My 60-Day Fitness Challenge
Every few months, I say I will get in the best shape of my life.
I make a plan, set goals, and start strong. But a week or so into the journey, I miss a workout or eat an unhealthy meal. That cascades into multiple missed workouts and unhealthy meals. Next thing I know, I give up on my plans. Mission failed, over and over.
If you’ve ever given up on ambitious fitness plans, you know the feeling. It sucks.
I wish this post were about me telling you that I accomplished my fitness goals for the first time and finally got in the best shape of my life. But, nope, that’s not the purpose of this post. Instead, I’m here to say that “I will get in the best shape of my life.”
For real this time—hopefully.
Over the last few weeks, I let myself go a bit. I drank too much alcohol, ate unhealthy meals often, and skipped workouts multiple days in a row. I’m still in decent physical shape. I can hold a handstand for over 30 seconds, rep out handstand pushups, and can almost hold a front lever. So, I’m not out of shape by any means.
However, my sleep has suffered and my body has felt weaker. I don’t like that.
When my body feels strong, my mind feels strong as well. I recently started a 90-day writing challenge, where I plan to write and publish 30 posts over the next three months. That’s a high volume in a short time frame, so I must stay disciplined and write often. It’ll take a toll on me mentally, so the stronger my mind is, the more likely I am to complete the challenge.
If I continue with my unhealthy habits, I’m more prone to fail my writing challenge. So, this fitness challenge will help me build discipline and strengthen my mind. That’s why I decided to do it now. And it serves as good motivation to keep me from giving up within a week.
Okay, so what is the challenge?
Over the next 60 days, I will do the following exercises daily:
- Running
- Pull-ups
- Pistol Squats
- Handstand Pushups
- Pushups
I created this challenge impulsively while running on the treadmill today.
Even though my body felt weak, I attempted all five exercises during my workout. Here are the results:
- 1 mile run
- 25 pull-ups
- 15 pistol squats (each leg)
- 15 handstand pushups
- 100 pushups
I decided to make this the baseline for my challenge. I am not allowed to do fewer reps than this for each exercise. Some days, I may miss an exercise or two. I’ll allow that so long as it’s infrequent. But for the majority of days, I will do all five.
Fortunately, I can spread the exercises out throughout the day.
I performed this baseline within one workout, so fatigue affected me. By spacing out the exercises throughout the entire day, I should have no issue exceeding the baseline.
By the end of the challenge, I hope to consistently do the following number of miles and reps each day:
- 2-mile run
- 100 pull-ups
- 100 pistol squats (each leg)
- 50 handstand pushups
- 250 pushups
That’s a lot and won’t be easy.
However, the point of creating fitness challenges is to craft something difficult. It wouldn’t be much of a challenge if it were easy to do.
Hitting my target numbers by the end of 60 days will be stressful and painful. But I know I have what it takes to do difficult things in life, so I’m confident in my ability to complete this.
I built the table below to track my progress. I will update it frequently, so you can see how the numbers change throughout the challenge’s duration.
[0] A bit hungover which made my handstands weak today.
[1] In-office and travel day for me. Plus, I watched a disappointing Knicks game, so no gym.
[2] Busy day involving travel. Couldn't make it to the gym.
[3] Went hiking upstate. Hit over 18k steps on the day, at least.
[4] Went hiking upstate. Hit over 17k steps on the day, at least.
[5] Went Rock Climbing today. So, I'm okay with not hitting my numbers.
[6] Felt a bit under the weather, so I rested today.
[7] Side Note: I did my first ever one-arm handstand for a one second hold.
[8] Went rock climbing again.
[9] On vacation for the next week, so I won't hit every number (but I'll try)