Health & Fitness

30 Day Fitness Challenges for Beginners

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I've set myself several goals for 2024, one of which being to improve my health. 

I've struggled with various health issues for years. In recent years it's become more complicated. 

I suffer from IBS and a couple of years ago my intestine decided to stop doing its job and I got rushed to hospital. It was all very uncomfortable and I was so bloated I looked like I was 9 months pregnant... seriously people were congratulating me and asking if it was a boy or a girl. Long story short, it made doing pretty much anything almost impossible for months. 

Shortly after getting out of the hospital, still on the mend from my digestive issues, I fell and hurt my leg. This meant I ended up having to rest it for weeks while it healed.

Then we all got covid for Christmas. My husband and kids were fine. Flu like symptoms for a day or two and then back to normal. I on the other hand had it bad. At one point we were preparing for the worst. It also ended up being long covid as had me KO until the end of February.

In March I got covid again and it was even more brutal. Again it was long covid and so I was basically on bed rest for 6 months straight. 

Insert various ups and downs in between and fast forward to October 2023. I got a cold which became bronchitis from one day to the next (I rarely have a simple cold). It was particularly bad and so needed strong antibiotics and corticosteroids to get it under control. 

Whilst dealing with the bronchitis my whole system went into tilt and numerous problems were activated. Sinusitis, asthma, reflux, inflamed lymph nodes, inflamed vocal cords, inflamed thyroid and add in allergies too.... With each problem constantly activating each other I'm a bit of a mess. This situation is still on going as my various specialist doctors try to work out how to control it all. 

Anyway this is what I'm working with. Not great I think you can agree.

It has all given me a reminder of just how important it is to take good care of my health though. Not being able to fully live life due to health issues is frustrating to say the least. The physical effects are obvious, but it takes a huge toll on your mental health too.

Whilst I still have a long way to go, I know that getting back into an exercise routine will help. Obviously I'm not going to be running any marathons for a while or doing anything else too strenuous after being out of action for so long (and still dealing with health issues). I'm going to be starting my fitness journey from zero.

The internet is full of fitness challenges to try but a lot of them are aimed at people who are already well on their way with their fitness journey. That's not me. I'm beginner level.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. The information provided on www.JoLinsdell.com does not, and is not intended to, constitute medical advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only.

Fitness Challenges for Beginners

I've decided to concentrate of 30 day fitness challenges as I hope to build up a regular fitness routine and make it a part of my daily activities. 

All the 30 fitness challenges I've selected here require little or no equipment to do and they can all be done from the comfort of your own home.

The world’s simplest 30-day fitness challenge to get you back on track

As the title of the challenge says, this is a simple workout challenge. They give a different exercise to repeat for each day of the week. For example, Monday is Jumping Jacks. Small number of reps and/or a short amount of time (max 8 minutes) for each day makes this a doable challenge even for beginners. 

I also like that they say it's ok to break the daily task down into smaller segments if it's too hard. If 5 minutes is too much break it down into 5 segments of 1 minute each. The point is to complete the task by the end of each day. 

I found a list of 7 home fitness challenges for beginners and each one is for the duration of 30 days making them all perfect for this list. These are a few I'm interested in doing myself:

The Plank Challenge

The goal of the challenge is to do a plank every day for 30 days and build up your plank time over the course of the month. You just set a stopwatch and try to plank for longer each time. 

The Wall Sit Challenge

This one is like the plank challenge where you set a stopwatch and try to increase your time each day, this time doing a wall sit.

The Squat Challenge

There are lot of different squat challenges available online but this particular one is very simple. You just need to do 10 minutes of squats every day for 30 days. 

This is another 30 day squat challenge I'd like to try. For this one there is a set number of squats to do each day which increase the further along you get in the challenge ending with 250 squats on the last day. It also has rest days every 4th day. The fact the the total number of squats per day can be done together or spaced out over the day makes it a doable challenge for beginners.

There are loads of 30 day challenges available online. Here's a few I found on Pinterest:

Sit Up Challenge

Starting with 10 and finishing with 100 on the last day of the challenge this seems doable. Again, like with the squat challenge, the total number for each day can be broken down into smaller sessions throughout the day. 

Calves of Steel Challenge

I found the pin for this challenge and went to check out the Darebee website. The calves of steel challenge is mixture of quick sets and increased repetitions. Again the total number of calf raises can be done throughout the day and no necessarily all together in the one session.

The Balance Challenge

Another 30 day challenge by Darebee (this is the pin). The balance challenge mixes balance hold and leg raises.

Have you tried any of these workout challenges? Which one are you going to try next?

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