There's no shortage of "challenges" to choose from these days. A 28-day Squat Challenge, 30-day Plank Challenge, 30-day Triceps Dips Challenge (seriously?). The allure is pretty obvious: it's just 30 days and you're done. Not to mention the often ludicrous claims associated with some of them. (Planking to lose inches from your waist? Gah!)
Challenges of this sort can be useful, if used properly. But there are, as always, caveats.
They're too short. It takes time for the body to adapt to stresses. The adaptation we generally want is building muscle, or at least making them stronger. But this doesn't happen quickly, especially when you're over 40. Many of these 30-day challenges want you to progress to more difficult exercises during the period. That's not usually a good idea, and worse when the Challenge itself includes the progressions rather than including them only when you hit some milestone (such as 90 seconds of plank). But even these milestones can cause problems because people can be so eager to move on ("Be patient, don't be a patient.") that they progress too soon. So we have the double whammy of not being long enough to allow for meaningful adaptations, and encouraging progressions that can lead to injury. Whee!
They're too generic. There's a reason we start our Blended Fitness programs with a Functional Movement Screen: not all exercises are suitable for all people. But these Challenges don't know that. They give the same exercises to everybody, even if you're not ready to do them safely. For example, many people need to work their way up to a squat, so a "Squat Challenge" is inappropriate and quite possibly injurious, especially since it will involve doing a lot of them. A "Triceps Dips Challenge" is going to be unsuitable for lots of people as they put a lot of stress on the shoulders. And even if the Challenge movement isn't unsuitable for you, will you be doing it right? You'd better hope so, because doing it wrong lots of times over 30 days can lead to lasting compensation patterns (that's bad) or injuries (that's worse). But how will you know?
They're not "training." Not unless you're training to be a plank competitor (or triceps dips champion of the known universe). Just doing a Challenge, or one Challenge after another, isn't likely to help you reach any long-term goal. But you remember I said they can be useful: when used as part of a training program. Sometimes, doing a Challenge can help push you to the next level on the way to a long-term goal. The cookie-cutter Challenges so common on the internet don't care about long-term goals. You should.
If you're thinking of jumping into one of these Challenges, make sure it's something appropriate for you. And something that fits into your long-range plans. Or it won't be so much a "challenge" as a waste of time...or worse.
Be seeing you.
-gary
Not really a challenge, but what do you think of this as an overall measure of progress (strength/cardio combo):
Maxed out elevator of kettle swings (mid weight) and burpees. So increasing reps 1,1 then 2,2… of each exercise without any rest until your muscles are so fill of lactic acid you fall over.
I’ve gotten up to 8,8
The “challenge” article I was reading said to get to something like 20,20 in a month by just doing only this 3 times a week (your criticism above holds) but I’ve found doing this after a strength training session once a week is both a really good “finisher” and a great measure of progress
Thanks for your comment. I’m not sure what progress it is intended to measure. If I’m reading it right, it’s doing one KB swing, then 2, etc.? Doing such low reps, especially at a mid weight, hardly seems worth the trouble. Burpees can be exhausting by themselves, of course, but can’t say I’m a big fan as they can be unintentionally modified with fatigue (the squat becomes a bend, the jump a hop, etc.).
It does sound like it could be a good finisher (although I’d rather the swings start at 11 instead of 1). Since you’re obviously experienced (“maxed out elevator” is not newbie lingo), then if it works for you, that’s great!
We’ve been having fun with on-the-minute swings. Start at 10 every minute for 10 minutes. If that’s too easy, increment next time. Nice way to “grease the groove” and get volume. But it’s not a 30-day challenge; just part of the program.