Wall Sit 30 Day Challenge Begins

Creating a healthy habit with friends and family is fantastic! That’s what we are doing in the month of September with The Healthy Giraffe 30 Day Challenge – Wall Sit. In today’s post I’ll share how this transpired and where we are headed. The response in joining the challenge has been fantastic. I want to make this and future challenges:

• Fun with the social aspect (share experiences and pictures in our Facebook group page)…have fun with it…
• Attainable (minimal challenge guidelines along with participants making their own personal goals)
• Healthy (our health benefits in some way with the activity)

I shared this message explaining the wall sit challenge on Facebook prior to the September quest:

Earlier this month I blogged about a 30 day challenge planking, My Planking Core, in order to work on my core. It was a fun way for me to focus on a specific objective and hold me accountable for the new habit I wanted to form.

I now have decided to make this a monthly challenge. Something that will challenge me for 30 straight days to form a habit around something healthy. I hope you join me for some or all….fun and no pressure.

I am continuing on the path this month to strengthen the core -and wall sits also target glutes, quads and hamstrings. I’ve mentioned this to a few friends and already have commitments…yay!

I’m sharing a picture in the comments (bottom of this blog too) to give you an idea but it’s simple – you sit at a 90 degree angle like you are sitting on a chair but there is no chair…just you and a wall.

Elia, Eva and I were watching the movie, Miracle, and got inspired by the 1980 Gold Medal USA hockey team doing variations of these and we were hooked…

We will keep this simple. Guidelines will be to do it daily for a minimum of one minute (break it up if you desire – ex. 6 x 10 seconds, 3 x 20 seconds, etc.). Then you can make it what you want – ex. increase by a second each day or simply do a minimum of one minute and vary. But the goal will be to do it daily. If you miss a day, try not to miss two in a row…no pressure.

It’s pretty cool how organically this blossomed into the challenge.

Tips

Here are a few tips to help us:

• Video demonstration of the wall sit – my first Healthy Giraffe YouTube video post…be kind…it’s challenging…ha! You can also give the video a Thumbs Up if you like and Subscribe to the Channel so you receive future videos.
• Create habits – I’ve used these practices via James Clear’s techniques in the book Atomic Habits
  1. Start with an incredibly small habit
     • I started day one with a one minute wall sit (it felt doable without taking a break); then I did it again later in the day with a group…fun
  2. Increase your habit in very small ways
     • I will increase by any duration each day even if it’s one second
  3. As you build up, break habits into chunks
     • As I increase duration I may be breaking this into intervals (ex. 4 x 30 seconds, etc.)
  4. When you slip, get back on track quickly
     • If I miss a day I won’t make it two in a row
  5. Be patient, stick to a pace you can sustain
     • I will stick to a duration that is reasonable by day 30…so not raising my duration in any dramatic way each day. I’ll let my accountability partner know when I complete. Now I have an entire community to be accountable to as well…love it!

Thank you for the incredible response to try this challenge. We don’t have to be perfect, simply try the activity and do as many days as you can.

If you haven’t joined yet, start now and get in as many days as you can. You can email me at alangraff@thehealthygiraffe.com to be added to the group (Facebook).

– Add Health to Your Life