Squaddies Join Lubbs in 24 Hour Challenge for Music for Autism
Adam Lubbock from ADVHQ gym took on another epic 24 hour challenge to raise money for Music for Autism charity last week.
Last year Adam raised a staggering £10,000 for the charity in a mammoth physical fitness challenge, dubbed ‘Burpees for Autism’. Lubbs as he is known completed 33km on a Ski Erg, 30km on a Bike Erg, ran 33km and did 1,000 Burpees, all in the space of one day cheered on by his gym community — the ADVHQ Squaddies.
This year he decided to get Squaddies involved and asked them to join in various gym sessions which included Pilates and Zumba. The 24 hour challenge started at 8am on Thursday with a family workout to Disney tunes and whenever the word love was song everyone had to stop the workout and run 200 metres and then restart. Other sessions included a Golf Gamble where participants had to do the exercise and repetitions depending on which hole they putted and Adam conducting the music on the skier erg. Adam took a break from the gym sessions for a Squaddies dog walk dressed as Scooby Doo and paddle boarded for the first time from Marsh Lock up to Henley bridge.
After completing the challenge Adam said, “The hardest part of the challenge was the unknown in the build-up – it’s something you can’t really train for and something I had absolutely no idea how my body was going to respond to. The reason we got so many involved was because last year’s challenge was so well received, so popular and people were super eager to get involved. This year’s challenge was based around trying to get as many Squaddies involved as possible – the power of people is incredibly strong so why not utilise it when we’re lucky to have access to so many amazing ones! The Squaddies pulled together and created some awesome session for Lubbs.”
Music for Autism holds a personal connection for Adam. Founded in 2000 by his parents, John Lubbock MBE and Christine Cairns, Music For Autism was inspired by the difficult yet touching journey they had with Adam’s brother, Ali, who was diagnosed with autism just before his second birthday. John is a world renowned conductor and Christine is an international classical singer.
Adam’s Mum, Christine said she started the charity after singing at an international conference on Autism. “I sang and then I was asked to speak and I felt the atmosphere in the room changed. I wasn’t just a singer I was singer who understood the world we were there to talk about. I thought if I could sing and bring the two bits together; music and autism it would be wonderful. For next few years, I did recitals up and down the country to raise money for the charity with a talk in the middle. We also made a CD, of Scottish folk, titled, ‘Songs for Alexander’ and we got a few of our famous friends Simon Rattle, James Galway, Felicity Lott to come and sing with me and my husband John arranged the songs.”
“We felt with Ali, that he really loves music and we discovered a lot of autistic kids love music but they can’t go to a concert and sit still and behave so we thought if we took live proper music to them, they would get to experience it and they could dance, sing and shout and do whatever they like. We started out doing a family Sunday afternoon but many of the autistic children didn’t want to come to something they didn’t know so John came up with the idea of taking into schools and they were much more willing to participate if it was in their own schools. It is not just me now, there are different groups of musicians that go out now and the kids love all the instruments and they have a go at conducting too. The carers and teachers love it too as they see children who have not talked will sing a whole song and others who normally scream and shout go really quiet and enjoy the music.”
So far the challenge has raised an amazing £8,000, if you would like to give to this cause you still can at https://gofund.me/a7818c47
