Are 30 Day Fitness Challenges Safe?

30 day fitness challenges! Should you do them, or do your own thing? I had a question from one of my subscribers regarding this topic, so let's get into this. 

30 day fitness challenges 

In this case we're talking about people who throw out challenges with the goal of motivating others to exercise as well. Usually these people are very fit themselves, or even athletes. Because it's a "challenge" it must be of course challenging, so usually a pretty insane amount of reps from one or more exercises is not uncommon. The Iron Wolf is a great example of this. He is somebody who is capable of things beyond humanity in my opinion. I love his determination and level of fitness, but he puts out these follow along workouts and challenges to motivate others. Which is a great thing! However, some people accept these challenges or want to follow along his workouts while they are not at his level of fitness yet. As you can expect, this results into things like injuries, bad form and by far no full ROM (range of motion). 

My advice

So when it comes to safety - my advice would be to grind on your own in case you're not fit like the person providing these challenges/workouts. If you are, by all means, go for it! I think it can be motivating and bring you to the next level. But if you're not that fit, seriously, you don't want to mess up yourself, just because you're comparing yourself to them, or because you want to prove yourself to others (or to yourself) or whatever reason it may be. I think it's better to develop a routine which gets you to the level of fitness that you want to achieve. I reset myself as well, because it's all about building that foundation first! The Iron Wolf for example trained many years for the level of fitness he has achieved today, plus the fact that he's in the military. He's getting paid to be fit and his lifestyle is based on being extremely fit. We must not forget that we are citizens, probably having a job behind a desk and if not that, probably not a job which is physically active like being in the military. If you want to check out my current foundation building plan, check this blog post where I describe exactly what I'm up to at the moment. 

Use them as a source of inspiration

People like the Iron Wolf, I use them as inspiration. I love what they're doing! I think they set an example of how fit one can be, and it is pretty awesome to see what the body is capable of. However, this doesn't mean that everyone can do this. Train yourself to be ready for that level that you want to achieve and like this we learn! Get energy from them to smash your own routines! When I don't feel like working out and nothing seems to be helping me to get at it, I just turn on a video of the Iron Wolf doing one of his crazy routines and there I go! Seeing someone else killing it motivates me a lot. It's the same with my YouTube channel or practically every other thing in life. When you're not feeling like doing something what you know you should be doing, know that there is someone else at this very moment who is doing the thing you don't want to do. Think of them! See if you have those people in your network, or find them if you don't have them. Connect with me if you want to! That's what Maximize Your Life is all about :-) You've got this! Now, go smash your goals!