FOCUS: Push-up challenge seeks $100K for education

By Loren Ziff | I am co-chair and co-founder of Push-Up & Up, a Charleston-based non-profit that raises money and awareness for dropout prevention. I am 54 years old, in OK but not great shape, and I can do 450 push-ups in 30 minutes – and so can you!

Ziff

This is not an infomercial, but an opportunity to look in the mirror and face a challenge. It’s an opportunity to break down the artificial barriers that all of us put up.

Let’s be honest. Not too many of us wake up thinking about how many push-ups we are going to do today. However, with the Push-Up & Up training program, we have hundreds of participants in schools and businesses doing just this. We use the common, ordinary push-up as a metaphor for success through goal setting, time management and team-building.

Our goal is not to make everyone in the Lowcountry buff, but it is a wonderful by-product of engagement. Our goal is to raise money and awareness for dropout prevention. Did you know that one in four children in our state will drop out of school? Did you know that 67 percent of state prisoners nationally are high school dropouts?

Our program not only raises money for our proven partner, Communities In Schools, but is also a tool they use to help kids tackle their fears and gain confidence to succeed. In the workplace, our program breaks down barriers and is a great catalyst for team building. The “push-up” does not care whether you are the boss or the associate, or about your gender or age. It’s a great equalizer and also a great way to get in shape.

All you need to train is a timer, five minutes and the nerve to start. Once you start, you’ll be a little sore, but you will want to keep going. The goal is to do sets of five push-ups every 20 seconds for five minutes, with several seconds of rest between sets. This would total 75 push-ups. If you can’t do this, it’s OK … start with fewer minutes or fewer push-ups. It’s even OK to do them on your knees. Simply track what you do and strive to improve.

The key is to do this every day for two weeks. Don’t take a week off if you are sore … the soreness will go away in a few days. It’s important to track how many you do so that you can try to do more every day. You then try to add minutes to your daily activity. What happens over time is that this becomes more of mental challenge than a physical one.

By the way, you don’t need any special equipment to get going!

Our Push-Up & Up event is on May 2 from 9 a.m. to noon on Marion Square. We need you to engage with us. We need you to start a team (you can do this)! We need you to sponsor a school team or even become an event sponsor.

More importantly, if you consider yourself someone who has not done many push-ups lately, or ever, this is your opportunity to prove something to yourself. It’s an opportunity to improve your health and to give back to our incredible community.

Last year, we had over 50 teams complete over 112,000 push-ups while raising $55,000. This is the trifecta opportunity to engage, get healthy, and do good for yourself and our community.

Thank you for reading this and I personally challenge all of you to see how many push-ups you can do in five minutes using our process. Please go to www.pushupandup.org for more information. We hope to see you on May 2 at Marion Square!

Loren Ziff is a commercial Realtor and partner with EastRock Properties, LLC. More.