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SIT-UP KING WILL DEMONSTRATE HIS CHARITABLE SPIRIT - AND HIS WASHBOARD ABS
Mike Boone, The Gazette
The Gazette (Montreal)
June 11, 2007 Monday
Final Edition
Late tomorrow afternoon, while many are enjoying an I-hate-Mondays
after-work libation, Best Kaya will spend a couple of happy hours
doing what he does best.
Sit-ups.
To raise money for the Park YMCA, Kaya is going to do 2,000 sit-ups
in two hours. That's about 1,995 more than I do in two years. Sounds
gruelling, yes?
Not for the man who claims the world record. At a muscular dystrophy
telethon in Ottawa, Kaya did 75,002 sit-ups over 62 hours of the 1985
Labour Day weekend. Earlier that year, he was sponsored by the Rotary
Club (under the slogan "Sit up and be counted") and did 50,000 reps
for Easter Seals.
In 1987 and '88, Kaya did 10,000 sit-ups a day for two weeks to raise
money for Sun Youth. The 2002 tally for Notre Dame Hospital's Clinique
de la douleur - which treated Kaya for the aftermath of a car accident
that cost him part of his right hand - was 30,600 sit-ups in 36 hours.
This is not just a fundraising gimmick for a guy with washboard
abdominal muscles.
To combat the curse of back pain, Kaya preaches salvation through
sit-ups.
After analyzing the physiology and kinetics involved in the deceptively
simple exercise, Kaya designed the Best Sit-up Board, a patented
portable steel frame with sliding plastic pieces that allow the
up-sitter to vary leg angle in order to work six groups of muscles.
Better Living Through Sit-ups does not rival yoga or pilates as a
trendy fitness concept. And the Best Board is not selling quite as
briskly as Thighmasters.
But Kaya is living proof his system works. He is a very fit
56-year-old.
Kaya, whom I met at the Y on Friday, was born in Turkey. His full name
is Feyyaz Best Kaya, he is of Armenian extraction and speaks Aramaic -
"you know, the language they spoke in The Passion of the Christ."
He is a devout Christian who says he reads the Bible while
exercising. When I asked how he managed to focus on biblical text
while bobbing up and down at a brisk clip, Kaya said: "I know most
of the passages by heart."
His daily regimen is between 2,000 and 3,000 sit-ups - or all of
Matthew, plus a good chunk of Mark.
The gospel according to Best is that he is giving back.
"My family is in Canada," he says, "because the Armenians were nearly
exterminated in Turkey. Canada is a great country where everyone can
live together.
"I help the community because of what happened to my community."
Kaya's commitment dovetails with the needs of the Park Y, which is
trying to raise $35,000. Most of the money, Y director Ridley Joseph
told me, will be earmarked for youth programs.
Joseph is 43 and immigrated to Montreal from Haiti in 1977. Tall,
chiselled and with a physique that rivaled the Sit-up King's (I
was the only fat guy in the discussion), Joseph said Montreal had
the first YMCA in North America. The institution has been around,
in various locales, for 156 years.
The Park Y - greatly spiffed up since my Grade 9 class went here for
swimming lessons in 1962 - has 3,600 members. Joseph, who's been a
YMCA employee for 12 years and on Park for five - says membership is
"growing incredibly."
No surprise. A modernized, reasonably-priced fitness facility in
proximity to the Plateau Mont Royal, Mile End and Outremont is going
to attract a young, health-conscious clientele - and at least one
sit-up specialist.
On an April night in 1982, Kaya had been out on the town with
friends. Feeling bloated by their revels, he decided that recuperation
would be helped by some exercises.
"I thought about jogging," he recalls, "but it was too cold. So I
started doing sit-ups on my mattress."
Not long thereafter, a newspaper in Aylmer, the town where he resided
after immigrating as a teenager, described the then-longhaired Kaya as
"the man with the iron stomach."
(I thought that was Rene Angelil.)
Kaya estimates he's done
15 million sit-ups in the last 25 years. His first fundraiser was the
1984 muscular dystrophy telethon in Ottawa: 30,000 sit-ups in 33 hours,
raising $38,000.
Kaya has a plaque from the Y lauding his "great willpower, exemplary
generosity and profound community spirit ... Mr. Best Kaya is an
exceptional ambassador of our association's values."
At various times in his life, Kaya has played professional soccer,
managed construction projects, planned business start-ups and run a
human resources department. Through it all, he's worked his abs.
"I want to do 100,000 sit-ups in 80 hours," Kaya said. "But I have
to find the right sponsor."
Tums?
Best Kaya's sit-up marathon starts tomorrow afternoon at 5:30 in the
entrance hall of the Park Y, 5550 Park.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Mike Boone, The Gazette
The Gazette (Montreal)
June 11, 2007 Monday
Final Edition
Late tomorrow afternoon, while many are enjoying an I-hate-Mondays
after-work libation, Best Kaya will spend a couple of happy hours
doing what he does best.
Sit-ups.
To raise money for the Park YMCA, Kaya is going to do 2,000 sit-ups
in two hours. That's about 1,995 more than I do in two years. Sounds
gruelling, yes?
Not for the man who claims the world record. At a muscular dystrophy
telethon in Ottawa, Kaya did 75,002 sit-ups over 62 hours of the 1985
Labour Day weekend. Earlier that year, he was sponsored by the Rotary
Club (under the slogan "Sit up and be counted") and did 50,000 reps
for Easter Seals.
In 1987 and '88, Kaya did 10,000 sit-ups a day for two weeks to raise
money for Sun Youth. The 2002 tally for Notre Dame Hospital's Clinique
de la douleur - which treated Kaya for the aftermath of a car accident
that cost him part of his right hand - was 30,600 sit-ups in 36 hours.
This is not just a fundraising gimmick for a guy with washboard
abdominal muscles.
To combat the curse of back pain, Kaya preaches salvation through
sit-ups.
After analyzing the physiology and kinetics involved in the deceptively
simple exercise, Kaya designed the Best Sit-up Board, a patented
portable steel frame with sliding plastic pieces that allow the
up-sitter to vary leg angle in order to work six groups of muscles.
Better Living Through Sit-ups does not rival yoga or pilates as a
trendy fitness concept. And the Best Board is not selling quite as
briskly as Thighmasters.
But Kaya is living proof his system works. He is a very fit
56-year-old.
Kaya, whom I met at the Y on Friday, was born in Turkey. His full name
is Feyyaz Best Kaya, he is of Armenian extraction and speaks Aramaic -
"you know, the language they spoke in The Passion of the Christ."
He is a devout Christian who says he reads the Bible while
exercising. When I asked how he managed to focus on biblical text
while bobbing up and down at a brisk clip, Kaya said: "I know most
of the passages by heart."
His daily regimen is between 2,000 and 3,000 sit-ups - or all of
Matthew, plus a good chunk of Mark.
The gospel according to Best is that he is giving back.
"My family is in Canada," he says, "because the Armenians were nearly
exterminated in Turkey. Canada is a great country where everyone can
live together.
"I help the community because of what happened to my community."
Kaya's commitment dovetails with the needs of the Park Y, which is
trying to raise $35,000. Most of the money, Y director Ridley Joseph
told me, will be earmarked for youth programs.
Joseph is 43 and immigrated to Montreal from Haiti in 1977. Tall,
chiselled and with a physique that rivaled the Sit-up King's (I
was the only fat guy in the discussion), Joseph said Montreal had
the first YMCA in North America. The institution has been around,
in various locales, for 156 years.
The Park Y - greatly spiffed up since my Grade 9 class went here for
swimming lessons in 1962 - has 3,600 members. Joseph, who's been a
YMCA employee for 12 years and on Park for five - says membership is
"growing incredibly."
No surprise. A modernized, reasonably-priced fitness facility in
proximity to the Plateau Mont Royal, Mile End and Outremont is going
to attract a young, health-conscious clientele - and at least one
sit-up specialist.
On an April night in 1982, Kaya had been out on the town with
friends. Feeling bloated by their revels, he decided that recuperation
would be helped by some exercises.
"I thought about jogging," he recalls, "but it was too cold. So I
started doing sit-ups on my mattress."
Not long thereafter, a newspaper in Aylmer, the town where he resided
after immigrating as a teenager, described the then-longhaired Kaya as
"the man with the iron stomach."
(I thought that was Rene Angelil.)
Kaya estimates he's done
15 million sit-ups in the last 25 years. His first fundraiser was the
1984 muscular dystrophy telethon in Ottawa: 30,000 sit-ups in 33 hours,
raising $38,000.
Kaya has a plaque from the Y lauding his "great willpower, exemplary
generosity and profound community spirit ... Mr. Best Kaya is an
exceptional ambassador of our association's values."
At various times in his life, Kaya has played professional soccer,
managed construction projects, planned business start-ups and run a
human resources department. Through it all, he's worked his abs.
"I want to do 100,000 sit-ups in 80 hours," Kaya said. "But I have
to find the right sponsor."
Tums?
Best Kaya's sit-up marathon starts tomorrow afternoon at 5:30 in the
entrance hall of the Park Y, 5550 Park.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress