Ati Aziz

About My Challenge

This June I'm taking on 3,307 push-ups over 24 days for The Push-Up Challenge, with my team at Calcs.com. That number is how many Australians we lost to suicide in 2024. One push-up for each of them.

Honest starting point: I've never done more than 15 to 30 push-ups in one go, so this is going to hurt. I'll be folding them into my normal workouts and counting every rep.

People ask me why I'm so hell bent on slotting in workouts. It wasn't always like this. I was the asthma kid who got pulled off the field halfway through every game, out of breath, and I decided early that I just wasn't the kind of person who does sport. That story stuck for years. It only started to lift at uni when I found the kind of training where I wasn't competing with anyone but myself.

Fifteen years on, it's never about the numbers for me. Moving is just part of who I am now, and it's the one space where I can come undone and not feel like I've failed. When life knocks me off the wagon I don't punish my body, I pick it back up, even if it's five minutes of stretching. Reward, not punishment.

That's also why this cause sits close. Moving is how I look after my head, and I grew up around the idea that you don't take up space and you don't talk about the hard stuff. A lot of people are carrying that quietly right now, and a lot of them don't have somewhere to turn.

The money I raise goes to Lifeline Western Melbourne. I picked them because Melbourne is my home now, and they keep the 24/7 crisis line (13 11 14) answering for whoever needs it.

I don't need you to donate. But if you want to back me, this is how I'd love you to do it. Whatever you can give helps Lifeline keep picking up the phone. And if it's not the right time, send this to someone it might reach, or check in on someone today.