Spend 45 minutes doing some type of cardio.Yes, you’re adding time to your workout. Pace yourself and change it up. It doesn’t have to be one movement 45 minutes straight.
Dynamic Planks – Start in a push-up position with straight arms. Then go down to one elbow and the other, then back up again to the push-up position. Repeat this for 30 seconds.
Hollow-Rock – Lie on your back on the floor or a yoga mat. Reach your arms over your head, tighten your core muscles, press your lower back onto the ground. Raise your legs off of the ground. Hold for 30 seconds. You can adjust the difficulty by raising or lowering your legs. The lower they are to the ground, the more difficult the movement. You can also bend your knees to make it a little easier.
Repeat these two movements 10 times.
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It can impact your performance and your health. However, most people don’t drink enough.
Make sure that you drink when you’re thirsty and stick to water. Electrolytes can absolutely help especially if you’re working out consistently with varied intensities. Hydrate is one of the better electrolyte replenishment drinks on the market.
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Spend at least 30 minutes running, hiking, biking, swimming or whatever sounds fun. Move your body and get your heart rate up. You should be breathing heavily, but not so much that you can’t talk.
Assess Your Week: You’ve now put seven days into your challenge. What’s working for you? What’s going well? What isn’t working for you and why? What changes can you make to make next week a success?
Take a look at your schedule for the upcoming week. Look ahead to the next seven days of the challenge and make sure to schedule time in your day to get it done. Good job!
I oftentimes put my bike rides in Strava (app) so you can look me up on there!
Pushups – 50 Pushups – rest as needed. From toes if possible, from knees or a combination of both.
Side Plank – Sit on your left side with your legs slightly bent and your feet stacked. Place your left hand on the ground and push your hand into the ground and straighten your legs as you lift your hips off the ground. If you have trouble balancing, stagger your feet so the top leg is in front. Keeping your body tight and your arm straight, hold for 30 seconds. Switch sides. Repeat 10 times on each side.
Triceps Dip – Position your hands behind you on the stable surface, such as a bench. They should be shoulder-width apart. Bend your legs and place your feet about hip-width apart on the floor. Slowly bend at your elbows and lower your upper body down toward the floor until your arms are at about a 90-degree angle.
Keep your back close to the bench. Once you reach the bottom of the movement, slowly press your hands and push yourself straight back up to the starting position. Repeat 20 times.
Looking for something more challenging and detailed?
You’ve worked pretty hard for the past 5 days. Today is a day to work through those muscle aches and pains. It’s a mobility day. Spend 20-30 minutes working on your muscles. If you have a foam roller, use it. Roll out your glutes, quad and thigh muscles, roll along the outside of your leg as well.
Drop to the bottom of your squat and hold it for a minute or two. Relax into the bottom of it and rock from side to side a bit to open your hips.
Stand with your feet under your hips and bend forward at the waist. Touch the floor. If you can’t touch the floor, then dangle and get as much of a hamstring stretch as possible.
Quad stretch. You’ll need a pad for your knee with this stretch. Place the pillow or pad against a wall. Bend your leg so that your shin is facing the wall and your knee is on the pillow. Your other leg will be positioned in front of you and bent to support you.
The ultimate goal is to be able to have your backside pressed against your foot which is against the wall. You’ll feel a big hip and quad stretch. However, if you cannot reach this ideal, that’s okay. Start from what feels like a good stretch for you and hold that stretch for a minute to a minute and a half. Switch legs and repeat on the other side.
Tomorrow you’re going to be doing some shoulder work so let’s work a bit on your shoulder mobility today.
Arm circles – Start with big arm circles going forward. Perform 10 circles forward, shrink your circle to a medium size circle and perform 10 more and then do 10 small, tight, circles. Repeat with backwards arm circles.
Pass throughs – Grab a broom or a mop or even a piece of rope. Hold the rope on both ends with your arms as wide as they’ll reach. Keeping the rope or stick tight, take your arms up over your head and behind you. Bring them around and back to the front. Repeat this 30 times, gradually moving your hands in toward one another. Make sure the movement stays smooth and that both arms move together.
Do a few side bends and enjoy the rest of your day!
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Do 30 minutes of cardio; your choice. So you can run/walk/jog/row for thirty minutes. Or go for a hike. You can swim, ride a bike, jump on an elliptical or stair stepper machine or even jump rope. You can vary the intensity as well. Just keep moving for 30 minutes.
Tip: Let’s talk about muscle soreness. DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It happens when you use a muscle more or differently than it’s used to. You may be feeling DOMS everywhere by now. It usually begins 24-48 hours after exercise, but the timing can vary. The best thing that you can do for DOMS is to eat nutritiously, hydrate, and get some blood circulating through your body.
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Plank – Hold a plank for 30 seconds with straight arms. If this is too easy, drop to your forearms.
Hollow-Rock – Lie on your back on the floor or a yoga mat. Reach your arms over your head, tighten your core muscles, and press your lower back onto the ground. Raise your legs off the ground. Hold for 30 seconds. You can adjust the difficulty by raising or lowering your legs. The lower they are to the ground, the more difficult the movement. You can also bend your knees to make it a little easier if needed.
Today you’re going to work on your leg muscles. You may be a little sore from the running and squats. That’s okay. You’ll be able to rest those muscles tomorrow. Today…
How long does it take to make a positive change in your life? How long does it take to improve your health and well-being? The answer is that it really only takes moments to change your health for the better.
It only takes as long as you need to make the decision to take the first step toward better health.
One of the things that makes change so difficult isn’t the desire or decision to get healthy, it’s the planning and overwhelm that often comes next. Once you make the decision to improve your fitness, then what? What are the next steps? When do you know you’ve achieved success and how do you measure it?
This is the power of a 30-day challenge.
A 30-day challenge gives you a day-by-day plan. You follow the plan, take the steps that are put in place, and at the end of the month you will be able to measure your results. Most experts tell us that it takes 14-21 days to create a habit. This 30-day challenge sets you up, if you choose, to create a daily exercise habit and plan that you can continue after the 30 days. It also provides you with an abundance of tips, advice, and measurements.
All you have to do is take it one day at a time. You can do it! Today is the day you start making positive changes to your health and fitness.
How to Use This Challenge
You have 30 days of exercise, mobility, fitness tests, and tips and advice ahead of you. It’s strongly recommended that you sit down every Sunday at the beginning of the week and look to the week ahead of you. There are workouts planned for you, but you also have some decisions to make.
For example, if a workout has you doing push-ups and you’re unable to do a full pushup, then you’ll need to identify the hardest movement you can perform to get the benefit from the movement. You might do pushups from your knees instead of from your toes. In general, there is minimal equipment required for the challenge.
Additionally, there are three days where you’ll test your fitness. You’ll test yourself on the first day, the 15th day and the 30th day. This test isn’t designed to make you feel bad about your fitness. Quite the opposite. At the end of the month you’ll see the progress you’ve made and the mid-challenge test will help you stay motivated – you’ll be amazed at how much can change can occur in just a few weeks.
A quick word on warming up and cooling down. With the exception of mobility days, please warm up your muscles before you work out, and cool them down when you’re done. Sprinting with cold legs is painful and you won’t get your best results. It’s also good to know that as you age, you need more time to warm up. Forty-somethings need more warm up time than twenty-somethings.
Warming up for a cardio day may be something as simple as walking or jogging slowly for a few minutes. Warming up for strength days should be related to the movement. For example, if you’re doing a squat/lunge workout then perform a few slow and gentle squats and lunges. Walk briskly or jog slowly for a few minutes. Get your heart rate up and your muscles warm before asking more from them.
Before we start with the first day, decide when you’re going to exercise. Are you going to do it first thing in the morning or mid-day? Do you have more time and energy at the end of the day? Take a look at your personality and your reality. When are you most likely to follow through and exercise?
Remember that it takes a few weeks to create a habit. So the first week or so may be really tough. Give yourself a fighting chance at success by scheduling your exercise when you’re most likely to follow through. Good? Okay, let’s go!
For this first day you need only to set aside about a half an hour. However, you’re going to be setting your baseline for a number of movements that are good indicators of your fitness. You’re going to perform three movement tests.
#1 Pushups – The first test is to do as many pushups as you can in three minutes. You can rest as much as you need. And if you are unable to perform a strict push-up from your toes (and most people cannot, so don’t beat yourself up if that’s the case) then do your pushups from your knees. Or start on your toes and drop to your knees when those start to fail. Record how many pushups you were able to do in three minutes, and how you performed the movement.
#2 Squats – Again, this is a three-minute test. Perform as many full-depth squats (your hips are at parallel or just below parallel with your knees) in three minutes. Take as much rest as needed. Remember to put your feet shoulder width apart and make sure your knees track over your toes when you squat so they don’t cave inward. If they fall in toward the middle, it can cause knee irritation.
#3 1 Mile Walk/Jog/Run – Find a track or map a mile in your neighborhood. You can use a tool like Mapmyrun.com to get the distance from your front door and do a nice out and back run. Grab your phone or watch and time your run. Keep in mind that you’re setting a baseline here, not trying for a personal record. Do your best, but don’t push too hard – especially if you haven’t exercised in a while. If you need to walk, then walk. Just time your mile and write it down.
You’ll retest all three of these movements on the 15th and 30th day. Have fun! Come back here to this site every day for the next post.
How To Effortlessly Amplify Your Results!
Add this “Power Stack” to your challenge. And to make it even easier for you, use this coupon code for 30% OFF!