They Make Me Cringe!
I get kind of cringey whenever I see another “Daily Challenge” popping up on Social Media. At risk of sounding like a ‘Debbie Downer’, I gotta admit, I find those “do exercise X every day for Y days to see Z results” challenges pretty annoying. I get that they’re meant to motivate and maybe help someone start working out.
But honestly, I think they usually do the opposite for most folks.
One exercise isn’t going to do the trick.
Sorry, but it’s true. If you’re not working out at all, and you’re not changing your eating habits, then doing a 1-minute plank each day for 30 days is probably just going to leave you frustrated.
Most people picture having six-pack abs (because that’s what the model has) after 30 days. When that doesn’t happen, it’s easy to get discouraged and start thinking exercise doesn’t help.
Overuse
Let’s say you add 1 minute a day to your plank for 30 days, or do 100 squats a day for a month, or 50 pushups daily. How do you think your body’s going to feel like after that?
Chances are, you’re probably going to develop some kind of overuse injury, which means you’ll need time off to heal. And that just leads to frustration and setbacks.
What Next?
So you finish the challenge.
Now what?
Are you just gonna stop because you checked the box and got tired of the exercise? Are you planning to keep doing the same thing forever? If so, now we’re back to overuse and imbalance injuries again.
Like most things, there are exceptions. I’m not knocking the “walk every day” or “do yoga daily” challenges (though I might argue those too). I’m mainly talking about sticking to one specific exercise at a set number of reps for a certain period. And if that’s been working for you, then great!
Push-up on… until you can’t anymore.