The challenge format is becoming more and more common on the Internet. Professional athletes and just sports fans almost every day share videos in which they set difficult-to-achieve goals and invite viewers to complete them together within a certain time frame. Tasks can be very different in focus and severity: endurance, speed, muscle strength... The only condition is not to give up halfway, this is a challenge!
We have selected five different challenges that are not so easy to complete.
Are you ready to test your strength with athletes from the Internet and hold out until the end? Important:
you should not repeat the experience of athletes if you have medical contraindications.
A year of daily jogging
Hella Sidibe
, an athlete from New Jersey, enjoys running. So much so that in May 2022 I came up with a challenge - to run every day for a year. Believe it or not, Hella exceeded his plan and continues to run daily to this day.
In this test, it doesn’t matter at all how far you run - rely on your strength and well-being. The most important aspect here is to develop the habit of running daily. For example, on the first day Sidibe lasted only 1 mile, which is a little more than 1.5 km, and did not overpower himself. But over time, progress became noticeable, and by the end of the year the runner covered a total of 2807 miles (about 4517 km).
Of course, all of the above challenges do not guarantee permanent results. After all, in order to be in shape and show the maximum of your capabilities, systematic training is necessary. It is only important to remember that even small work with daily effort grows into something more.
Test. Are you running correctly?
List of ideas
The collected ideas can change your attitude to life, teach you to be active, take the most from every day and live fully and happily. The uniqueness of this list is that it is not necessary to take one idea and follow only it. Many of the habits collected here can only be called global, so within the framework of a monthly challenge you can practice several at once. The only requirement is a time frame – you need to implement the habit for 30 days every day. Although the famous blogger Leo Babauta does not agree with the latter, he believes that one day a week can be a “fasting”, especially in such difficult challenges as the fight against junk food.
- Ride your bike to work . In our climatic conditions it is difficult to do this throughout the year, but try at least a month when it is warm outside. You will see the city differently, and your body will only be grateful for such a load.
- Give up alcohol . Try not drinking alcohol for a month and you will most likely understand how unnecessary this habit is.
- Don't watch TV . The main time trap of modern man is television. Take your free time with communication, walks in the fresh air, sports, hobbies and see how much more you can get from life.
- Workout . Don't buy a gym membership right away, just do a few sets of squats or push-ups per evening.
- Start learning a foreign language . As in the previous case, it is not necessary to enroll in courses. You can start at home using special techniques, tutorials and resources that can easily be found on the Internet.
- Take 1 photo on the way to work every day . Take this simple ritual as a rule. In a month, you will notice an amazing ability to look at the world differently, feel the flow of life and its fullness, and you will remember every day.
- Prepare a new dish every day . You can love pasta and buckwheat, but denying that there is nothing else tasty besides them is stupid. Get a cookbook with simple recipes and try to cook some dish that is unusual for your diet.
- Learn to dance . Down with prejudices and beliefs. No matter how old you are, and no matter what gender you are, you can find many educational videos on Youtube with a detailed description of each movement. From waltz to hip-hop.
- Stop complaining . Do not discuss problems, but complain. For everything: weather, transport situation, social sphere, etc. Very few people are really interested in your problems, and even for those, the constant negativity only depresses you.
- Save . Don’t spend money for a whole month, buying only the essentials (food, hygiene products). Then buy something with all the money you saved.
- Wake up early . Try to get up at 6 am and do something interesting to you. Do some exercise, drink some coffee and get started. The day will increase by a couple of hours, you will have time to do more and fall asleep earlier. Tired but happy.
- Learn something new every day . Whether it's a new way to tie a tie or Schrödinger's wave equation from quantum mechanics, the key is to learn something new.
- To eat healthy food . Try to follow healthy eating principles. This is a serious challenge, so you can implement it in several stages - first, give up fast food snacks, then remove fast carbohydrates from your diet, etc.
- Carry on a conversation with a stranger . In the elevator, on the bus, in line at the store, in a word, wherever such an opportunity presents itself. This will help deal with uncertainty and benefit your communication skills.
- Do not watch or read the news . If this is a ritual, replace it by watching an educational program or reading an interesting book. You will still learn about the most important things, and ignorance of the rest will not make you less educated.
- Write a story . Every November in the United States there is a national event called Novel Writing Month. Anyone can write and publish their text on a special resource. Try it too.
- Practice karma yoga . Say no to selfish motivation for at least a month and do something good for others every day for free.
- To compliment . Give honest compliments to others, regardless of your level of intimacy with them. At least once a day.
- Discover a new type of activity . It could be anything - a new sport, cross-stitching or modeling with polymer clay, learning the basics of web design, or starting your own blog.
- Listen to new music every day . Ask your friends to recommend their favorite song to you or use a selection service. Listen to everything from classical to hard rock.
- Write or call your friends and relatives . Within 30 days, call or write back to everyone with whom you have not seen or communicated for a long time.
- Dine with homemade food . Don’t go to a cafe for a month, don’t order a business lunch for work. Instead, bring food from home.
- Become a vegetarian for 30 days . Or try following other alternative nutritional concepts.
- Do not drive a car . Take care of the environment and your health - leave your car in the garage when you call. Walk, bike or take public transport to work.
- Play educational games . Every day, spend 5-10 minutes playing a game that will be useful for training your brain.
- Go to the park or forest . Set aside at least half an hour of your time to be outdoors every day.
- Learn magic tricks and tricks with cards . You will have no equal in any company.
- Write down at least three positive events that happened to you per day . The world is not as gloomy as it may seem, and this challenge will help you see it.
- Do meditation . Try to “reboot” your tired body with meditation and breathing exercises.
- Dont lie . Very simple in terms of conditions and, at the same time, one of the most difficult challenges to yourself.
How to start a lesson for a month?
There are two types of it: plank from the elbow and from the hands. Choose one that is convenient for you. Lie down on a fitness mat or travel foam. To understand how to do a plank correctly, I recommend watching the video:
The body should be straight, the back should not be hunched or sagging. Try standing in this position for some time to feel the effect and muscle work.
Now let's move on to the challenge for the month. Start each day with a plank approach like this :
The exercise time gradually increases, due to this, by day 30 you should be able to stand like a stick for five minutes. Believe me, this is a lot. Further in the article there is an option for an advanced level .
At first, even 20 seconds will seem difficult, but then you will get easier and easier with each approach. After such a challenge to yourself in 30 days, you will feel how your body has become more resilient, your muscles have become toned . You can also read reviews from other people who have gone this route.
It is not at all necessary to end the cycle after 30 days. You can continue to make an effort on yourself. It definitely won’t be superfluous.
If you want to try, it is important to follow a few
rules so that the lessons will be useful:
- you should stand straight, as parallel to the floor as possible (as far as possible in this position), nothing should “sag”;
- arms and legs should be shoulder width apart;
- the abs should be tense, the back and legs should be straight;
- the head should look forward or at the floor in front of you;
- Don’t forget to breathe evenly and deeply and gently get out of the situation.
Despite such a simple technique, the exercise is not suitable for everyone, because there are contraindications . It is not recommended for those who have problems with the spine, high blood pressure, or recent abdominal surgery (up to 6 months).
September 24, 2019
Yulia Sokolovskaya Lover of travel and long distances, author of the Run And Travel blog
- run-and-travel.com
- facebook.com/julia.sok.92
“Oh, no, not today,” “I really want to sleep, I’ll start tomorrow,” “It’s kind of hot/cold/rainy/cloudy/... - better another time,” “Just five more minutes.”
Approximately such internal dialogues accompanied each of my next attempts to develop the habit of getting up early and going for a run. At six in the morning, willpower is still asleep, and the brain shows unprecedented creativity in finding excuses.
It’s difficult to adjust, even though I’m a well-deserved early riser and have been living in this mode for several years in the warm season (when it’s light in the morning), and I know from my own experience about its advantages and how the process of adaptation occurs. But at the moment when the alarm clock goes on, all this extensive theory and practice helps little, and the transition from the winter schedule is not easy every time.
Owls vs larks
Going to bed early and getting up early is just a habit. Just five years ago, such a statement aroused in me unkind feelings towards enthusiastic early risers, as did the promotion of unprecedented morning productivity and the joys of exercising at dawn. There are individual biological rhythms of the body, period. Like eye color or leg length, it is given by nature and cannot be re-educated.
By that time, I myself had already belonged to the oppressed part of humanity for more than 15 years, being a convinced night owl. Neither studying combined with working night shifts, nor the office schedule, nor raising babies helped. At every opportunity she turned into a neglected owl, and the rest of the time she suffered with all her might from the unfair structure of the world, tailored for larks.
Then I started running, one spring I went for a run early in the morning and...unexpectedly, I turned into a lark. So, as an experienced owl, I responsibly declare: all this conditional division is complete bullshit :) The human body is an adaptable thing and quite easily adapts to any conditions within the physiological norm. Everything else is in the head.
Idea #30MorningRuns
To make it easier for yourself to develop a habit, this year a challenge called “30 morning runs” was invented. The gist of it was that in eight weeks I would run 30 times in the early morning, I would share the results on Facebook, and at the same time show Kyiv in the morning and my favorite routes through the eyes of a runner.
The conditions are simple:
1. We get from the bed to the front door (this is the most difficult part), we run.
2. We take at least one photo along the way - a good reason to show off your city or just share your morning moments.
3. We post it on social networks indicating the serial number of the run, start time, optional mileage, etc.
4. Put the tag #30morningruns
5. Repeat 30 times 
How it works?
My formula for a successful challenge is setting SMART goals + a mandatory element of fun + a social component. Let's go through the points.
The clever term SMART from project management implies that the goal must meet the following requirements:
Specificity
What changes do I want as a result? Everything is simple here: develop the habit of getting up early and jogging, and make the new regime comfortable for yourself.
Measurability
We decide how we will evaluate the process of moving towards the goal and measure the result. In my case, a run starting at 6–7 am was counted. In total, as part of the challenge, you had to run 30 times. The result was supposed to be a new regime with an easy and quick fall asleep around 10 pm and the same rise until 6 am without an alarm clock.
Reachability
The goal should be achievable, but not too easy. 30 runs in 2 months during the rest season is not enough for me (3-4 times a week), but enough to not relax and not procrastinate.
Limited time frame
If there is no clear deadline, then with a high probability the goal will almost never be achieved. I advise you to set aside a little more time for minor force majeure events.
Relevance
We honestly answer the question “Do I really need this now and why?”
Here are a few of my personal morning running bonuses.
The right rhythm and mood for the whole day
A checkbox next to a useful and enjoyable task, checked first thing in the morning, miraculously makes the day more productive. Vigor and a good feeling of “cleaning” appear in the head - a noticeable contrast compared to the morning owl’s drowsiness and gloomy mood.
When it’s only 10 in the morning, and you’ve already had a run, breakfast, and a decent chunk of work done, and there’s still a whole day ahead, then this motivates you for further achievements.
Fewer reasons to slant
Most people are lazy by nature, and I am one of them. As much fun as running can be, it can be difficult to get ready to get out there and start. During the day and evening, all this is added to by a bunch of good reasons to postpone running in the form of regularly popping up family, work and household tasks.
In the morning, everything is simpler: the time for brainstorming is limited to a short period from the alarm clock to getting up, then everything is automatic, and excuses are not relevant at this time of day. In short, when I run in the morning, I think much less about the topic “I need to run, I want to, I don’t want to, I have time, I don’t have time,” but I just take it and do it.
Time compression
Days with morning runs seem longer, you get more done. At first glance, this is nonsense: after all, there are only so many hours in the day, and in order to get up early, you have to go to bed earlier. But at the same time, the morning workout takes less time, and in the evening you won’t be able to access the Internet much, because... The body, tuned to a lark schedule, simply switches off. In general, the regime becomes more balanced, work tasks are less spread out throughout the day.
Family
Family time, when everyone gets together at home after work/school/other activities, usually happens in the evenings. Therefore, evening workouts for family people are not always a good option. Morning runs are the easiest way to make time for running in this situation.
City routes and beauty
I love running not only in parks and green areas, but also around the city - the historical center, embankments and just the streets. The best time for this is early in the morning, when there are a minimum of cars, people and a completely different atmosphere (both literally and figuratively). In addition, in the summer the mornings are relatively cool and running is more comfortable. Morning jogging is also safer than evening jogging.
Trips
Running in the morning is also good for travel. When the whole day is tightly packed with all sorts of plans, and, as a rule, with the participation of other people, early morning is often the only time where you can try to fit in a run. As a bonus: unique moments and a completely different perspective on the places you travel to.
All this is probably effective, but it is terribly boring, and in a normal person it only causes a yawn, especially at 5:45 in the morning. Therefore, we add two more parameters to the formula.
Fan
I'm a runner and traveler: I love running excursions where you explore new places and see old places in a new way. Running, observing, absorbing, sometimes taking photographs to capture moments is a special pleasure. In Kyiv there are a lot of wonderful routes and opportunities for this, especially in the early morning, when the city is empty and belongs only to you.
Therefore, the challenge was expanded: not just get up and run near the house, but look into the most picturesque corners, remember your favorite routes and catch beautiful pictures.
On some days, only my inner esthete could get me out of bed: I wasn’t ready to wake up for the sake of some kind of habit, but I did it to see what the morning haze looks like over the Dnieper today, whether there is fog in the forest, and whether there are flowers in the botanical garden lilac. It’s like getting up early to catch a plane without any particular difficulties - the anticipation of the new and interesting things ahead outweighs.
Social component
You want to share the beauty you catch, and reporting on social networks, no matter how you look at it, disciplines you. When you announce your challenge to an audience of 1,500 people, it’s somehow inconvenient to just spit and score. And such a desire arises more than once in the process.
It was also motivating that following the tag #30MorningRuns on Facebook, not only my photo reports began to appear - someone also woke up in the morning and ran, and this gave an additional incentive to continue.
Technical tips for developing a habit
1. The main rule: you need to sleep enough, not less than your individual physiological norm. To get up earlier, you will have to learn to go to bed earlier - there is no other way.
2. Two main approaches to turning an owl into a lark: slow-gradual and fast-cruel. The first one doesn’t work for me - attempts to shift the routine by 15 minutes every day, going to bed and getting up a little earlier, only work until something prevents you from going to bed on time, and then you immediately roll back to the old routine. The cruel option is more effective: in the first days, getting up in the morning with an alarm clock is a struggle, during the day you are in a zombie state, but after a couple of days the lack of sleep accumulates, and you can fall asleep at the right time in the evening without any problems. The hardest thing is in the first few days, then you start waking up before the alarm and get into a routine.
3. It’s better to start in spring or summer - when it’s light outside, it’s noticeably easier to wake up, just at the physiological level. Plus, the nicer the weather, the greater the desire to go out there and run.
4. It is advisable not to overeat before bed, and also ventilate the room - it will be easier to fall asleep and your sleep will be healthier.
5. It’s easier to wake up with open curtains than in the dark.
6. Place your alarm clock away from your bed: getting up and crawling away from it is the hardest first step.
7. Prepare your clothes and everything you need for your morning run in advance - you won’t have to use your brain and get annoyed looking for the right things.
8. Developing a morning ritual helps a lot - a clear sequence of actions, starting from getting up to going outside. After a while, everything is done automatically, almost without waking up.
9. Rule of the next step: when I’m too lazy to get up, I think only about the next necessary action, sometimes even in the vein: “okay, now I’ll just wash myself and go back to bed.” Then - the next little thing, and so on until the moment when you find yourself outside the door. Primitive, but it works. By the way, this method was found during competitions: when it’s really hard, I promise to be patient “until that tree” and then slow down.
10. Give yourself time to wake up. I can get ready and go for a run in 10 minutes. But physical activity for an organism that has not yet recovered from sleep is not very useful, this is a known fact. Therefore, it is better to spend more time getting ready in the morning, doing everything slowly and without fuss. In my case it's about half an hour.
11. Mandatory warm-up. For the same reason, you can’t immediately start running at a fast pace or doing speed work. This also applies to evening workouts, but for morning ones it is most critical. I always run the first 3 km very slowly, jogging, giving my body time to warm up and get into working mode. Then you can do simple joint exercises to warm up.
What came of it?
20-30 repetitions to develop an established habit is just that. Around the fifth time I started waking up before the alarm clock, although I still got up with a creak. It took me longer to get into the habit of falling asleep correctly—I tried to go to bed on time, but I didn’t manage to fall asleep right away.
10-20 times - everything seems to be debugged and working, but every now and then a bummer creeps up, “maybe not today?”, with which you have to communicate. After the 20th time - complete comfort. Falling asleep quickly, waking up easily, minimum thoughts on the topic. Much like brushing your teeth - everything is automatic, without connecting your head.
Overall, the challenge was a success - I again retrained as a running lark and gave myself a spring with an overwhelming density of beautiful moments. I hope I was able to share some of them in photographs (all this is very close - just wake up early and go outside). I will definitely repeat it next season.
Self-development #Running #Habits #morning
Classic example
A little more difficult to do. The position of the upper limbs does not change. The knees should be straightened and the toes of the feet should rest on the floor. The wider your feet are, the easier it is to stay in this position. The lower back is straight, no sagging. Time doesn't change. You need to start with 30 seconds. The longer you hold out, the better. Can be performed in several approaches.
The position of your arms can be changed - straighten them. Some athletes say that this is a lightweight option. But I believe that you need to approach it individually. If it's easier for you, start with it. But you shouldn’t feel too sorry for yourself either. Otherwise you will not achieve the effect.
At first, you can ask someone to monitor the correctness of your actions. Ideally, you will have a professional trainer. But this is not necessary, the main thing is to understand the technique and explain it to your assistant. Why is it important? At the first stages of classes, you cannot adequately monitor the coordination of movements, but the other person clearly sees all your shortcomings from the outside.
