Finishing the 2020 Prepper Health and Fitness Challenge

Today ends the Prepper Health and Fitness Challenge. Thank you to everyone who participated. I hope that you found it useful and developed some positive habits, and that you’ll keep up the good work. Today is a summary to follow going forward.

Daily Habits

Here are the small habits we’re incorporating into our daily lives.

1. We’re drinking water before we drink other beverages.
2. We’re adding a serving of fruit or veggies before each meal.
3. We’re adding more movement to our day.
4. We are performing 5 minutes of gentle stretches before we get out of bed in the morning.
5. We are focusing on some rest or relaxation time on a daily basis.
6. Replacing calorie-laden, nutritionally-barren snacks with fruits and veggies.
7. Adding in the new habits to support the changes you want to make. (This will be different for all of us, based on our goals.
8. Remember to sit in a way that supports your body.

Workouts

Here are the workouts to figure into your lifestyle.

Strength training – 3 days a week:

• Upper body: Workout 1, Workout 2
• Lower body: Workout 1, Workout 2
• Core: Workout 1

Endurance – 2 days a week

• Workout 1, Workout 2

Flexibility – 6 days a week

• Daily workout, Workout 2

Remember to continue challenging yourself by increasing the difficulty of your workouts.

Measure your progress

It’s time to pull out the notes you jotted down on Day One and see how things are going. I recommend doing this once per month.

What are your measurements?

• Weight:
• Chest measurement:
• Waist measurement:
• Hip measurement:
• Biceps measurement:
• Thigh measurement:

How strong is your core?

Repeat this core strength test.

How is your upper body strength?

See how many push-ups you can do with good form. This video shows you how to do a push-up assessment. If you aren’t going to a gym, the no-equipment version starts at 1:48.

How flexible are you? Try the “sit and reach test.

Sit on the floor upright with your legs stretched out in front of you. This test is actually performed without shoes. You want to have 12 inches between your feet, and have a measuring tape in between your legs with the 15” mark in line with your heels. Now place your hands on top of one another, reach to see what number you can reach to! You get three trials to do this and your score is the highest of the three and remember to date it! (source)

How strong are your legs?  Try the squat test. (If you’re anything like me, your knees may snap, crackle, and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies when you do this. If you have any pain in your joints, stop immediately.)

Using a chair with no arms, like a kitchen chair, stand in front of it with your feet shoulder-width apart and sit down without using your hands. Then stand back up, also without using your hands. Note how many times you can do this while keeping good form.

How is your endurance?

For this test, you can use a multitude of ways to check out your endurance.

• Walking, either outdoors, at a large store or mall, or on a treadmill
• Running

You can use an app on your phone or a pedometer like a Fitbit to note your distance. Simply walk or run for a period of time (you decide that based on your current health) and document how far you went in that amount of time. When we re-test, you will go for that same amount of time and see how far you went after working at it for a month.

Here are two other ways to document your endurance that involve taking your heart rate.

• The 1-Mile Walking Test
• The 3-Minute Step Test

How do you feel?

The biggest test of all is this: how are you feeling? Are you feeling more flexible and energetic after two weeks of this challenge? Do your goals feel like they’re reachable for you?

Feel free to share any results you’d like in the comments.