When I was first making up my list of 31 Goals, I initially made some goals that either weren’t focused enough on healthy living or I thought there might be a better goal I could strive for instead (my husband particularly didn’t like my idea of taking more couples photos for some reason). So when I was trying to hone my list, I asked him for some suggestions on better goals to give myself and he came up with “do 1,000 squats in a day.” My exact reaction was a raised eyebrow, a smirk, and a “yeah right.” When he didn’t answer my smirk with his own, I realized he was serious. Then I asked, “Is that even possible?” Then I got the raised eyebrow and a smirk back as he said “of course it’s possible, but you’ve got to work up to it.” I still didn’t believe him so right then and there I grabbed my laptop and turned to almighty Google for answers. To my surprise there was such a thing; there were even websites listed with challenges to do 5,000 squats! Whoa. I decided to add this goal to my list because it sounded just outrageous enough to spur me on, but also because I like doing squats – I often hold a squat while I blow dry my hair in the mornings!
First, to be clear, when I say 1,000 squats in a day, I mean that I can complete 1,000 squats over an entire a day, not consecutively; I’d do sets of squats throughout the day that would add up to a total of 1,000 by the end of the day.
So where to begin? I didn’t want to create my own squat program because I’m not a professional trainer and have zero knowledge of how to properly build muscle in any sort of timeframe, so that just seems unsafe. Plus, why create work for myself when I could turn to the internet for ready-made and reviewed challenges? It was then I discovered that there doesn’t seem to be a challenge designed specifically to get me to 1,000 squats. Boo. There are, however, a few 30-day challenges and I also found a 6-week challenge. I’ve decided to kick things off with a 30-day challenge to reach 200 squats. The source is FitSugar and the original post can be found here: http://www.fitsugar.com/30-Day-Squat-Challenge-30806625.
I decided to start with this challenge because:
- 200 squats seems like a realistic short-term goal since I can already do a decent amount of squats in a day, and
- this challenge utilizes 5 different forms of squats which will work more muscles than regular squats do, and
- April has 30 days in it, which will make tracking my days even easier!
The different squats used are:
- Narrow – legs together, hands held out front for balance
- Narrow with Back Lift – legs together, hands held out front for balance; on standing lift leg straight back (2 squats, lifting each leg once constitutes 1 rep)
- Regular – feet hip-distance apart, hands held out front for balance
- Regular with Side Lift – feet hip-distance apart, hands held out front for balance; on standing lift leg out to the side (2 squats, lifting each leg once constitutes 1 rep)
- Sumo – feet wide with toes pointed out, hands held out front for balance
On the first day (the irony of starting a challenge to get to 1,000 squats on April Fools’ Day is not lost on me), I’ll do 6 reps of each type of squat, once (totaling 30 squats), and by April 30th I should be able to do 10 reps of each squat, 4 times (totaling 200 squats). At the beginning of May, I’ll review how I did and give you my thoughts on the challenge overall. Wish me luck!
S
Life Loofah 