Hi all
Welcome to my FITNESS FRIDAYS post, a regular or weekly challenge in Free compliments community about doing challenge in certain exercise. You do not have to be a professional one, all we need is a passion on doing this exercise to improve or maintain our fitness level.
Previously I tried to do the Jogging challenge last week and I made several preparation a head. However I did not finish that challenge and I would tell why I did that on later part of this post.
Now let's get to this week challenge!!!!
My Step Up Challenge
I have a Reebok Step, a platform designed for Step Up exercise and it's height is adjustable. This is not for a house decoration, because I still use it frequently. It's not because I love to do step up, it's more like this is an easy exercise that I could ask my parent to exercise together.
My old man is already at 77 years old, so I need him to do many things, not to torture him, but to make him indirectly take some exercise... except for this step up. Sometime I ask him directly to try finishing 5-8 repetition of step up, although most of the time he will reject and get back to sleep.
When he did, usually he took the full motion step up. What is a full motion step up?
Above youtube video is a full motion step up, which you make a full motion as if you are walking up on a stair. You start with left leg and end it with right leg. This method is debatable and many practitioner will say it is the wrong way to do step up. However I do not care whether it is right or wrong, effective or not, because my goal is to make old man make some movements whice those help him a lot maintaining his health and fitness level.
So how about me?
When @fc-fitness announced this challenge, I wanted to try something different from what I usually did I would do a Side Step Up, or some people call this as Lateral Step Up.
Side step up basically is the same as step up, the difference is how you use the step up platform. In my opinion, this way is easier, but you will need to focus more on the balance.
I share this video below, it's a simple but right to the point about how to do the side step up.
Ok now we get to the main point of this post, how did I perform my challenge?
I did step up several times a day, mostly 2-3 times a day however before I took this challenge, I did not do step up everyday, maybe twice or three days a week. So during this period, I got myself doing this step up everyday on multiple times
The one I recorded below was the last step up repetition I did on the night, around 23:00 before I prepared everything for my late night office work.
| Day | Step Up | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| 1 - Friday | 5 left and 5 right | What A Cheat |
| 2 - Saturday | 7 left and 7 right | Another Cheat day |
| 3 - Sunday | 9 left and 9 right | Now the challenge started |
| 4 - Monday | 10 left and 10 right | |
| 5 - Tuesday | 11 left and 11 right | |
| 6 - Wednesday | 12 left and 12 right | |
| 7 - Thursday | 13 left and 13 right | |
| 8 - Today | 15 left and 15 right |
The first 3 days I did those cheats, they were called cheats because I did some step up with more repetition before on those days. I did 8 left and 8 right everyday on the morning, I did not count what I had done outside my home on noon. I did not take the noon step up everyday because there were days that I had to wear safety shoes and it gave pain to my feet by doing that step up.
Today, before I started writing this post, I just finished 15 repetition of side step up. Because it's the last day, so I push it a bit more. and Yeah, I completed this week challenge of STEP UP
How About That Jogging Challenge
Before... I had been anticipating the Jogging challenge. In the past I liked to jog almost everyday however nowadays I never do any of those especially when my auto immune got berserk starting from 2021. So when @fc-fitness announced it two weeks ago, I was very excited and started some preparation from looking out some new route.
However things changed because I have been struggling to get any good time to jog around. Most of my day started by waking up at 5-6 AM and went out from home at 7 AM, and got back home at 20:00 to 22:00. So I could not take any jog on that day.
Unlike walking which I could do on night, I could not do jog on night. I am not living in elite cluster, or wealthy people residence area, so jogging or running on night is not good... It's not about health consequence of running at night, but when you jog or run and night, people might think you are a thief running from someone you just rob.
So I do not wish a bunch people run chasing me yelling something, that's not a good way to motivate me jogging or running LoL
Ok back to Jogging again
I did try several time, for example the first day I did the trial for the challenge, 26th May 2024. I jogged about 1.15 km with a pace at 9:13 minutes / km. My jogging speed was about 8 to 10 minutes / km. 12 minutes is my walking speed, 10-12 minutes is my fast walking speed and 7 mins above I will already be running.
So for me it's important to trace and maintain my jogging speed, regarding I was used to run. I needed to maintain my speed faster than 10 mins /km, ideally around 8:30 to 9:00. Based on that number, my jogging speed at that day was bad, but until now I still can not tell whether because I haven't done Cardio for a long time or it is due to my age.
I still feel bad for not joining this challenge, but I know I need to set my priority first and there are plenty of exercise including cardio exercise I could do at home.
Ok that's for today Fitness Fridays post. Thank you for reading my post, and I really hope you join FC-fitness Jogging Challenge for this week.
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