30 Day Health Challenge Ideas: The Fitness Edition
Nowadays, being healthy has become an ultimate goal for almost everyone (as it should be!). Most of us would like to eat more healthy foods, have a more active lifestyle and quite a few bad habits. But there are so many conflicting tips on how to lead a healthy lifestyle that they can be confusing and overwhelming at the same time.
So what should we do if we want to be healthier? With one small and simple step at a time. And a great place to start is with a 30 day challenge.
What I love about a 30 day challenge is that, if done right, they are easy to follow and can be very sustainable for your health. Also, 30 days is (usually) enough to create a new habit, so when the challenge is finished, you will most likely continue doing it even after it’s over. Moreover, there are so many health challenge ideas that all you need to do is find one that you can stick with go for it.
You guys loved our original post on 30 day challenges and asked for more. So today let’s dive more specifically into the world of 30 day fitness challenge ideas!
What is a 30 day fitness challenge?
While there are so many ways to approach a 30 day health challenge ideas – a 30 day fitness challenge is as simple as it sounds- it focuses on consistent exercise and movement. It means that when you decide to start a challenge for 30 days, you will do some kind of exercise every day. These challenges will help you to increase your general fitness by motivating you to exercise regularly. Once you’re exercising consistently it will be so much easier to continue too – because you’ll be feeling great after 30 days!
There are many ways to approach a fitness challenge, which we’ll address a little later in this article.
Related read: 30 Day Challenge Ideas for Building Good Habits
The Benefits of a 30 day Fitness Challenge
Fitness challenges have plenty of perks for your body because they push you to be active in each of the 30 days. Here are some of the amazing benefits.
Increased level of fitness
One of the most important benefits of fitness challenges is increased strength, endurance, and tolerance for daily activity. Daily exercise or muscle targeting will help you to improve your overall fitness level. Also, with only 10 minutes of daily exercise, you can get your heart rate up and increase your cardiovascular fitness significantly.
Although the process of increasing your level of fitness takes a time, you will already see some great results at the end of the 30 days. Of course, don’t expect to have abs of steel so soon (if that’s your goal), because that one would most likely need more time and dedication. But you may experience some weight loss and improved muscle strength, and most importantly, as the days go on, you will have more stamina to complete the exercises.
Related read: 30 Day Health Challenge Ideas: Nutrition Edition
Developing healthy habits
The second benefit of fitness challenges is my personal favorite: you can develop healthy habits secondary to completing the challenges. In general, it takes about 3 to 4 weeks to make a habit automatic. This means that you will need this much time to create a new habit and make them stick. So when you accomplish a 30 day challenge, the daily exercise will become automatic for you and most likely you will continue doing it every day.
Related read: My Experience with a 30 Day No Sugar Challenge
Motivation
Sometimes all we need is just a little motivation to change our lifestyles. These health challenges can give us that little extra push that we may need to start to exercise and be more active. Also, the end of a completed challenge feels great and you can have every reason to be proud of yourself. This success can give you even more motivation to carry on the daily exercises. Who knows, you may even try out another from the many 30 day fitness challenge ideas.
Related read: How a Virtual Accountability Partner can Keep You Motivated
Flexibility
Another advantage of the 30 day challenges is that everyone can find a challenge that fulfills her/his needs, and you can also customize these challenges as you want. You can choose, for example, a challenge that doesn’t require gym equipment or one that doesn’t take too much time. You can also lower the level of difficulty if you feel that you can’t do it, or increase it in case you can do more.
But one thing is for sure. Even if you are one of the busiest people in the world, you may still squeeze in 10 minutes of exercise into your hectic schedule. So don’t be afraid of the challenge, you can do it without any doubt. Just try it! 🙂
The best 30 day fitness challenge ideas
As I mentioned above, there are many 30 day challenge ideas because the options can vary in difficulty levels and focus areas as well. Here are a few of the best 30 day fitness challenge ideas to inspire you.
Related read: Your Most Important Health Question: What’s Your Why?
30 day squat challenge
Squat challenges are amazing because you don’t need any equipment to do the squats, and they can still bring you great results in transforming your butt. With squats, you can effectively burn calories and build muscles as well.
During the 30 day squat challenge you will do squats every day. But each day you need to do more repetitions, and the exercises will also become more complex (and hopefully deeper). Try this 30 day squat challenge if you would like to work on your butt, legs and core. 😉
You can do this type of challenge with any type of singular exercise to- such as pushups, sit ups, pullups, etc.
30 day plank challenge
Recently plank challenges became very popular because planks are one of the best core exercises. And building a strong core is just plain good for you as it has a lot of health and fitness benefits.
Basically, all the 30 day plank challenges are built upon the plank exercise. However, in general the best challenges are not those that tell you to hold a plank today for 30 seconds and tomorrow for 40 seconds. Rather, the best 30 day plank challenges give a twist to the classic plank each day to keep it fun and engaging each day. Just like the super effective Ultimate Plank Challenge designed by the creator of The Strokes Method, Kira Stokes.
Related read: The Ultimate Guide for a Core Strength Exercise Routine that Works
30 day full-body fitness challenge
A full-body fitness challenge is the perfect choice for you if you are looking for something that makes you move your entire body. One of my favorite full-body workouts involves push-ups, squats, and crunches as well. Here is a great example of the 30 day full-body fitness challenge. The concept is simple: On Monday and Thursday you should do 100 push-ups, on Tuesday and Friday 100 squats, on Wednesday and Saturday 100 crunches, and on Sunday you can rest or repeat some of the exercises.
If you do these exercises for 30 days, I’m sure that you will be more fit in the end, and probably you will lose some weight as well.
30 day yoga challenge
Are you a yoga person? Or is it a big dream of yours to try it? Then the good news is that there are also great yoga challenge options. The 30 days of yoga with Adriene is perfect for everyone, you can try it even if you are a beginner. You need to watch 1 video each day and follow the instructions of Adriene. No matter what body type you have, just grab a yoga mat (or a blanket) and start doing it. The exercises are simple and well-explained.
For more 30 day fitness challenge ideas, I advise you to check out this website. Here you will find a lot of kinds of challenges from family workout challenges to 30 day low impact challenges. Or if you’ve wanted to work on a certain yoga move, like a shoulder stand, you can make a goal of optimizing the move during the month.
Related read: 5 Mistakes People Make When Starting a 30 Day Challenge
If you would like to become more fit, don’t hesitate to start a 30 day fitness challenge. Completing a challenge is a huge success, but sometimes it is not easy. Don’t forget that it’s okay if you miss a day or two – just get back on track as soon as possible. Most of the health challenges have a rest day anyway. Just choose a 30 day challenge that fits you the best, and try to get the most out of it!
Have you ever tried one of the many 30 day health challenge ideas or fitness challenge ideas? What are your favorite ideas?