beautiful pup, is curled up on my feet, making it difficult for me to get out of bed. It’s warm under the blankets. Outside, I hear that cold, strong wind blowing through the trees. I should just stay in bed.

And yet, to my brain’s horror, I get out of bed. “What are you doing”? I hear it scream. “I said I’m going,” I reply, “and I’m not gonna let The Boys down.” You see, I’ve got a commitment. Twice a week, I get up. Early. In the dark. Even in winter. And I head to the sports ground. What for? Well, a while ago, a few men started getting together to do some fitness work and light boxing. A few other men joined in and now it’s regular. It’s just a thing we do - every Monday and Thursday.
Sometimes, you can’t make it. It doesn’t matter. Whoever is there is welcomed, encouraged and then we try to get fit. As one of us in our WhatsApp group put it this morning: “Looking forward to all you amazing blokes punching the heck out of me with love and compassion (except he didn’t use the word heck).” We love it. We’ve even given each other cool boxing names. There’s The Hurricane, Knuckles, Buster, Sweet Pea, Handsy, The Fiddler, The Accountant, Bam Bam, Bone Crusher, S.O.B and the rest of us.
Sometimes, some of us just turn up at the end to just go for the coffee afterwards. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we don’t. Again, it doesn’t matter. But we always box. There’s nothing quite like being pushed physically to do things you couldn’t do before. I’ve always found regularly doing fitness work a challenge. It’s not something I like to do on my own. But “The Push”, as we call ourselves in jest, gets all of us there. Some of us have lost a heap of weight, some of us have started to actually get muscles and be stronger, some of us are the fittest we have been in a decade.
For me? Well, it has been a catalyst to become the lightest I have been since I played grade footy when I was 19, to increase my regular exercise and to even start running again. I am grateful. Very grateful to this group of men. We’re not all best mates. It doesn’t matter. We look after each other and we push each other. That’s what matters. We are safe, but we know we are going to have to work hard.
Every bit of research shows that when you exercise with a buddy or a group you are more successful: you are 50% more likely to complete a weight loss program and twice as likely to maintain any weight loss, you are less likely to be injured, less likely to stop exercising and more likely to continue to exercise even after you reach your goals.
And we all know that exercise is key to a healthy life. So, get out there and find a group that works for you. Not all of us love to get the “heck” hit out of us, but all of us have some sort of exercise that we can do with a group or a buddy. Get moving, get healthier and get into life.