Around a month ago I started My 30 Day Fitness Challenge which required me to do 100 pushups, 100 pull ups, 100 sit ups, and 100 squats everyday for 30 days straight.
I’m happy to announce that I made it through those 30 days. And in this update I’m going to show you weekly progress photos as well as talk about my thoughts, my key takeaways, lessons learned and more from doing this 30 Day Fitness Challenge.
Watch my progress and before & after transformation in the montage I put together.
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FROM MY JOURNAL
Day 3: Feeling sore from the previous 2 days, but I pushed through it. Starting to think it’s a bad idea not to rest because I’m not giving my muscles a chance to recover. I’ve heard that you won’t really see any gains if you don’t give your body and muscles time to rest and heal themselves.
Day 4: Not a bad workout. I didn’t do anything till I came home and so it was pretty late. I managed to get it all in within the hour. Struggled on the pull ups, but everything else was pretty easy. Will probably be upping the pushups as I go along so that I don’t plateau.
Day 5: Same old stuff, nothing groundbreaking. No longer sore. Keep in mind that did minimal workouts prior to the 30 day fitness challenge so that I came in prepared.
Day 6-9: Pull ups are still the hardest. Pushups are easy as hell. Squats and sit ups, ehhh…pretty boring.
Day 13-14: Feeling better. Definitely feeling more fit. Not getting as tired during the exercises. Getting done quicker. Feels like my body is getting used to it all. Feels really good and makes me wanna keep this up and continue working on my fitness and strength building. Pull ups are still a bitch.
Day 15: Felt good. Solid workout session. Getting stronger by the day. Keep it up!
Related: If you’re enjoying this article on my fitness journey, you might enjoy this piece on How to Workout too.
MY 30 DAY FITNESS CHALLENGE BEFORE AND AFTER
WAS IT EASIER THAN EXPECTED?
No it was kind of hard, but it wasn’t terribly hard because I feel like each day and each week I progressed a little bit more.
ON PUSHUPS AND PULL UPS
When you work out, you have gains and then you plateau. After a while the 100 push ups were pretty easy and I felt like I could do a hundred more, 300 or even more than that. The push ups got really easy. Conversely the pull ups were a challenge all the way through. I would do five sets of 20 reps of pull ups to get to a hundred. And I did that throughout the entire 30 days. I couldn’t push more than that.
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ANY INJURIES?
As for injuries I didn’t really have any injuries. I had a little soreness in the beginning. My left elbow got a little sore but I don’t think that’s from any of the pull ups or push ups or anything like that. I just think it was from ripping off the sheet of paper I put up on the door, representing each day that I crushed. And I think that’s what caused my elbow to have some pain. I don’t think it’s elbow tendonitis or anything like that. I hope not, it’s not really painful but I can feel some type of soreness. Or when I overextend there’s a little bit pain, but I think I’m okay now.
ON SIT UPS
I didn’t actually do sit ups, they were more so crunches. I don’t know what they’re called but I repurposed a lot from the Ab Ripper X program from P90X series that I completed back in college. I feel like those target the core more, particularly the abs, whereas sit ups you’re not really targeting the Abs. I feel like I got some results from that and I feel like I could do a lot more in terms sit ups.
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ON SQUATS
For the squats, I did them without weights. I hate leg day. I’m not a big fan of squats. I just don’t like the pain down there in my legs. For the 30 day fitness challenge, I would do 100 squats, two sets of 50. It wasn’t that bad. I would go as far down as I could. As for gains down there I didn’t really show any in the videos but I feel like I’m filling out my shorts just a little bit more now. So I did have some gains in the thighs for sure.
MY GAINS OVERALL
I think most of the gains came in my arms and chest definitely and my abs as well. The pushups, pull ups and chin ups really did work. Compared to just 30 days ago there are definitely visible gains. It’s exciting and I’m pretty proud of that.
MOVING FORWARD & POSITIVE CHANGE
I want to keep this up moving forward. I’m not going to do 100 reps of each every single day, but I’m going to continue to work out daily. Even if I just do 30 or 50 reps of each a day that it’s going to help maintain the physique that I have right now. I feel like the 30 day fitness challenge led to some positive changes in terms of my diet as well. I didn’t eat as much junk food I didn’t really go out to any fast food places, I ate more salads, lean chicken and things like that. I’m proud to get through that 30 days. I knew I could get through it as it wasn’t that big of a challenge in my opinion. I’m a light guy so it’s easy for me to do pull ups and push ups and things like that. My strength to weight I feel is pretty good and I have much less weight to carry than bigger guys.
WORDS OF ADVICE
Some parting words of advice to anyone who’s looking to try out a challenge like this, definitely do it. If you want a challenge that can help to spur you to action, that’s going to help you to get out of your element and just try something new, you’re going to love it. Get some exercise. Go running outside. Do something different than your ordinary routine. The 30 day fitness challenge is perfect for that. I just felt like doing the 30 day 100x fitness challenge was something I could definitely do. And I was excited to do it every single day. And so it definitely led to positive gains in my life.
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A CALL TO ACTION
So now I have a call to action for you. If you want to do something like this yourself, I’d say go for it. And if you’re posting on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter then use the hashtag #GWFitnessChallenge. Share your progress with me as I’d love to see your results and hear about your story. I feel like this was a great challenge for me and I had so much fun doing it.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR ME
I don’t know what’s next for me in terms of my fitness but I’m excited at where I got in just 30 days. You know it’s crazy how how much things can change in 30 days and how much of a difference just daily exercise can do for 30 days for 30 minutes a day, it’s pretty crazy.
MY 30 DAY FITNESS CHALLENGE KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Habits are powerful
- Routine should be embraced
- When you make daily progress, it bleeds into other areas of life (eg. better diet, better mindset, better physicality)
- Physical strength is important to overall health and well-being
ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ON THE 30 DAY FITNESS CHALLENGE?
Let’s continue the discussion over in the Gentlemen Within Private Facebook Community.
Looking forward to seeing you in there.
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