Abs Resolution – 150 minutes of Sit-ups On New Year’s Day at Camp Bastion, Captain Ian Flannery undertook a challenge to complete two and a half hours of continuous sit-ups as part of his New Year’s Resolution to improve his six-pack prior to the end of his six month tour with the Intelligence Exploitation Force.

When pushed, Ian would reveal that his real motivation was to make some money from his curious ability to do seemingly endless sit-ups for the Captain James Philippson Trust Fund.

Funds were generated for the Trust in numerous ways - Spectators of the challenge were given the opportunity to guess the total number of sit-ups that Ian would complete – the correct guess was made by Sgt Ralph (of the Royal Military Police, based at Kandahar Airfield), who won the first prize of a new Ipad, which was kindly donated by Marshall Land Services,10 runners-up won pizzas and drinks at the Ciano Restaurant. As well as the prizes, corporate cash donations were received too - Marshall, DFS, Proxima, Worldwide Language Resources, Prolog Solutions and Steria all made substantial contributions. Cash donations were also received through the Trust website donation page from Ian’s family, friends and well-wishers. So far the total amount generated for the Trust is over £6,000.

After 150 minutes at a fairly consistent continuous rate, Ian finished having completed 4267 repetitions. Having lost count at somewhere near 500, Ian was taken aback by his total, as his 2.5 hour rehearsal, conducted two weeks previously, he had only managed 3544. He puts his increased performance down to being spurred on by the crowd, and the speed work that he had done in his final training sessions - Five sprint sets of 100 sit-ups, each with decreasing amounts of weight on his chest, starting at 20kg, rates as his most painful workout. This is closely followed by a straight 1000 repetition sprint which he completed in less than 32 minutes.

Ian deployed as an individual to the Intelligence Exploitation Force in the Operations Officer post which he was selected for from the Operational Commitments Board. Initially a little unnerved at the prospect of a position in the world of J2 Ian has enjoyed the challenge “This is one of the most interesting posts that the Army has presented me with in what has been a varied and satisfying career so far“. Having Served two years on loan service in Saudi Arabia with the UK SANGCOM Project Team prior to this deployment, he hopes to return to the Royal Signals fold at Regimental Duty in the North of England, where he would be able to spend some much needed time with his family and await the birth of his second Daughter in the Spring.

Click here to see what the BFBS filmed