The Muscle Help Foundation

The Muscle Help Foundation

'' The Muscle Help Foundation [MHF] is delighted to show its support of National Family Week - as a small but growing charity, we provide hope, courage, inner strength and joy to children and young people with the muscle wasting disease Muscular Dystrophy (MD) and their families by delivering amazing bespoke experiences called Muscle Dreams. We absolutely recognise the love and vital support given unconditionally by so many incredible families, many of whom have a severely diminished quality of life as a result of having to fight every single day in living and coping with a family member diagnosed with this most cruel, unforgiving and in some cases life-limiting disease. ''
Michael McGrath, Chief Muscle Warrior (CEO) & co-founder

Website: www.musclehelp.com

MHF is showing its direct support of National Family Week and specifically the Family Week Sports Day theme by organising a very special Muscle WarriorTM Family Fun Day at Haileybury in Hertfordshire on Saturday 5th June (Family Week Sports Day) raising funds for Muscle DreamsTM.

To register, visit www.musclewarrior10k.com

We encourage families of all ages and abilities throughout the South East to actively participate, get involved and have fun – the event includes a 10k Run, a 2k Fancy Dress Toddle, a Teddy Bear’s Picnic and of course, with your help and as part of National Family Week 2010 and in conjunction with the Family Week Sports Day, we hope to play our part in breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest three-legged race over a minimum distance of 200m (656ft) at a single venue! Watch this space!

MHF was co-founded by Michael McGrath, the first and only disabled person in the world to have successfully led expeditions to both the North (April 2002) and South Poles (January 2004). Michael was diagnosed as a teenager with Muscular Dystrophy, the single biggest genetic killer of children in our world today. Described as the Chief Muscle WarriorTM, Michael remains the charity’s inspiration and figurehead as well as being a member of the MHF Management Board.

The charity’s aim is to deliver 657 Muscle DreamsTM one for each of the key muscle groups in the human body. As the DreamMakerTM, Michael engages directly with the family, becoming a part of each Muscle DreamTM event.  As a role model to many people with a disability and as a sufferer himself, Michael provides a robust connection for each beneficiary and their family – he acts as an inspiration through his positivity, his Quant Je Puis (AS Much As I Can) credo and his understanding of the disease. This is a hugely powerful and unique combination; it is a vital ingredient in underpinning the charity’s engagement with a family.

There are approximately 75,000 young people in the UK who suffer from this disease; there are over 70 variants. The worst form of the condition is called Duchenne or DMD, a strain that is genetically inherited from mother to son – increasingly, this appears out of the blue with no prior history of the condition in the family.

Duchenne will put a child in a wheelchair by the age of 11 [on average]; it will limit life to the late teens/early twenties.  Duchenne is cause by a defect in a crucial protein in muscle fibres called dystrophin. Dystrophin acts like for example the steel rods in reinforced concrete bridges – when the rods become weak, the bridge begin to crumble. So it is with DMD, when dystrophin is deficient, the muscles become progressively weaker and eventually waste away.

Remember …
It takes 10 muscles to smile …
12 muscles to frown but only 1 to make a difference!


Become a Muscle Warrior for the day at Haileybury on Saturday 5th June – come along and meet the charity’s co-founders Michael McGrath and Miles Peckham (pictured above)

If you’re unable to join us, perhaps we’ll see you at our Muscle WarriorTM GRIM Challenge on Saturday 4th December – CLICK HERE to see how nearly 100 Muscle WarriorsTM survived the GRIM Challenge last year, raising in the process £15,000 for Muscle DreamsTM