Whether participating in a 30-day challenge or competing against friends, you’re improving your fitness and having fun. Or are you? While fitness streaks can be fun and motivating, they have downsides.
The Pros Of A Fitness Streak
A fitness streak can be a very positive experience. There are some great reasons to start one, especially if you are starting or restarting your fitness journey. Whether it’s 10,000 steps a day, running a mile, walking for 20 minutes, or a specific workout every day, a fitness streak can help establish a routine. A routine makes you consistent, which is critical for achieving your fitness goals.
But it can be rough, especially for beginners, until you become consistent. However, a streak can keep you motivated. Who wants to see that number go to 0? Not you, so it pushes you enough to get it done to add +1 to your streak.
If you’re participating in a streak with others, it can also help everyone stay accountable. Who wants to let other people down and have to start over at the bottom of the list? It’s easier to achieve your daily goal and report success than to tell everyone you broke your fitness streak.
Underneath it all, by maintaining your streak, you’re improving your overall fitness. Over time, you will experience other benefits, such as improved sleep, a better mood, reduced stress, and increased energy. There are many positive aspects to starting and maintaining a fitness streak. However, some things can ruin the experience.
The Cons Of A Fitness Streak
First, engaging in fun activities is the easiest way to establish a consistent exercise routine. It doesn’t feel like a chore if you enjoy it. Therefore, you’re more likely to jump in and do it. Otherwise, you’ll begin to loathe your workouts and start to make excuses for why you can’t do them. So, if you’re doing a fitness streak of an activity you don’t enjoy, you’ll have a tough time maintaining it.
Fitness streaks can quickly go from fun to not. As the number grows, you may feel pressure and stress over maintaining your streak. If you miss a day, you may feel like a failure, and starting over feels like starting from scratch. You may even sacrifice a quality workout and rush through it to keep your fitness streak going. You may also become more focused on the streak and less on challenging yourself. As a result, you will plateau or decrease in fitness over time.
You can fall into the trap of mindlessly doing your workout without making any incremental improvements to challenge yourself. As a result, you may be missing important messages from your body and pushing through pain, sickness, or fatigue to keep your streak alive. This is a recipe for disaster because you’re at a high risk of injury and burnout. Either will break your streak and force you to stop exercising while you recover.
Tips To Participate In A Fitness Streak
When the streak becomes the primary focus, all bets are off. You’ll do what you can to maintain your fitness streak, such as going for a walk at 11 PM to get in your steps or jumping on the treadmill to run your mile before the clock strikes midnight and a new day starts.
Fitness streaks can be a double-edged sword. While they can be motivating, the goal is to find a balance so you don’t just show up to check something off your list but to work on improving your health. So, if you want to start a fitness streak, here are some tips to help you find balance.
Count Your Fitness Streak By Weeks Instead Of Days
It’s easy to lock in a daily goal. But when it comes to your health, pushing yourself when you are run down or ill will guarantee the end of your streak shortly after. Instead, create a weekly plan that allows for some flexibility, giving your body the rest it needs. For example, if you plan to work out four days a week, you can declare victory for the week by working out four days, no matter which days you exercise.
Give Yourself A Streak Freeze
Life is busy, and anything can derail your daily plans. Give yourself a streak freeze when the day gets away from you or you need a day to rest and recover. However, don’t just give yourself a streak freeze whenever. You have to earn them. For example, for every week you maintain your streak, give yourself a streak freeze for a day. You can even limit the number of freezes you can have. If you want, you can let them expire.
Base Your Streak On Many Activities
You’re doing a fitness streak to improve your health and become consistent. Instead of picking one activity, like 10,000 steps a day, consider making a streak count for any activity you do. If you’re flexible about what counts toward your streak, you’ll reduce your risk of boredom, burnout, and injury. Whatever activities you decide to count, make sure they are activities you enjoy. It’s easier to maintain your streak when you like your workouts. Otherwise, it won’t be easy to keep it going.
Count Planned Rest Days As Part Of Your Streak
If you want to maintain a daily streak, consider counting planned rest days or rest-day workouts. Rest days can be no or light activity. Instead of relying on exercise to maintain your fitness streak, you could keep a calendar and use different colors to mark each day for exercise, active recovery, and intentional rest.
Alternatively, you can include non-physical wellness activities as part of your streak. For example, you could spend a day planning your upcoming workouts or meals, learn new things about health and fitness, or update your fitness journal with thoughts and reflections on your journey so far.
You can also think of rest days as active recovery. By thinking of rest days as part of your streak, they become a purposeful action toward achieving your fitness goals, rather than breaking your streak. By including lighter or planned recovery-focused activities, you can stay consistent while prioritizing the rest that your mind and body needs.
Maintain A Fitness Streak With Others
Exercising with a group can be fun and provide the extra support and accountability to participate and stay engaged. Instead of relying only on your efforts to maintain a streak, let the group work together. You can take turns contributing to a streak or declare victory for the day if most of the group has completed their daily fitness goals. Everyone can work together in many ways to build and maintain a fitness streak. You and your friends can make up the rules together so everyone feels included and has fun.
The Takeaway
Fitness streaks can be fun and motivating, but can lead to injury, stress, and burnout. However, you can participate without the downsides by striking a balance between listening to your body and what you’re tracking. No streak is worth an injury, so build in rest days or rest-day workouts when your body tells you it needs rest. If you ignore those signals, you will get injured and eventually have to stop exercising to recover. If your recovery requires weeks to heal, you will have to start over, not only on your streak but on some, if not all, of your fitness gains.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
