30 DAYS, 4,550 SQUATS
Two Julies learn how to build a fitness challenge
It all started because a friend told me I have a flat butt.
The statement came in early March, before the advent of social distancing, while we trekked through the Houston Arboretum. She said it like a person would say “Your shoes are green” — no negativity attached, just the truth.
“Flat” is not a word in my body’s vocabulary; I have a muscular anatomy, and I refuse to let that go to waste because I have the privilege of a sit-down job.
A week after the arboretum comment, Harris County locked down the city to stop the spread of COVID-19. And I committed to do 4,550 squats in 30 days.
It’s simple: On April 1, I did 50 squats while listening to my morning podcasts and tweeted a gif of Xena, Warrior Princess — the truest form of internet chest bumping. I planned to increase my squat sets by 10 each subsequent day and rest on every seventh day.
Daily exercise challenges can be found in every crevice of the internet, and it’s easy to make them yourself or with a fitness trainer, such as Shelby Saylor at the YMCA of Greater Houston. The key to starting your own challenge is to sign a contract between yourself and the last day.
It doesn’t have to be squats. You can craft a challenge with situps, pushups or jumping jacks — as long as you know your own abilities, have an attainable goal and know the proper form for each exercise. Try starting with a reasonable number. Say,
20 or 50, and add increments of five or 10 each day. The numbers at the end of the month should be challenging — but safe.
After completing my first round, I messaged Julie Takahashi, my friend and co-worker who sits across from me when we’re not in a global pandemic. She’s the features digital manager at the Houston Chronicle.
Me, Julie Garcia, at 11:04 a.m.: “So I started a squat challenge. Already did 50 squats.”
Julie Takahashi, at 11:05 a.m.: “I want to do this.”
The challenge is laid out on a calendar of April with squats allotted to each day. Once I sent it to her, she immediately looked at the last day — she wanted to know the total number of squats. It was like skipping to the last page of a book.
“It was daunting but also pretty exciting because during this whole quarantine time, I want to tackle new things,” Takahashi said.
The Julies Workout Challenge was born.
Each workday in April, we paused midday for a squat break, set to a Julie-curated playlist “workout/squatout” on Spotify (or is it Squat-ify?). One day, she would choose a song, and the next I would pick one.
Some days were brutal, others were a breeze. But each day, we had each other to lean on through our perfectly timed message bubbles of “Go, Julie, go!” and “Ayeeeeeee” after we had finished our session of sweating buckets.
Tackling 200-plus squats a day is not easy — period. But having her to do them with made it equal parts competition and companionship. It felt like we were working out together in the same room.
“You and I were going to do this together and be able to hold each other accountable. It’s what makes weekdays so much easier to accomplish,” Takahashi said. “What helps me get through the quarantine is staying on a bit of a schedule and having a purpose.”
Saylor, association director of healthy living of YMCA of Greater Houston and a personal trainer, said exercise challenges are a good way to keep fit and part of a community while you’re staying home.
Challenges typically start on social media, such as the #See20Do20 Instagram pushup challenge, or tagging friends in a workout selfie, which means it’s their turn to exercise, snap a picture and tag others, she said.
It’s the social-media fitness community’s way of asking, “Did you work out today?”
“One of my friends started tagging a group of four girls every day in her workout posts, and I started getting serious FOMO (fear of missing out),” Saylor said. “It was their reminder to post their progress for the day, and they made it fun. Make a buddy and do something you enjoy.”
The team at the YMCA wants people to take care of themselves during this time. The trainers conduct daily livestreamed workout classes on the Y’s YouTube channel, where a “whole universe of virtual content” exists to help people work out from home, Saylor added.
The squat challenge was nearly finished by the time I interviewed Saylor on April 22; we were already up to 230 squats. I mentioned that my thighs felt like they were ready to “hulk out” of my jeans, but I didn’t notice any other changes.
It’s common for people to feel like they’re not seeing progress, Saylor said, because we have specific expectations of what we want to see. But accomplishment cannot be based only on the mirror.
Progress can be measured by how we feel in our clothes or how much faster we are able to run. If anything, the challenge is a guaranteed break in the middle of a stressful day to do squats, listen to music and sweat through a T-shirt with a good friend over the internet.
“I can almost guarantee that if you took measurements at the beginning and then did now, you would see some changes,” Saylor said. “We see ourselves in the mirror every day, and we’re our biggest critic. Even though it’s a small daily challenge, there’s going to be some change there over 30 days.”
As our first fitness challenge winds down, I asked Takahashi what progress she has made. Her butt is more toned, and she’s able to do more squats without stopping for a break, she said.
She has combined the squat challenge with a 30-day yoga challenge and plans to run a 5K in her neighborhood before the month is over. The squats have made her cross-training efforts easier, and she’s ready to keep the momentum.
We’re already figuring out our May fitness challenge, which will likely combine at least 150 squats per day with an abdominal exercise, such as situps or crunches.
Plans are already underway to reopen parts of the Texas economy, including gyms, by mid-May. But I have a feeling she and I will have reasons to start a new fitness challenge every month for the foreseeable future.
“On a deeper level, we’re able to just make our friendship even greater through it because we’re getting to know each other,” Takahashi told me. “That helps with not having human interaction throughout all this. We would be doing the same thing in the newsroom.”
It’s free, it’s fun, and we’re better friends now than we were at the start.