Indoor Rowing Adventures in the Outback - Kel Sanson

Kel Sanson is our resident DARKHORSE rowing instructor - he has written this blog to give you an insite into what a small country gym is like - but also to see that YOU might be able to help them - have a read its is great!

 

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to land a small work project out in far western Queensland that required me to spend a night in Quilpie. I haven’t spent any time in Quilpie for about 14 years and I have to say I was so bloody excited to get back there. My little visit proved to be more exciting and inspiring than I thought possible and has helped to fuel my fire as a, indoor rowing coach. What? Rowing in Quilpie? Yep that sounds crazy I know.

To paint a picture of Quilpie for those of you who haven’t heard of it, Quilpie is a little speck on the map way out west with a population of about 500 people. If you jumped in your car and drove 1,000 kilometres almost due west of Brisbane you would find this great little town. For those of you who still need any convincing that Quilpie is way out west, if you drove 100km past Quilpie you would come to a much smaller town called Eromanga. It is the furthest town in Australia from the sea. It’s a long way away. Got it?

How would I describe the town and the area around it? It is very tough country.  Prone to extended droughts and only occasional flooding rains. The locals are hardy people, typical of outback Australia. They work hard and they are tough just like the country they are surrounded by. However they are truly the salt of the earth, wonderful and friendly. They possess that almost indescribable inner fire and persistence to carve out lives for themselves in a very challenging and quite often inhospitable environment. 

Given I travel a bit for work I always try and find a gym or something to go to in the evenings. So a week before my little adventure I thought I would try my luck and searched Google for ‘Quilpie Gym’. Imagine my surprise when the Quilpie Sport and Recreation Centre came up at the top of the search results! A gym in Quilpie, no frigging way! I messaged them to find out how much for a casual session and also asked (trying my luck again) if they had a rowing machine. The response was affirmative! Holy cow!

I thought this was a prime opportunity to test out my new found rowing coaching skills (thanks to Dark Horse Rowing #beadarkhorse). I suggested in exchange for a casual gym session that I would be more than happy to run the trainers through a little indoor rowing training session. Again the response was affirmative. Cue excitement!

So I hit town a week later and through the amazing power of Google Maps worked out that the Quilpie Sport and Recreation Centre was 500m from my motel. Happy days! When I entered the gym I was truly blown away by the place. Picture the tidiest gym you have been to. Fantastic layout, a bunch of new cardio and weights machines, a large area for group classes, and cold air conditioning. When it is still 45 degrees Celsius at 6pm in the evening the air conditioner is vital. 

I was greeted by Emily the committee president, school PE teacher (her full time gig) and personal trainer. What struck me most about Emily was her passion for health and fitness but also her incredible pride at what they had achieved in getting this place off the ground. Hearing her talk and listening to the love she has for her clients and what they are achieving is enough to inspire the hell out of anybody.

For the next half an hour I ran a very compressed workshop for Emily and her star trainers which was great fun. So much so we did another small session early the next morning. As always I love to see people changing their technique to really connect with the rowing machine. I could bang on all day about how awesome it is, however it was during my brief time in that gym that I started to notice something incredible. The people. For a community of around 500 people living in town there were heaps of them hitting the gym and they were working so hard. It was amazing. To put it into perspective they currently have 86 active members. Are there many gyms in Australia that could boast that they have nearly 20% of the town’s population as members? I don’t think so!

One of the trainers that had a crack at the rower during my evening session was Ann. Now Ann had a broken arm. Did that stop her from having a go at trying to improve her rowing technique? Hell no. I was admittedly surprised that she wanted to jump on and have a go; however I was truly blown away the next morning when I saw her participating in the early morning group class. She was amazing. Before the gym opened In Quilpie, Ann was unable to jump, skip or run. The gym opened in early November 2017 and unfortunately Ann broke her arm in December but she has still been able to completely change her life. She can now jump, skip, run….and indoor row. She has lost weight, has more energy, changed the food she eats and her outlook on life. She is planning to enter Tough Mudder next year which happens to be the same year she turns 50. Inspired yet?

Another person that caught my attention was Lisa. She was killing the morning group class as well. Before the Quilpie Sport and Rec Centre opened Lisa was overweight and unhappy with the way she felt and looked, she felt that there was nothing in Quilpie to really encourage her to get active and fit so her habits stayed the same and so did her physical and mental health. However from the minute the gym opened Lisa has attended every possible class and changed not just her eating habits but her whole lifestyle. Lisa says that she could never have done this without the incredible facility that has been created in the town, a well-equipped, well run and most importantly; air conditioned place to exercise is exactly what the town needed. Lisa has lost a lot of weight, has a whole new wardrobe, and most importantly her entire mindset towards health and fitness has completely changed, she says she will never look back now! How good is that?

Now I should mention that all the trainers in the gym had been given grants to pursue their PT qualifications but they all have full time jobs that they hold down as well. So they head there to run morning classes, and then head off to work for the day and back to the gym again in the evening. They are volunteers offering the classes, advice and gym programs all for free. All because they are passionate people heavily invested in making a difference in their community.

Does their community really need this facility? I say hell yes, I believe it’s a critical part of any rural towns infrastructure. Frighteningly the results from the 2011-12 Australian Health Survey1, with information from 47,000 Australians from urban, regional and remote locations, show that 63 per cent of the population are either overweight or obese. Around one-quarter of children aged 5-17 years are overweight or obese. In 2010-11 there was an increasing rate of adult overweight/obesity by remoteness. The rate of overweight or obese adults was 61.6 per cent in major cities, and 72.8 per cent for remote areas.

Those statistics don’t cover the financial cost of this obesity epidemic. For anyone in Quilpie that has ongoing serious health issues they need to travel a significant distance to their nearest referring hospital. How far is that exactly? Well it is 222km to Charleville Hospital or 829km to the Toowoomba Base Hospital. So if someone is obese they have a much higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, certain types of cancer, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis, fatty liver disease, kidney disease, and for pregnant women there are problems such as high blood sugar during pregnancy, high blood pressure, and increased risk for caesarean delivery (C-section). How many hospital trips would you need if you had any of these health concerns? If you had to travel 2.5 hours each way to hospital each time you needed it, what is the cost to you both financially and time-wise?

Living in the city we take for granted our access to facilities like this. By that I mean both a beautiful gym and also to critical health care services. A facility like the Quilpie Sport and Rec Centre will be directly responsible for putting people in a position where their need to access these medical services will diminish or possibly disappear altogether.

In recognising all the positives I have mentioned above there is still a serious need to improve these facilities and ensure that the Quilpie Sport and Rec Centre remains an ongoing service full of passionate people that are well trained. Given the staff have 9-5 jobs the facility really needs to fund a full time staff member to ensure its ongoing success. In addition they have a huge electricity bill due to the air conditioning and really need a solar system (they have had a quote of $70,000 for installation). Along with that all the current trainers require ongoing training to ensure they continue to deliver a premium service to their clients.

So what can you do? Share the hell out of this story! For anyone out there that has access to any finances/grants or otherwise that could help these guys I would love it if you got in touch with Emily. For anyone who has years of personal training skill under their belt, take a road trip with your family (they will love it) and go and spend some time with the Quilpie Sport and Rec trainers. They are hungry to learn. Knowledge is power. If you have knowledge then please share it with them. These guys will love you for it and the community out there will benefit from you sharing your expertise with them! If you are a large gym franchise then share some new gear with them or offer some sort of sponsorship so they can buy some more equipment. They have a huge shopping list of equipment they want to round out this facility. Help them out.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and please share this around. I believe it’s a great facility and it is one of Australia’s unique little towns. I know there are people/businesses out there that can help these guys to continue the amazing work they are doing.

If you want to get in touch with them contact Emily Tully on mobile 0411 336 579 and email q.sportrec@gmail.com

 

Cheers, Kel Sanson

 

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Brett Wardley3 Comments