APD major beats pushup world record for Lily Pad

ALBANY — In a show of what the human body can accomplish with rigorous and consistent training, Albany Police Department Maj. Bryan Lavoie broke the world record for pushups Tuesday morning at Tony’s Gym.

The previous record for the most pushups completed in an hour by a male was 2,682, and Lavoie beat it by completing 3,020. Lavoie said one of his motivations was to generate donations for the Lily Pad Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Center.

As a police officer, Lavoie said he starts his days with pushups.

“I’ve been doing pushups over the last couple of years,” he said. “I would do 500 at a time, then 1,000 at a time. That kind of got a little easy, so we decided to look up what the record was and see how hard it would be with no time. Eventually, we just started reeling in the time to get it below the hour timeframe.”

Now that he’s accomplished his goal, Lavoie said he feels “relieved.”

“I can maybe do better,” he added.

Before the event began, Lily Pad Executive Director Mary Martinez spoke about how many records Lavoie was attempting to break.

“He’ll be the first American, the first veteran and first police officer to do this,” she said.

Even so, Lavoie did not want all the attention focused on himself. Martinez said Lavoie approached her about a month ago with the idea that onlookers could donate 10 cents to the Lily Pad for each pushup.

“He came to us and just said, ‘Hey, I want to break this world record, but I also want to make it something bigger,’” Martinez said. “(He also) asked if we’d be willing to form a partnership and give back to the Lily Pad … if someone would like to give 10 cents or if they’re not able to do that, that’s OK, too. Everything helps, everything counts.

“Right now, we’re in desperate need to be able to provide for our support groups. We do three every week for little boys, little girls and teenage girls, and this is really going to help us out a lot to be able to keep those support groups going.”

Lavoie praised the Lily Pad for its programs and dedication to community service.

“We work pretty close on a daily basis,” he said. “They’re there for us all the time — not just us, all of southwest Georgia. They do a lot of work for everybody. We’re friends, we’re co-workers. We just try to have a good relationship with them. It works a lot better that way.”

Asked if he would take a day off from pushups the next morning, Lavoie responded, “Nah, I’ll probably just go back to 1,000 again. That’s a reasonable amount.”