Is this the fittest man in Australia?

Jayce Love-Attard now has a right to be counted among the country’s fittest athletes.

The diminutive powerhouse took out the inaugural F45 Playoffs at Manly Beach in front of a large crowd.

F45 Training invented the 10-station torture chamber of fitness to test athletes’ complete repertoire.

Under a blazing sun the competitors were put through the course, 45 seconds at each station with a 15-second rest before the next exercise.

It is ten minutes of high-intensity pain that had seasoned campaigners collapsing to the ground at the end of each round.

The ten challenges are rowing, bench hop, push up knee tuck, lateral hops, box jump and burpee, chin ups, squat and press, Russian twist, deadball over the shoulder throw and sprint and lateral hop.

But Love-Attard, a keen cross fitter and holistic trainer, got the best of his peers on the day.

And it was no easy feat. Love Attard had to complete the course four times in two hours as the numbers were whittled down from 10 to eight, to four to the final two.

“I was just so flogged at the end, I was glad it was the last one for sure,” Love-Attard said after picking up the $10,000 winner’s cheque.

“Just collapsing at the end there felt so good.”

The onlookers seemed stunned as these guys continually pushed themselves to collapse through the course that included such exercises as rowing, bench hops, chin ups and the Russian twist.

It looked painful to everyone in the crowd and on the faces of those taking part.

You have to love that kind of pain to have had any chance out there on Sunday. Love-Attard ate it up.

“I always kind of loved pain. I grew up doing surf lifesaving so I kind of got a good base for training,” he said.

“But at the moment I do a lot of yoga and cross fit and that varied training helps.

But I think you have to work on using the pain to your advantage. And I just think that some people have a bit more ticker than others so that got me through it in the end.”

Love-Attard isn’t a professional athlete either but you would be hard pressed to find one that has better overall fitness.

He wasn’t the biggest or strongest on the day but he had all the guys covered after the ten stations were added up.

“You have to be a little bit confident to get you there in the end but looking at some of the guys that came here today I sort of thought I was a bit of an underdog,” he said.

“I don’t know though, it seems like the bigger guys died in the end and it was a little man’s game.

“It was so tough though, I almost threw up every time I had to get through it and there is not really much that ever pushes me towards that stage.

“But I just got into this kind of stuff because I love doing anything that helps you focus on your health and fitness, so my motivation has always been my health and well being.”

The F45 Playoffs were put on by F45 Training to coincide with the Hurley Australian Open of Surfing at Manly.

The fitness test is the brainchild of former NRL player Daniel Conn and F45 Training CEO and founder Rob Deutsch.

It was put together, Deutsch says, to test an athlete’s overall durability.

“The beauty of it is it is a combination of agility, strength, endurance and power so we have combined all facets of functional training,” Deutsch said.

“One of the things we saw was tests like the beep test maybe just tested endurance, so one discipline, but we believe this uses all the energy systems, it is al the disciplines rolled into one.”

And just how fit are these guys according to Deutsch?

“Without doubt some of these guys competing here today are the fittest guys in the country,” he said.

“We had the guy that won the Spartan Race this morning and he didn’t even make the top 12. There are a heap of cross fitters here today as well so without doubt these guys are right up there.”

Deutsch hopes to take the F45 Playoffs to sports clubs and universities around the country as F45 Training continues to grow.

It now has more than 170 franchises around the world.