As many know or may not know, I’m doing 100 burpees a day for the month of May.
I was looking for a new challenge after I got done training for my race. I saw fellow gym-owner doing 100 burpees a day for 100 days (he’s nearly 90 days into his own personal challenge). I decided to start with 100 a day for the month of May. It’s been interesting so far! I’ll probably write a little more about it later on this month.
To complete the day’s burpees…I sometimes add them on to my workout…sometimes I work them in to save time. A couple Saturday’s a go, I was tight on time and had to be a bit creative to work them in. For example, instead of just doing pull-ups, I did burpee pull-ups. Instead of push-ups, I did burpee push-ups.
I did a video of the last 12 burpees of my 100 for the day, which happened to be done as burpee push-ups.
For me, my time exercising is often my thinking time as well. It’s my “moving meditation.”
Typically I do some self-video to have some footage to go back and review my form to be sure I am moving well and appropriately. I often take from those videos some clips for some social media.
I decided to leave it uncut. Some things I wanted to share with you all that I think will help you in your health and fitness journey.
- Stop comparing yourself to everyone’s highlight reels. If I were to clip this for a “highlight reel” of that day’s workout, you’d likely only see the first 6 reps…the fastest and the best ones. Similarly, that is what you are going to see from most of the people on the internet. Most people aren’t showing you where they were slow or where they struggled. Therefore, what you are often comparing yourself to is other people’s highlights where people are often moving effortlessly and everything seems so much easier. The road to personal improvement is grindy. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes you are slogging your way through. That is normal. Don’t worry how fast it may appear others are going. Focus on you and your path forward.
- It doesn’t matter how fast you finish, it matters that you finish. Of course I moved faster at first. Social media and other media outlets will lead you to believe that real change happens in 30 days, 6 weeks, or whatever quick time frame. The reality…it’s often going to take longer than you think and you will have periods of slower progress. For those on a weight loss journey…sometimes the weight comes off faster than others. Sometimes the progress you make in the gym is slow. The most important thing for you to do is not quit. Slow progress is still progress. Just because I slowed down, doesn’t mean that I couldn’t still finish it out. The work still got done.
- Change is hard work. You can definitely see it on my face and in the sounds I made, it got tough. It’s easy to stay composed in those earlier reps when you’re feeling fresher (the ones you often see on social media). Real progress is made when it gets tough and progress isn’t always pretty. Every time you push through when it gets tough and finish out the goal, you get all the more stronger, mentally and physically, for the next challenge or goal.
In closing, those are just a few thoughts that came to mind in that workout. The gym is a great place to not only grow physically, but to also grow mentally. People often have a desire to be more “mentally tough,” but that only comes from immersing yourself into challenges where you gotta push through something challenging. We don’t learn when things are easy.
This doesn’t mean that you gotta go do burpees (you can if you want!), but you do gotta do something that pushes you outside your comfort zone. That is where you really grow…mentally and physically.
You can do it. I believe in you.
Sincerely,
Coach Candice