The Outsiding 10 Week Physical Fitness Challenge

The Goals:

• Lose body fat and gain muscle.
• Follow a challenging yet realistic fitness and nutrition challenge that is scalable and portable.

The 10 Week Fitness Challenge Rules:

• 10 Weeks. Start on a Sunday or Monday
• Weigh yourself daily but ignore the numbers (track the weight for later use). This is important – you MIGHT NOT LOSE WEIGHT because you’ll be building some muscle at the same time.  We are recording the weights so that we can get a more accurate weekly average.  More below.  I use an older Withings scale that will record my weights via an app.
• Two workouts per day. Your choice of workout.
  • 45+ minutes per workout.
  • Must be 2 or more hours apart – enough time to recover from the first workout.
  • Any type of workout counts – even active rest movements such as a walk or yoga.
  • Recommend 3-5 days of resistance training (weight lifting, body weight, etc), supplemented by cardio or mobility and active rest sessions.
• Track your meals and keep to a smart diet.
  • Option 1 Use an online diet / healthy eating coaching service.
    • If you haven’t tried it, Noom is a great way to learn to eat right.
    • Precision Nutrition also offers an online diet coaching program.
  • Option 2: DIY
    • Choose a calorie and macro target by using the TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) calculator at https://tdeecalculator.net/.
    • Once you know how many calories you require, you can choose a calorie goal (cutting, bulking, or maintenance). You will also get suggested macros.
    • If rather than calorie counting, you prefer to follow a diet such a Paleo, Weight Watchers, Keto, or anything else, that is fine.
    • Track using MyFitnessPal, MacroStax, or any other tracking app.
    • Be consistent.
• 100+ ounces of water per day. It is okay if you add electrolytes as needed.
• Alcohol only one day per week.  Make sure to include it in your daily food tracking – and don’t go over your calorie budget!
• NO deserts, candy, pastries, or any other obvious sugary processed food.
• Weekly progress pics and measurements. Take a picture on the first day, and record the following information:
  • Average your daily weight for the week (add all 7 days, and then divide that total by 7).
  • Measure your hips.
  • Measure your waist.
  • Measure your chest.

How to NOT COMPLETE the Fitness Challenge

This challenge is designed to create smart habits – it is not an “all or nothing” challenge.  However, in order to complete the challenge you have to be consistent and follow the rules. You must start over if any of the following occur:

• You go more than one full day “off challenge”.  You are allowed a day off for special reasons.  This is not a cheat day but instead we’re adding some flexibility for sick days, family emergencies, travel days, and such.
• You go over your calorie budget more than twice in a week.
• You miss two or more workouts in a week.  We need 14 workouts per week, if you miss two or more then you are not being consistent with the challenge.
• Not following a diet.  Good nutrition is key for results.
• You are otherwise not consistent with the rest of the rules above.  For example – if you are not taking weekly progress pics, or not drinking your daily water requirement.

How to safely work out twice per day for 7 days

A key component of the Outsiding Physical Fitness Challenge is two workouts per day every day.  However, we do recognize the need for rest days during the week.

In order to allow for rest days and avoid injury, we consider “Active Rest” as an acceptable workout.  Just move!  Take your dog for a walk.  Do some yoga.  Go to the pool. Ride your bike.  Run around at the park with your kids.

Do not make these active rest workouts a key component of your workout regimen though.  You won’t see the results your hoping for if you do.

Note – doing your normal chores doesn’t count.

For example – if you mow your lawn every week then mowing the lawn doesn’t count for a workout.  But…if somebody else normally mows your lawn, then it is acceptable if you do it instead for a workout.  Make sense?  The idea being that YOUR normal activities do not count.  But if you are doing someone else’s normal activity, then you’re okay.

Example Workout Plan 1

Day 1 Workout 1: Strength  (Push workout: Barbell press, Incline press, Triceps pushdown, core work)
Day 2 Workout 2: Swim laps at the local outdoor pool for 30 minutes

Day 2 Workout 1: Cycling intervals for 1 hour
Day 2 Workout 2: Strength (Pull & calves workout: Deadlift, DB row, Lat pulldown, Calf raises, core work)

Day 3 Workout 1: Swim laps at the local pool
Day 3 Workout 2: Strength (Upper body workout: Military press, DB lateral raise, DB seated rear lateral raise, Cable crunch, core work)

Day 4 Workout 1: Active rest – Easy bike ride
Day 4 Workout 2: Active rest – Flexibility or yoga

Day 5 Workout 1: Laps at the pool
Day 5 Workout 2: Strength (Legs workout: Barbell squat, leg press, calf raise, DB lunges, core work)

Day 6 Workout 1: Strength (Upper body workout: Close grip barbell bench, barbell curls, triceps press, DB hammer curls)
Day 6 Workout 2: 45 minute walk

Day 7 Workout 1: Active rest – 45 minute walk
Day 7 Workout 2: Active rest – easy bike ride

Example Workout Plan 2

(Goal is to train for a 10k, focus on increasing flexibility, and keep muscle)

• Run 3 days per week
• Strength train 2-3 days per week
• Bike ride 2-3 days per week
• Fill in the rest with stretching/yoga

Day 1 Workout 1: Tempo run (30-45 minutes plus warmup)
Day 2 Workout 2: Evening stretch using Yoga, RomWod, Kaisa Fit, or similar.

Day 2 Workout 1: Strength Training (Lower body focused- 45 – 60 minutes)
Day 2 Workout 2: Evening stretch using Yoga, RomWod, Kaisa Fit, or similar.

Day 3 Workout 1: Easy run (this is the shortest run of the week, supplemented with pre-run stretching and foam rolling)
Day 3 Workout 2: Active rest – Easy bike ride

Day 4 Workout 1: Easy Walk
Day 4 Workout 2: Strength (Full Body)

Day 5 Workout 1: Mountain bike ride (medium to hard effort)
Day 5 Workout 2: Evening stretch using Yoga, RomWod, Kaisa Fit, or similar.

Day 6 Workout 1: Long run
Day 6 Workout 2: Evening stretch using Yoga, RomWod, Kaisa Fit, or similar.

Day 7 Workout 1: Active rest – Easy bike ride
Day 7 Workout 2: Active rest – Stretch

This is an example to show that two workouts per day is safely doable.  You can certainly feel free to change these workouts out with anything you want.

How to Track Your Work for the Fitness Challenge

You will want to track your daily goals so that you can ensure you complete this challenge.  Here are some tracking ideas.

Tracking Nutrition / Calorie / Macros:  We suggest you use MyFitnessPal, MacroStax, or Noom.  All three have website and apps available.  MyFitnessPal has a free tier as well as a premium tier.  MacroStax and Noom are paid services.

Tracking Daily goals:  We suggest you use a paper calendar, or some type of goal reminder app on your phone.  For example, here is an app called “Repeat Habit Tracker” that is on the home screen of my phone. I am prompted to check the boxes as I accomplish each daily goal.

Tracking Your Workout Calendar:

Almost any calendar will do – paper or electronic. I like to plan my weekly training calendar on Training Peaks.  Here is a view of my upcoming week’s Challenge Calendar on Training Peaks.  This is the website view, but there is also a good mobile app you can use.

 

Join Me!

I am starting the Outsiding Fitness Challenge tomorrow, June 20, 2021.  I’ll post progress and updates as I go.

Good Luck!

If you do this challenge we’d love to hear from you on how it went.  Comment below!