A welder and personal trainer is taking on a daunting challenge to raise money and awareness for mental health.

Fitness enthusiast Ollie Finn is aiming to take on 50,000 reps – comprising sit-ups, press-ups and more – in just 48 hours; and started the challenge at 4pm today.

The Bridgefield resident had the idea to raise money for Mind, and awareness over exercise's benefits for mental health, after seeing the number of people exercising drop off as lockdown restrictions were eased.

"I'm really keen to raise awareness and keep people focused on the fact that exercise is so important for our mental health," Mr Finn said.

"I think we all became aware of it during lockdown, I saw a lot more people using their allowed exercise because the alternative was to be shut inside all day.

"But now because things are returning to normal, I'm seeing the numbers of people exercising outside dropping dramatically, the park near where I live is probably seeing a third of the amount of people as during lockdown, if that."

And Mr Finn is also basing his efforts off his own experience, after suffering mentally during lockdown.

"I really reached a low point after I injured myself," he explained, "I play a lot of rugby and obviously couldn't do that, so was doing a lot of weights training but then I injured my back.

"There was a period of at least a month where I couldn't exercise at all really, and it really got me down.

"I think until that point I never really realised just how massive exercise was in my mental health – I knew it was important, but it was a wake-up call really."

Mr Finn is also hoping that some people will join him in his endeavours, which will take place at Ashford Rugby Club.

"It would be great to have people supporting, and to reach one hundred thousand reps overall would be phenomenal", he added.

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