Son does 300 push-ups a day for charity in memory of deceased mother

A software engineer is attempting to do 300 push-ups a day this year to raise £10,000 for a charity in memory of his mother, who died from multiple sclerosis (MS).

Alex Welford, 25, from Bristol, has set himself a goal of doing 100,000 push-ups in a year to raise money for the MS Society. His mother, Alison Welford, died of MS in May.

Mrs Welford, who was 66, had lived with the condition for more than 40 years but her condition began to deteriorate in the five years leading up to her death. She began to lose the ability to speak, which Alex said was difficult because his mum was an “absolute chatterbox”, and then had to be fed through a tube.

“It wasn’t a glamorous life, but she was an absolute badass regardless, always forcing a smile and never really complaining,” Alex said.

He does an average of 300 push-ups a day and has done his exercises in unusual places, such as “on the side of the road in Tunisia, in hostels, in airports, on an easyJet plane and on a train to London” to continue his exercise.

“At the beginning of the year I was pretty nervous. I tried to do them in my room and away from people,” he said.

“But I’ve definitely learned to just not worry; I could never see myself doing that on a plane.”

It can take up to an hour to complete a workout, but he believes it needs to be disciplined because “as soon as you miss a day, you increase the amount of workouts like crazy to get back on track.”

“I’ve gotten to the point where it’s the first thing I think about when I wake up. I almost get anxiety if I don’t do them,” he said.

He has some experience in staying disciplined, as last year, in January 2023, he managed to raise £2,500 for the MS Society by doing 100 push-ups a day.

He admits that caring for his mother made him more resilient, but he found it difficult to provide her with support when she often yearned for independence.

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“(Being a caregiver) definitely increases your mental resilience because you have to deal with it because there’s really no other option,” he said.

“It’s a really difficult task: to maintain someone’s independence and at the same time ensure their safety.

“I think the last five or six years have really reflected that, where I think we finally won in our attempt to keep her safe, but she lost in her fight for independence.”

He hopes the fundraising will help further research to find a cure for MS.

“I think the main motivation for the whole MS Society for me is to make sure that no one else has to experience the same state of life that my mother went through, especially towards the end,” he said.

Alex described his mother as an “incredibly resilient, really confident” woman who “never gave up” and said he hoped her story would inspire others not to take life for granted.

“No matter what the situation, she always got on with it and never let anything stop her from leading a normal life,” he said.

“I think many people complain about small, trivial things on a daily basis, but they don’t distance themselves from them and don’t look at the bigger picture, looking at the big picture.

“I think we could all be a little tougher.”

Alex, who set up the GoFundMe account in January 2024, has so far raised more than £4,700 of his £10,000 target.