Lessons from Squat Challenge

Back in September, after I had returned from holiday, I felt the need to do something that would encourage me to be more active.  Everything seemed like such a massive effort until I stopped with the All-or-Nothing thinking that I'm so prone to doing and came up with my own little squat challenge.  The next day I got out of bed and did one squat.  Just the one. 

I can't express how silly I felt doing just one squat.  It needed to be bigger, more perfect somehow? Or maybe a nice round number like 10 or 500.  There are lots of people out there that do heaps of squats every day.  I gently reminded myself that my purpose was to start small, get rid of the perfectionism and the go big or go home attitude that's stopping me from doing anything.

//Image from Runtastic: How to Squat

The next day I did 2, then 3, and so on.  I didn't miss a single day and increased by one every day.  The first couple of weeks went by no problems and I focused on quality.  By the third week I was finding that I was starting to breath heavier towards the end of the set.  Sometimes I found myself pausing before completing the set but the next day or so I was going longer without needing to pause.

I had started this challenge without an end point and was starting to get bored.  I added in more things like sit-ups and press-ups to shake it up a bit but I wasn't feeling it. 

After 6 weeks I decided to call it a day.  I felt good about what I had achieved and I was being more active in my everyday life again.  At the time, I wasn't seeing or feeling any benefits from the squats but then I noticed that I felt stronger when doing crossovers in figure skating.

Now I'm thinking about other things that I can start small with and build up over a 6 week period.  I might even do this same squat challenge again but add in a weight. Or do single leg lunges (haha no).