Day 77 - comments from lifehacker

It's exciting to have lots of visitors and more commenters on this blog! All motivation helps at this point. Please continue to comment!!

I also wanted to address the question that someone in the comments yesterday raised about why we'd do this challenge in the first place. Here is there comment:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Half Way Point!!! - Day 71":
"I caught this from lifehacker.com and I feel compelled to comment. I don't quite understand the challenge and I don't understand why you would put such stress on your body. Working out is a key function of a healthy life style. However, doing so in a manner that allows for no real rest is just a bad idea. What will you do at the end of it? It'll probably take some time for your body to heal... anyway, maybe I just don't understand, but I think the best results with a workout come from rest. Resting is where all the 'magic' happens and your fitness increases and your muscles strengthen. That's all, don't mean to rain on your parade. I just hope you don't cause yourself permanent damage to your wrists or backs or other areas you're over stressing."
Posted by Anonymous to The 2009 One Hundred Day Burpee Challenge at March 17, 2009 9:39 PM

I don't actually have the answer that addresses all the fitness parts of this because sometime I ask myself the same thing and maybe someone else (ahem, Hedwig) will do a full post on this.

However....why do people do any endurance fitness challenge? run marathons? hike the Appalachian trail? Free Dive? Climb Mt. Everest?

I think its a combination of mental and physical challenge. Also most people (that I know of) that entered this challenge are athletes and workout in some way on a regular basis. Part of being an athlete is being in tune with your body's needs. You certainly can't complete your goal if you injure yourself or deplete all your resources. From what I know of the challengers we are all being pretty smart about it. Taking a day off (and making it up later) when we need to, breaking it into smaller sets, modifying for injury or taking certain parts slow.

If you are starting this challenge and need advice on how to get through this safely please read through our old posts as there are lots of suggestions that we have shared along the way and also ask anything in the comments!

I know for me that I complain that my low back is cranky and sore. Well to tell the whole story it is cranky and sore because I have terrible posture (which I am trying to help by sitting on a swiss ball at my desk). This challenge is strengthening my core and helping align my spine and pelvis -- this causes some soreness. I counter it with lots of yoga & these days I am doing sets of 10 throughout the day because I can't handle one sitting.