Danny Davis
Starting an all-new healthy lifestyle can be complicated and doing too much at once can be overwhelming. Little changes to your current routine can help to improve your fitness and boost your overall health.
In our 30-day challenge, we task you with mild to moderate fitness and exercise tasks to get you up and moving and working on your fitness.
Each day, you’ll be required to do something a little out of the ordinary, but it’s to benefit your own health!
Have at it!
The 30 Day Challenge
Day 1
Drink 64 ounces of water! The human body requires at least 64 ounces of water a day to function properly and to keep cells hydrated. 64 ounces of water is about eight cups, which does seem like a lot if you’re not much of a water drinker already.
You might want to try drinking one cup of water every eight hours or setting alarms on your phone to remind you to drink throughout the day.
Day 2
Spend 30 minutes stretching! Stretching isn’t only great for improving your flexibility. It’s also extremely useful in keeping your joints and muscles healthy and mobile as you get older.
To get the most out of your stretching routine, hold each stretch until you feel a slight “pull” in the muscle. To get any sort of benefit out of a stretch, you need to make sure that you’re holding the position for between 30 and 60 seconds at a time.
Day 3
Walk somewhere that you’d usually drive to! For those of us who live in the suburbs or the city, it’s so easy to hop behind the wheel of a car and drive to every location you’re looking to go.
It’s convenient, but it doesn’t make much sense when your intended destination is less than a few miles from home. If you were planning to go to the local convenience store or pharmacy nearby today, try walking there instead.
Day 4
Do some bodyweight exercises! It’s completely reasonable to hate going to the gym and lifting weights, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work out at home instead.
Bodyweight exercises are the easiest way to get some strength training into your routine without needing any additional equipment. Try out some pushups, crunches, squats, or even burpees (if you’re feeling daring!). Do your best to get your whole body involved in your exercises.
Day 5
Get 10,000 steps in! You don’t realize just how little you walk over the course of the day until you use a step-recording device like a Fitbit or an app on your smartphone.
The recommended number of steps that you should be taking in a single day to improve your health and fitness is about 10,000. That equates to around five miles total. If you notice that you’re sitting for too long while at work, take short breaks and take every opportunity to get up from your desk.
Day 6
Try some yoga poses! You’ve probably seen people doing yoga poses before but probably didn’t realize just how much strength and flexibility are required to hold the poses.
You don’t have to join a class or buy your own mat, but just try out some of the simpler poses today. That means mindful breathing, downward and upward dog, and even the tree pose. Remember to focus on your breathing and posture during each pose you try.
Day 7
Workout between commercials! You might not have the energy to set aside 30 minutes after work to hit the gym, but you can exercise in smaller segments after you finally get home. You might as well make use of the time you’re wasting while commercials flash across your screen. When it’s time for commercials, you can do jumping jacks, crunches, sit-ups, pushups, or even jog in place until the show you’re watching returns.
Day 8
Walk a mile! This isn’t particularly strenuous, but it might be out of the ordinary if you live a normally sedentary lifestyle. There’s nothing that says that you have to hop on a treadmill in order to complete this task.
Set aside 20 to 30 minutes in the morning, during your lunch break at work, or after you get home from work to walk a mile straight. Your heart and muscles will appreciate the exercise and you even burn somewhere around 100 calories.
Day 9
Walk your dog (or someone else’s dog)! If you’re struggling to find the motivation to leave the house and get some exercise, you should walk your dog. He’ll enjoy the exercise and spending time with you, and you’ll get exercise in the process.
If you don’t have a dog of your own, you could walk somebody else’s dog for them. In fact, many shelters allow volunteers to come to the shelter and take their dogs for a walk, which is the perfect way to give back.
Day 10
Do planks! This is the perfect exercise if you don’t have much exercise equipment in your home. You can also practically do it wherever you have space. Start out seeing how long you can hold a plank while keeping your body entirely straight.
Make sure you time it. Then, take a bit of a break to allow your muscles and body to recover and then try again. Do your best to try to beat the time you recorded during your last plank.
Day 11
Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator! This one’s a no-brainer. When you opt to take the elevator or escalator, you’re taking the easy way out, especially if there’s no physical need for you to avoid taking the stairs.
By taking the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator, you’re helping to work your lower body muscles like the quadriceps and hamstrings, forcing your heart to work a little harder, and helping to build your endurance.
Day 12
Do all of your house cleaning! You were probably going to do this eventually but doing it more vigorously can help you to burn more calories and build muscular strength and endurance in the muscles you’re using.
Just think about what it takes to scrub a tough stain out of the counter, vacuum the entire home, or move furniture around when you’re dusting. By doing all of your cleaning at once, you’re basically getting an entire workout in without even knowing it.
Day 13
Set exercise reminders on your phone! This is the perfect way to get fit when your schedule doesn’t allow for long workouts at the gym. When you set exercise reminders on your phone, your phone will notify you periodically throughout the day to exercise in some way.
This can include performing certain exercises during the day or just getting up and walking around a little when the alarm goes off. This is great for getting you up from your desk every once in a while.
Day 14
Don’t look for the closest parking spot! We all love convenience, but there’s really no need for you to park as close as possible when you’re going to the grocery store, pharmacy, or work unless it’s raining or you’re too injured to walk. Park a little further away than normal today to get yourself up and moving a bit longer. If you stick to this habit, you’ll be much more active than you were before.
Day 15
Do Tabata training! You’re going to be up and running around with this one, but not for too long. With this type of training, you’ll perform vigorous training like running or intense exercises for 20 seconds, take a 10-second break, and then repeat this cycle eight times.
In all, the entire process will take four minutes. Not only will you be working your muscles and your heart, but you will also be building your endurance and burning fat at the same time.
Day 16
Play a sport or do an activity you enjoy! There’s nothing that says that sports have to be extremely high intensity and very competitive. If you want to get active in some way, the best way to do so is by participating in an activity or sport that you already like.
That might mean kicking a soccer ball around in the backyard, going to the local batting cages, playing cornhole with friends and family, or anything else you can possibly think of.
Day 17
Wear ankle or wrist weights! This is a great way to add some intensity to the movements that you’re already doing throughout the day. When you wear ankle or wrist weights, your body will have to work a little bit harder to do day-to-day tasks.
When you wear them for a few hours at a time or all day, ankle and wrist weights can help you to build muscle, endurance, and strength in the targeted areas. And other people won’t even notice that you’re exercising.
Day 18
Go to the gym! You don’t have to do anything intense while you’re there, but it’ll get you used to the environment and learn about the exercises you can perform while there.
Feel free to do whatever you’re comfortable doing. That might mean walking on the treadmill, doing the elliptical, using the bench press machine, or doing some squats on the squat rack. No matter what you do, the overall goal is to just get you active and doing something physical.
Day 19
Download a fitness app! The best part about fitness apps is that there seems to be an app for everything. That means there are apps to walk you through an exercise routine, apps with videos featuring exercise walkthroughs, apps to record data for what you did at the gym, and apps that can record how long and how far you walk or run. Regardless of what your health and fitness goals are, trying out some fitness apps can help you to reach them.
Day 20
Go for a jog! This is a bit more intense than what you might be used to, but that doesn’t mean you’re incapable. Nobody’s telling you how far or how fast you have to go while jogging, just that you should try it today.
You can take breaks when you feel like it, alternate between walking and jogging as you please, and go as far as you’d like. The goal is to activate the muscles in your legs and increase your heart rate.
Day 21
Work on mindful breathing! This might be harder than any exercise you’ve ever done if you struggle with stress and anxiety on a daily basis. With any mindful breathing technique, you’ll need to focus on breathing properly and focusing your mind on the activity at hand.
If done correctly, mindful breathing practices can help to reduce your heart rate and blood pressure, improve your mood, and relax your muscles and joints. This is the perfect exercise for both mind and body relaxation.
Day 22
Use exercise bands! We’re upping the intensity a little bit, but still keeping it within your current comfort zone. When you use exercise bands, you can build strength, power, and endurance in the muscles you’re exercising.
You can experiment with the different levels of resistance between each band and perform different exercises depending on which muscle group you’re looking to focus on. Exercise bands are an incredibly cost-effective method of training and a great way to begin resistance training at home.
Day 23
Go for a bike ride! Biking is an extremely effective exercise method that can help to boost lower body strength and endurance while also improving your cardiovascular endurance.
Not only that, but you’ll also be able to go greater distances while you’re biking as compared to walking or running, see more of your surroundings, and put less strain and pressure on your lower back. This is a great alternative to running and jogging if that isn’t your style.
Day 24
Go bowling! This isn’t just a fun way to get active, but it’s also great for building many of the muscles in your body. When you work on the proper form of bowling, you’ll be targeting nearly every major and minor muscle group within the body.
When you think about the concept of rolling a heavy 10 pound or heavier ball down a lane, you’ll understand just how much is required of your body to be good at bowling. This is also the perfect time to spend time with friends and family.
Day 25
Play fitness-related video games! If you have a Wii, Xbox, or Playstation device that hosts fitness-related games, this can be an easy and fun way to get your exercise and spend time with friends and family.
When you play these games, you’re performing the major movements required of many popular activities and sports, like basketball, boxing, soccer, and more. That means your body will experience the positive effects of all these activities without actually having to play them on your own.
Day 26
Go swimming! It doesn’t matter whether you have your own inground pool or if your gym has a pool that you can use, nearly everyone has access to a pool in some way. When you’re swimming, you often don’t even realize that you’re exercising.
That’s because swimming places less pressure and strain on your back and legs, which means for much longer than you can probably run. It’s also a great exercise for improving endurance and building the muscles of the body.
Day 27
Try a new physical activity! In particular, something that involves physical activity that can count toward your exercise goals for the day. That might mean playing golf, going hatchet throwing, playing paintball, going rock climbing, or any other new activity that you want to try out.
The goal is to choose an activity that you’re able to perform, but still takes a bit of effort on your part to participate successfully. As long as you’re up and moving, you’ll do great.
Day 28
Lift weights! You don’t have to participate in a daily resistance training regimen, but you should be doing resistance training at least twice per week. There’s nothing that says that you have to go overboard on this one.
You can use dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls, kettlebells, or even resistance training machines at your gym in order to work your muscles and build power and strength.
Day 29
Play with your pets! It doesn’t matter what type of pet you have, they probably enjoy being played with. For dogs and cats, that might mean throwing a toy around the living room or even going outside to play tug-of-war with a rope toy. Your pets will enjoy it and both of you will have a ton of fun while playing together.
Day 30
Go to the park! If you’re not much of an outdoorsy person already, you might not even realize that your local parks have plenty of peaceful nature trails that you can walk or run on to get some exercise.
What’s great is that many of these trails are of varying distances and difficulties, so you can strategically choose a trail that you know you can do today. You might even appreciate the local scenery and wildlife you encounter while on your walk.
Day 31 – Congratulate yourself!
Reward yourself with something you love, like a movie or a new outfit. Plan the month ahead and repeat the challenge.
