September 8th 2016
“Day 16 – Sun’s out again! And what better way of celebrating it than getting a bunch of nice folk to do 22 pushups in the middle of a road! Many thanks to the guys & gals from YWAM London Radiant, and a few others who just decided to join in!” 

What Was All This For?

The ’22 Push Up Challenge’ was a campaign that hit the news back in 2016 with people across the world posting on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook videos of themselves performing 22 pushups for 22 days, to promote awareness for veteran suicide prevention along with honoring military service members and veterans.

The original campaign, referred to as #22KILL, was actually created in 2011 by OEF Marine veteran Andrew K. Nguyen, and became the ’22pushup’ campaign in October 2013 when the world was introduced to the fact that on average 22 US veterans commit suicide every day. Sadly, this situation also rang true with the British Armed Forces, as well as suicide being the biggest cause of death in men under 45 in the UK.

Combat Stress, the UK’s leading Veterans’ mental health charity, say that mental ill-health affects ex-Service men and women of all ages, with the charity supporting over 5,900 Veterans aged from 19 to 97 and providing a vital lifeline for both them and their families.

Nomination

Part of the reason for the huge success of campaign was the fact that after performing the 22 push ups, you were allowed to ‘nominate’ other people to join in the challenge. My nomination came from Adam Meakins ‘The Sports Physio’, and so started 22 days of pushups.

Being the creative type, I realised I was going to have to add a certain ‘je ne sais quoi‘ by performing each day’s push ups in a different environment, normally involving my year old son. In fact, in watching the video for Day 1 you will see that my son who was in charge of counting lost it towards the end. Never work with kids!

Donations still welcomed

The campaign is obviously over but if these videos inspire you in some way then do please head over to either of these websites and consider a donation:
• http://www.combatstress.org.uk
• http://highground-uk.org (work closely with Combat Stress).

Updated August 2019. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the videos!