This past month I decided to do, and completed, a 30 Day Swolework Challenge.
Why? I like doing research, so in late June I acquired and read AJAC’s Shred30 program. Shred30’s premise is for bodybuilders to train one muscle group every single day for a month (typically in final prep for a bodybuilding competition). While tough for even serious bodybuilders to do, the extra work improves the strength, definition and density of muscles.
Obviously, I’m no bodybuilder, not even close. I’m an endurance athlete, and usually strength train with a 15-20 minute whole body workout maybe twice a week. I sampled some of the Shred30 workouts, and even the couple workouts I did were rather tough for me. At this stage, I couldn’t imagine doing 30 days of these nor did I fit the workout’s target audience, so for now I certainly wasn’t going to do Shred30.
However, I was drawn to the idea of 30 straight days of strength training. I haven’t done more than maintenance-volume strength training in a long while. And the idea of a 30 day trial or challenge is hardly new. You adopt a habit for 30 days and see how you evolve with it. After 30 days you’re free to dump it, and if it works really well for you it’s likely to stick once you’ve built the habit.
As I mentioned last month, I backed out of the Chicago Marathon. I have no intention of running a marathon this fall, so I have no serious need to endurance train until late summer (I have no planned races before October). This means I could back off endurance training and strength train as a 30 day challenge if I wanted. So I decided to do so through July 1-30.