Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
Social Side of Exercise
In this episode Daniel 'Bully' Keam shares why he is part of the Active Farmers Group lead by Justin Knorpp. He talks about why he joined the group and the benefits of it, with exercise being just one part of the story. He also talks about other changes to his lifestyle since joining the group.
Live in or near Warracknabeal and want to join Justin's Active Farmers group? You can find more information on the Warracknabeal Active farmers group here or on Facebook.
Interested in the topic and looking for more?
Active Farmers is a regular group fitness class program that is fun and interactive. It is designed to get people active and create a sense of community and belonging. There are Active Farmer groups in rural towns around Australia, you can find one near you here. You can find more information on each of the below aspects of Active Farmers below:
You can also jump on to the Active Farmers Facebook and Instagram pages.
Check out the You Got This Mate Program! A program for men living in rural Australia, aiming to help them reach their best physical health. It provides information on:
- Trying new things
- Making exercise fun
- Finding inspiration
- Tips on fitting exercise into your day
For more farmer specific exercise advice go to the National Centre for Farmer Health.
For general exercise and keeping active advice check out the below websites
Join the conversation
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
Brigitte
This is a West Wimmera Health Service podcast.
Presented by me, Brigitte Muir.
How can you stay active and have fun with other blocks, when your body tells you that it's past it's footy playing days? 47-year-old, Wallup farmer, Daniel ‘Bully’ Keam is partner to Karen and father to their three sons, recently he decided to join the Active Farmers group in Warracknabeal.
Daniel
You know, as you get older, you get less active I suppose and, and you get into some bad habits and earlier part of my life I was very active in the sport and …and that sort of has gone… that was part, you know, bit of fitness and stuff. I know like, I’ve got a few worn out parts in me body, and there's no pressure to…to do things that you can't do at Active Farmers, so you can do what you do, and yeah, that's pretty well about it, I thought I better start doing, a bit of bit of looking after me, I suppose.
Brigitte
So was it mainly for the physical aspect of it?
Daniel
Ah physical and, and social, I suppose the last …how long has COVID been going for? Nearly 24 months
Brigitte
For too long.
Daniel
Yeah, too long. We've lost that social aspect. And when you live on a farm, you know, yeah, we go to town and it's generally your seeing the same people, ya going to the same places, cause your getting parts, or fuel, or whatever, you see the same people… but you don't always see a farmer from the other side of town. There's the social aspect is really good. It's good to see people you don't normally see
Brigitte
Can you walk me through a typical meeting?
Daniel
Yeah, pretty well, we, we turn up and we sort of wait for everyone… to get there or… whoever's going to get there… generally start time’s around six o'clock, bit after six, sort of wait for some numbers. Justin's got a program, an exercise program, which is good we get there, we have a bit of a laugh, talk to each other, see how they've been going for the week. Generally, don't see each other for the week. Bit of a warmup and then we get into our exercise. We do 45-50 minutes of exercise with Justin's program, and sometimes…you hear whinging and moaning, but there’s a lot of old bodies there too so. It's a lot of fun and you get a bit of support, Justin's really supportive, even take my son, my eldest son comes along and, and, and does it, it's a lot of fun, you get together, have a laugh, and if someone's having a bit of trouble with something or the way we're doing an exercise and there's a little bit of banter between us and it's good, and it helps pass that time and people are struggling with something it might be a bit painful the exercise, and you have a bit of a laugh, and it's really good.
Brigitte
What kind of exercises do you do?
Daniel
Do bit of running… there’s anything from star jumps… I really hate burpees, I must mention that I hate burpees
Brigitte
What is that?
Daniel
Oh, its a ..you stand up, but Justin makes us do it all the time. He knows that I hate it. *Laughter* Running, stretching, general exercises, you know, sit ups, push ups, and then we'll do some weights. But generally, you don't do anything on the same, like every program is actually different, which is really good. So that's a little bit of variety.
When we finish we, we sit around and we have a chat, we might be there for 15-20 minutes afterwards.
Brigitte
Okay
Daniel
And I think that's the part …that probably people enjoy the most. Then we've actually got a couple extra members in from, from down Rupanyup way.
Brigitte
Ok
Daniel
So that's, that's been really good too
Brigitte
What do you talk about?
Daniel
Well, most of the us are farmers, unfortunately talk about farming.
Brigitte
You can't get away from it
Daniel
Ya can’t get away from it, but you know, there other things we have a chat about, we sort of know each other, anyway, so sort of moving in other circles and stuff. So, whether we know their partners, or they know your partner, and stuff like that….kids. We've got the local… we used to call ‘em the dog catcher back in the day, but now, now their called something else that works for the Council. So, Craig comes along, and you know, you have a bit of a chat to Craig a bit about “what ‘ve ya been catching lately?”. Just a little bit of a laugh, you know, and what, what accidents or whatever we've had, what near misses, or what, what we’ve buggered up on the farm, or someone’s done somethings and you ask how it worked.
Brigitte
Do you think that if you had a problem, you could …actually talk about it in the group or do you just…
Daniel
Yeah…I don't think that, I don't think there's, I don't they would have any problem
Brigitte
Right. right
Daniel
There's been a few things brought up, and guys have said things in jest, but… then sometimes you think about it maybe it's not in jest, but it's just a, it's just to say “hey, I think have done something wrong or I'm doing something wrong”.
Brigitte
Hm hm…Justin would be on to that wouldn’t he…
Daniel
Yeah, yeah
Brigitte
He would click him and…
Daniel
Yeah, look I missed a couple of weeks and …cause I had other commitments and stuff, and he was onto me. He was sending me text messages, just to see what I was up to and, and what was going on, how come I hadn't been for two weeks. And, and I just said “oh look, I’ve just had other things that have clashed, and I've had to prepare for meetings and stuff”. And he said “oh, so that's fine”, and I said “I'll be back”. So that was good.
Brigitte
That's fantastic.
What difference has it made to life in general?
Daniel
It's made me realise that I haven't been that active. The body's told me that. We always used to go for a walk anyway, but I'll go for a couple more walks, during the week.
Brigitte
Are you gonna drag the kids along?
Daniel
Well, the kids ride their bikes and… and stuff like that anyway and … where we live There's a lot of roads to walk down and stuff, and the kids stop and have a look, and the dogs come for a run as well. I've just realised, maybe I've got to make that time to do it, before I just ah … just can't be bothered or whatever. But now, you go no I've got that 40 minutes an hour I can go and go for a walk in the with the kids. They're more than happy to jump on their bikes and go for a ride and…
Brigitte
That's great.
Daniel
And stop and climb trees, and then let you catch up and then….
Brigitte
Be kids
Daniel
Be kids, yeah, that’s right yeah. Sort of looked at me diet too, you sort of, say oh yeah, I have been having one too many, one too many beers, and so you say maybe, well maybe I should, maybe lighten up a bit, maybe go a couple of days without having a beer after work and stuff like that. So, you it's got you thinking… definitely got me thinking,
Brigitte
What is the attraction of a man on the group?
Daniel
I sort of take it back to me younger days, and sort of feels like your going back to footy training, and ya miss that camaraderie. Footy was a big part of it. There's quite a few of the blokes in the group's life, but that's the sort of…all I equate it to. It's just that little bit of bloke time.
Brigitte
I totally relate to that. I love spending time with girlfriends.
Daniel
Yeah
Brigitte
It's… it's very important. I think to spend time with people of your own gender to…. bond and to…. talk about things that matter to you. And you can’t always do that with, in your case your wife, or my case my husband, because this he tells me I'm not your girlfriend *Chuckles*
Daniel
Afterwards ‘cause I, I am involved in agri…Ag Politics, as well, the guys will ask me what…what we're looking at with GrainGrowers, which is a group that I'm a part of. And I'll sit there and we will have a bit of… a bit of a talk about what's going to affect our industry. It's what everyone's interested in, and you talk about the footy… when it played, we talk about politics …and you know, everyone ends up on COVID. But yeah I think…
Brigitte
When ya think about it… *Chuckles*
Daniel
I think everyone's a bit over it. *Chuckles*
Brigitte
So would you recommend people…
Daniel
Yeah
Brigitte
Other farmers … to join a Active Farmers group?
Daniel
Oh yeah, I think it's great. Well, like I said we're very lucky here for a while, ‘cause we've got a… such an active farm group itself. Other areas don't have a…group.
Brigitte
Yes, it takes one person to start it.
Daniel
Yeah.
Brigitte
And it goes from there, doesn't it?
Daniel
So, we have that interaction. So…Other areas don’t have it …I don't know whether they get the interaction from their football club, or their Netball club, or tennis club, or whatever sport, or whatever sport, or whatever interests they have, how they get the interest out of it, their fix outta that.
Brigitte
Anything else you would like to share with listeners?
Daniel
I just think that that's a great idea, and it's fantastic, we've been able to get one in Warracknabeal, and we're very lucky to have Justin to be so enthusiastic about it.
Brigitte
You are
Daniel
If you know everyone had someone like them… in the community that could get things going, and you know, there's plenty other guys out there that love to come but they're just a bit too busy, and you know, we've had numbers fluctuate, go up, go down, there's a pretty well core group, but it's really good. I hope that everyone else so they can do something. It's not just about… you know, the exercises, just getting together and having a chat
Brigitte
Is it inside or outside?
Daniel
Ah its outside
Brigitte
Outside. Great, even better.
Daniel
Yeah, so it's a lot of fun. I couldn't recommend it anymore. We sort of, we’ve toyed with the idea of instead of just doing it once a week, maybe twice, maybe three times a week. So…
Brigitte
You must like it
Daniel
Well it’s like I said, it's like that footy training thing, if you…if you back in the day, if you missed a night of training, you sort of felt like you fell behind ,and we're only doing it once a week and…and that's good, and I'm sure some of the other guys would like…would probably like to do it twice a week
Brigitte
It certainly is a sign that it's working.
Daniel
Oh yeah, you get to see everybody and have a laugh and and …that's what it's about. Hopefully everyone gets a laugh.
Brigitte
Before we finish, I have to ask you something. How on earth did you end up with the nickname Bully?
Daniel
When I was born, my grandmother said, “Oh, we've got a bull calf”. And that's apparently where it started.
Brigitte
Okay,
Daniel
So yeah, she gave me that and then it sort of just spread through the family and then spread through the district.
Brigitte
There you go.
Daniel
So yeah.
Brigitte
Well thank you very much for your time, Daniel. Bully.
Daniel
No problem
Brigitte
Who is certainly not a bully.
Daniel
Nah…oh no…I’m alright I think
Brigitte
Thank you very much.
Daniel
Not a problem. Thank you.
Brigitte
That was Bully Keam, talking about the very special Warracknabeal Active Farmers group.
You will find as always contact numbers and details in the notes attached to this episode. And while you're at it, please give us a star rating. We'd also love to hear your comments and suggestions. Our Facebook and Twitter details are in the notes. Until next have a healthy life won’t you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai edited by WWHS Health Promotion
