A New Year, Time to Tackle that Fitness Bucket List, and We've Got the Fitness Challenges for You!

Need a good kick in the pants and some camaraderie to help you tackle getting in shape in the new year? Look no further, we at Joy of Fitness have some fun (a relative word here) fitness challenges that will whip you into shape, tone and strengthen your body. Get moving, feel good and inspire others to do the same. You can do these challenges at home by yourself or enlist some friends and family. For some extra support and expert advice join our Facebook Group: Joy of Fitness Challenges.

The story behind the starting of these fitness challenges and the Facebook group: 

L to R: Shannon Stoughton (a.k.a. The Old Lady) &
Erika Laubach (a.k.a. The Youngin')

It all started with my learning that one of my wonderfully talented Fusion Fitness instructors, personal trainer and Institute for Integrative Nutrition graduate recently turned thirty. I witnessed her perform a killer push-up one day while leading one of her classes and thought, I may be forty, but I am forty strong and I will show this youngin' how it's done forty style. So I went into one of the storage rooms in the studio (I wasn't going to humiliate myself, I wanted to practice first, ya know), and got myself into an awesome plank, started to lower down into a push-up, then face contortion, sweat beads of fear, flashes of spectacularly failing the pull-ups portion of the presidential physical fitness test in elementary school, and finally plunk to the ground- another spectacular fail. Gulp. Swallow pride. Got myself off the floor and went back into the big room with a sweaty, forced smile on my face.

For some reason witnessing Erika perform a proper push-up that day in time triggered in me an existential mid-life fitness crisis. I mean, I have been watching people perform amazing push-ups my whole life and have helped clients learn and perform them as well. I have even managed to pull one off when I needed to. However, arms have always been my weak point and push-ups have always been a struggle for me which is why I personally avoid performing push-ups for exercise like the plague.

Yes, even fitness professionals can improve upon performance, technique and have areas of the body they neglect. I figured it was about time, after forty years of living, to face this upper body weakness nemesis and nip it in the bud. It's time to take my own advice to break bad habits of self-doubt and to woman-up by tackling this challenging area of my body and here's why. I would like to improve upon my overall health. Push-ups are a great way to increase total body strength (when done correctly which equals safely), including targeting the elusive core (ab muscles for stabilization), and the upper torso by engaging the pectoral muscles, deltoid muscles, biceps and triceps muscles. Most importantly for me, push-ups are perfect for promoting good posture by targeting and strengthening the muscles of the upper back as well, including the latissimus dorsi, rhomboids and trapezius.

Of course misery LOVES company so I decided to confide in Erika about my mid-life fitness crisis and asked her to come in on the challenge. Thankfully, she accepted and tasked herself with the walkout exercise. Thus, the thirty/forty challenge was birthed. My goal is to do 30 consecutive push-ups in 30 days and Erika has decided to tackle 40 consecutive walk-outs in 30 days starting January 2, 2015. That's correct, the younger ones do more- only seems fair, right!

We decided to take it public to hold ourselves accountable, to cheer each other on, give each other advice AND just in case there are a few folks out there kind of like me and need a good kick in the pants to get started!

I have posted our workout challenge as a pdf document and as a pic in our Facebook group group Joy of Fitness Challenges  and below, if you want to join in on the fun. We are also here to help if you have questions about proper technique. Our goal is to provide a different fitness challenge each month covering all parts of the body for 2015.

Ready for a fitness challenge? Join us!