Products You May Like
Since the world went into lockdown, there have been loads of fitness challenges doing the rounds on social media. Most recently, the 25-a-day push-up challenge has taken over Facebook. If you haven’t seen your friends dropping and doing 25, here’s the low-down: You do 25 push-ups a day for 25 days to raise awareness for mental health.
Each day, you nominate someone to start the challenge themselves. While some of the lockdown fitness challenges have been pretty outlandish (we’re looking at you, partner bicycle!), the push-up challenge is one we can get behind. Why? Because the push-up is a brilliant body-weight exercise and mental health is a cause we feel strongly about here at WH HQ.
READ MORE: I Did A 30-Day Push-Up Challenge. Here’s What Happened.
Start the challenge
Of course, we had to put our spin on it. So we’re levelling it up. In addition to raising awareness, we’re encouraging everyone who does the challenge to donate to Lifeline, which provides free telephonic counselling to those who can’t afford to pay for therapy.
READ MORE: 7 Gym Hacks To Try If Your Wrists Hurt During Push-Ups
We recommend R250 as a donation, but you can give as much you can afford. If you can’t afford a donation, do the push-ups anyway to create awareness! So here’s what you need to do:
- Pledge your support to the challenge with a Lifeline donation buy-in (if you can afford it).
- Every day for 25 days, do 25 push-ups and post about it on social media. Use the hashtag #WH25Pushups and tag us so we can share your awesome efforts!
- Every day nominate a different person to join you. That person needs to make their own donation and start their own 25 push-up challenge.
- Download the challenge card or save it to your phone. Every day you can mark off your push-ups.
How to do a push-up
So you’re totally down for the challenge but, um, you can’t actually do a push-up? No problem! Watch our YouTube tutorial on how to do a push-up. If you can’t do the traditional version yet, there are plenty of variations. Find the one that suits your fitness level.
READ MORE: What’s Actually Better: Full Push-ups or Modified Push-Ups?
What’s more, practising the variations will help you build the strength you need to get better at push-ups. Who knows? By the end of the challenge, you might well be banging out your first kickass no-knees push-up!
Watch the video:
For more tips on how to do a push-up and variations to build strength, get the June issue of Women’s Health, on sale now!
READ MORE ON: Fitness Fitness Challenge