Considering a Fitness Challenge?
My 5 tips after the One Punch Man 30 days fitness challenge during lockdown
100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, 10km running. Every day. A fitness challenge that promises superhero powers, sounds exhausting and lets the internet argue with before and after pictures — from highly promising to very sobering. The One Punch Man Challenge.
This is the first fitness challenge I ever did. Going into it I had questions and doubts. So if you find yourself in the same place, I hope my experience helps you to get started with YOUR fitness challenge.
And more important: To get to the end of it.
The backstory, let’s rewind
In the spring of 2020 when all sports facilities stayed closed and we started to spend too much time on our couch, my boyfriend asked me to do the One Punch Man Challenge for one month. Doing more sports sounds cool but I’m not the kind of person who believes that going very hard for a short amount of time is the best way. I rather commit to less and stick with it long-term. So why would I do this? What do you get out of such a challenge?
Should I …do it?
As you might guess from the title: I did.
But why?
One reason was, fully working from home during the global pandemic, this challenge could help my daily routine and would give me a reason to get up early in the morning. It would help me retain a healthy amount of active time per day and on top: I had extra time at hand now I didn’t have a commute of almost an hour per day. Instead of one hour more of lazy time, I might as well get my ass up and do something that gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
The second reason: I was super curious if I could do it.
Of course, I would have to customize the rules so that I had an actual chance of following through for the month without physical damage. But I never did something like this and was wondering how it would change me — physically and mentally.
After setting the rules — 100 lady pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats, 25min running, 6 days per week, 4 weeks — I spent May exercising.
Now, after a month of full-speed exercising, improving my overall fitness and some nice side-effects of a more toned body, the most important:
What did I learn to give as advice if you consider doing a fitness challenge?
Here my 5 tips to successfully complete a fitness challenge
1 Set an achievable goal
Be honest to yourself upfront and set an achievable, yet challenging goal and timeline for your fitness challenge.
Keep in mind: A one-time fitness challenge is not an indefinite fitness routine. For a fitness challenge, set an ending point which is in reach and a program which challenges you, for a new fitness routine that should stick, you would do the opposite (define an ending point of a whole season or even a year and a routine which gradually improves your fitness and is possible around your busy life).
This will impact your success rate and improve the chance of that feeling of achievement at the end: If you would want to do the challenge every day for a year and then stop after a month you would feel you have failed.
In return, if you commit to a month and complete that month, you celebrate it as a success.
And while selecting your goals, bear in mind that fitness and health experts do NOT recommend to constantly do more than your body can handle. Too much stress results in exhaustion and can cause damage to your body. You want to go out of your comfort zone but still be confident that you can achieve your goals.
2 Know how to trick yourself
Don’t expect the ride to be all smooth and painless. There will always be a low-point, soreness, missing motivation, or a part you would rather skip.
My biggest mental block was the running which I just don’t very much enjoy. I like components of it — being out in nature, to free my head and I love the feeling of being freshly showered after a run, that happy-exhausted feeling of accomplishment. But I don’t enjoy the running itself. What I do enjoy however is listening to podcasts. The challenge gave me the time to listen to my favorites more than usual and to discover some new ones.
The combination of something I enjoy with something I just have to get through helped me motivate for the run big time: I forbid myself to listen to podcasts outside the running and I stopped episodes in the middle whenever possible so every day I was excited to go running, just to continue that episode I started the day before. Even on a rainy day.
3 Make the challenge your top priority
We all have thousands of things which suddenly get more important than the target we have set for ourselves.
It would be easier to quit, cheat, or postpone than to keep going. This phenomenon is well known as procrastination and it can be a nasty monster destroying all our goals. So it’s your choice not to let it do that to you. The only way of taming the monster in case of the challenge is to make the chosen workout your top priority for the duration of the challenge.
Remember, the challenge has a set timeframe so you will have more time in your day to day life once it is over but for the set amount of time, you have to make the challenge your top priority.
No matter what.
No way around.
4 You can do more than you think …If you just do it
The most surprising to me was that it wasn’t even that hard to go through the workout every day. I expected more physical struggles, more pain and soreness. If I did the 10km running it would have been that way I’m sure, but I doubt the positive effects would outweigh the physical wear, in my case most probably overstressed knees. Against my assumptions, it was not the physical capability but the mental will of not using minor physical signs as an excuse.
It was interesting to observe that every night I planned when I would exercise the next day. And the next day I just followed through. The thinking game if I should …If I was sore from a previous workout, if I felt fit enough to do sports that day, if I was exhausted and needed some rest, if I was too hungry and should postpone the workout to later, if I have enough time, if I wanted to wash my hair that day, if the weather was too bad or any other reason I normally think about were gone.
The challenge decided for me.
And the decision was to do it that day.
I have the luck of being a very mental-driven person but even if you aren’t, having a clear reason why, a target and an ending point in sight, you can push through. It’s all about your mindset.
About having something that stops you from thinking if you should do it and leads you to JUST DO IT.
5 Hold yourself accountable
It’s easy to set goals and to start something like a fitness challenge. But it’s even easier to stop a few days in.
Why not skip a day or two when life kicks in and I sadly don’t have time for sports that day?
It doesn’t hurt to not go jogging on a rainy day.
A month for the challenge? The first week I just completed is good enough.
Thoughts like this will creep in your mind. To strengthen the willpower to follow through despite all the very good reasons not to, I recommend to do two things:
Don’t do it for the likes
Have a genuine reason for yourself why you do the challenge.
This should not be something like social media likes for your progress pictures but rather an internally driven reason: Better health, getting in shape, pushing your limits, replacing screen time, …
For me, it was the curiosity if I’m able to complete the challenge. And I was wondering which part would challenge me the most — running much more than I ever did, holding up motivation, or making time for the workout each day.
Tell someone who you know will follow your journey and support you
Tell them your plans and goals before you start the challenge. Or even do the challenge together. Send them daily updates and if necessary, let them know upfront if and how they should respond if you stop.
Here a few ideas for daily updates:
- a text message
- emojis expressing your feelings
- after-workout pictures
- a screenshot of your health app
- a video of you doing the workout
- a quick call after the workout to let them know you did it and to share your feelings
Whatever it takes to stop your excuses and get yourself up each time to do the workout.
In my case, me and my boyfriend have sent each other after workout pictures to motivate each other and to give ourselves the feeling of doing it together even though we didn’t do the workouts together.
The pressure you put on yourself knowing that this someone will question or tease you if you didn’t follow your plan helps a lot to actually follow through.
What sticked?
In retrospect, the challenge helped me a lot to maintain an active day to day life despite the lockdown and to keep my mind refreshed and healthy. It also caused a ripple effect which improved my daily routine to be more balanced, focused, active and healthy. During the challenge but also after.
Some observations 12 weeks after:
- Doing sports makes my body crave for the right things to eat. My spontaneous recipe ideas are much more healthy than when I don’t exercise. Also, what I eat during a day is more balanced.
- Working out intensively brought me back to a place where I feel completely well trained. You could call it a boost into the right direction.
- The challenge raised the bar for my mental barrier. Compared to all those exercises 6 days a week, it’s not a big deal to do a 10 minutes ab workout here and there and to go jogging, mountain-biking or swimming when I have a free evening. On top, I started weekly workout classes to continue with some commitment and peer pressure.
So all in all it brought my fitness routine in everyday life back to where I want it to be.
In summary, here is what to do to successfully complete your fitness challenge
- Set an achievable goal
Set clear rules and a goal that considers your personal fitness level. Don’t mix up fitness challenges and open-ended fitness routines - Know how to trick yourself
Pair activities you don’t like with something you enjoy. - Make the challenge your top priority
Really! No excuses, no way around. - You can do more than you think
Know your goal and the ending point and you can do it. It’s all about your mindset. Act and do rather than thinking of reasons not to. - Hold yourself accountable
Part 1 — Have a genuine reason for yourself to do the fitness challenge.
Part 2 — Speak out your goals and the positive pressure you put on yourself instantly rises.
Now set your goals and start.
Good luck!
And one more thing: I would love to hear how it went! Let me know in the comments.
