Ryan's putting the boot in!

My name’s Ryan Mercer, I am 22 and live in Llanelli!  I served 6 years in the army, with 3 years of that as a physical training instructor, training the lads and girls to prepare for operational tours like Afghanistan.

Unfortunately last year I had to leave the army with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) mental health issues. This was due to a few accidents I suffered in Afghanistan.

I left the army and wanted to carryon my career on as a fitness instructor and carry on teaching army style fitness, which is my bread and butter. It would also help me with my treatment as the doctor told me before I left the army ‘carry on doing what u love’.

So, I started up a military fitness boot camp!

I started off with 3 girls and we used one of the local gyms where I was paying out of my own pocket for the girls to train. After 2 weeks the word got around over Facebook and I then had 8 girls continuously every session.

Sometimes I felt down as I had no job and I was fully committed to this boot camp even though I was still using my own money as I wasn’t making anything. However, I saw how much the girls were enjoying the sessions and they were seeing improvements.

I knew then that I couldn’t give it up!

At the end of the 8 week course I decided to run a fundraiser for cancer research and enter the girls in the Race for Life. We raised £130 and I also got extra 10 girls signed up for boot camp.

The sun then came out so I decided to go outdoors on one of the local football pitches and start a 12 week program and see how it would go, some people don’t like it being out side.

We are now 7 weeks into the outdoor boot camp sessions and we have over 30 girls signed up and a minimum of 16 girls that come every session. The girls even meet up on weekends and go for their own runs!

They meet up with their children in play centres for a coffee, these are girls that have come from Carmarthen, Ammanford, Kidwelly, Llangenech and Llanelli areas. These girls didn’t even know each other 6 weeks ago and the bond they now have is un real. All from training in a military style environment where we work together and help everyone get through the session and achieve goals,.

I noticed these girls were meeting up on a night time and a weekend so I thought why can’t we all meet up and have fun while helping other people out?

I got in touch with the MIND mental health charity which is based in Llanelli. MIND told me they told me they had hardly any staff and could do with the help. When I was going through the treatment in the army I was lucky as we had all the equipment needed.

I then asked the girls if they were interested in helping out with fundraising events and they all agreed and said yes. So, we have had a meeting with MIND as a group and everyone came up with ideas.

We are now in the middle of organising a big events day in Llanelli e.g.

• myself and a few girls are doing a skydive,
• all the boot camp is competing in one the hardest events around called ‘Back to the Trenches’ in October
• We are competing against another local boot camp call Llanelli beach boot camp helping them raise money for one of their clients who is going abroad volunteering in Africa.

The girls have all ran in the race for life already and we know there is loads more to come as Llanelli military boot camp will be known for good causes and for helping out local charities but mainly MIND as it’s close to my heart.

Without these girls on the boot camp, I wouldn’t be where I am now. The commitment loyalty and dedication is unreal, not only are they coming to get fit, lose weight and have fun, but they are there making other people happy and helping others achieve their goals, and also going out of their own way in their own time to help a local charity!

Click here to visit the bootcamp page.

Click here for more information on the ‘Battle of the Bootcamps.’