This last month I decided to do a squat challenge. I decided I would do 100 squats every day for the month of February. Initially I started it out as a 30-day challenge. However, I decided that I wanted to have a monthly challenge for myself and anyone else that may want to join in on the challenge with me. I still kept it a challenge a couple days into March to hold true to the initial 30 days that I planned. I invited people on this website and on my social media pages to join in with me. I did have a nice handful of people that wanted to join in on the “fun”. I had a couple friends that asked me to help them remember to do it, and I’d send them a text here and there.
So, the big question is, how did I do? Well, I expected the first week to be hard and to be sore a lot. Truth is, that was very much true. I also expected that the sore would wear off and my muscles got used to it. This was fairly true as well. Honestly, once my muscles got used to being sore, I didn’t feel it throughout the day anymore. However, I did very much feel it when I did my squats. I started off with being able to do 100 squats straight. I would feel a burn and get tired and have to push through. What I didn’t expect was that while doing squats the later weeks, the burn would get so intense that I would have to break it up into 2 sets of 50 or I couldn’t finish. I even started feeling a good amount of pain in my knees and had to make some adjustments in order to support my knees from getting worse.
I did make it through the month, and I was very happy about that. I measured my thunder thighs at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month. I’ve mentioned before that my thighs are my problem area. It’s the first place that I gain weight and the last place that I lose weight. Because of this, I wanted to do this challenge to see if I could lose a little bit in my thighs with this challenge. I am happy to report that one month of 100 squats, and I lost one inch in my thighs. Not too shabby, I think. I’m happy with that.
As far as moving forward with squats, I definitely will not be doing 100 a day every day for the rest of my life. I do want to do 50-100 maybe three to four times a week. However, if you haven’t read my latest featured article by Stuart about not counting your reps. I may just try and do squats without actually counting the reps. He has lots of good points about it. I think I may be able to learn a little bit about myself in the process as well.
If you joined in the challenge, let me know how you did. If you do squats on a regular basis, what benefits have you seen?
Mel's Health and Fitness 