The power of fitness challenges
Fitness challenges are organised workouts that offer a progressive exercise plan. The plan can then be performed over a specified period of time. This might be over a week or, more commonly, over a 30 day period.
As one example, the online Yoga programme Yoga With Adrienne just completed its 30 day ‘Centre’ challenge. Each day, the online instructor took participants through a 20-25 minute yoga routine. This got steadily more challenging as the 30 days went by.
With millions of people tuning into the YouTube channel, Adrienne has created a community. Each challenge has the feel of a social event. This is a great example of how social media can be used to create an online community with a common aim and where people can chat about their experiences.
A whole range of choices
For someone looking for fitness challenges to add an element of motivation to their workout, there are a plethora of choices.
To find the perfect challenge, think about what you want to gain from it. Is it to increase strength, to increase endurance, to join like-minded community, or simply to add variety to your workout?
For people who struggle to follow a workout programme in the gym, fitness challenges gives structure to the session. A fitness challenge is very straightforward, you sign up and then you just follow the programme, whether that is run five kilometres every day for a month or cycle 300 kilometres over 10 days.
A ready made community
By joining a fitness challenge, participants instantly join a community. This in itself is a bonus. All the evidence suggests people achieve better health outcomes when they exercise with others, rather than on their own. They tend to be more motivated and push themselves for longer periods of time.
Fitness challenges come in all shapes and sizes. There are some that call for regular and sustained efforts, such as walking or jogging a certain distance each day. Others, such as a high intensity HIIT workout, can only be sustainably done with rest days in between.
Here are some fitness challenge ideas:
Push-up challenge – how many push-ups can you do without a break. Progress over 30 days can be easily measured.
Running challenge – run at least one mile every day.
How many miles can you cycle in a week – on the Zwift cycling app, every time you hit your weekly target, you earn points.
Research suggests that a long-term challenge of 90 days or more is the most effective form of fitness challenge. Here at Kelsey Kerridge, we believe that the sheer motivation that comes from signing up to do any challenge – no matter how long or short – is a very powerful aid to improving fitness levels.
