The 1-30-50 challenge is ridonkulous! It is pointless and is counter to everything I know about sports. There, I have said it. I feel better.
For those that do not know, the 1-30-50 challenge is simply to run 1 mile, do 30 push-ups, and do 50 sit-ups in one day, then to repeat that for the next 30 days (maybe they should rename it to 30-1-50-30). In the event that you cannot do this, you have to buy a chicken for some 3rd world family / village for $20 or some other type of donation.
At first glance this seems ok. I was ok with it at first. But after having a friend bring it up daily I started to think about it more. Since then, I have come to several conclusions. First, I did some researching on the net. I was wondering why I had never heard of this before and what was the fitness benefits of this challenge. I found nothing. Come to think of it, any sports program I have ever heard of or done recommends the exact opposite of this in terms of varied resistance or activities, and to give your body time to rest through the program.
I then tried to think of any sort of program outside of sports similar to this and could only come up with one thing that was similar, the attendance record from school. This is something you get for making it to school on time every day. Doesnt mean you are getting smarter or making the honor role, just means you were there with a heartbeat.
I was asked the other day on why I like sports. For me its because someone is always winning or completing some great achievement. The 1-30-50 does neither of these as when you are done you completed a normal part of a Jr. High PE program and it only punishes failure (in terms of the chicken and anyone you are doing it with talking smack). This is neither a great accomplishment or a win.
The only reasons I can think of for why someone would do the 1-30-50 challenge is because this is an entry exercise to someone starting a daily program and doesnt know what else to do, or that running, doing sit-ups and push-ups is a lot of fun, or you were just plain bullied into it.
