Fitness enthusiasm doesn’t happen so easily for a lot of people. For many, it’s hard to stay motivated when it comes to their physical and mental wellness. Between work, kids, or just life’s many surprise obstacles, keeping up with exercise can feel like a chore, which makes it all the more important for trainers to incorporate fun fitness challenges into their repertoire. 

This article will explore several fitness challenge ideas you can use or customize for your own clients. Plus, we’ll lay out some of the benefits of challenges, and offer tips on successfully creating your own. 

What Is a Fitness Challenge?

A fitness challenge is a structured program centered around achieving specific physical (or mental) goals. These can be daily, weekly, or monthly fitness challenges, all of which require participants to complete an activity (with gradually increasing difficulty) within a given timeframe. Fitness challenges can help personal trainers motivate their clients, introducing an element of fun, competition, and accountability. 

4 Benefits of Fitness Challenges for Personal Trainers

Fun fitness challenges can help your clients through their wellness journeys in a number of ways. Here, we list several benefits to introducing daily, weekly, or monthly fitness challenges to your exercise arsenal. 

1. Fosters a fun training experience for clients

Working out is hard, strenuous, and leaves you feeling sore. But gamifying the experience and making it fun can change your clients’ mindsets and motivate them toward success. Fitness challenges can also foster personal and social competition, adding yet another driving force to their exercise commitment. 

2. Builds client loyalty

Keeping your routines fresh with fitness challenge ideas shows your clients you’re invested in their physical wellbeing, as well as their overall enjoyment with your services. Clients who feel you care about them beyond their dollars are more likely to commit to your business as well as refer their friends and family. 

3. Grows your online presence

Growing your online presence is key for success. The internet is a powerful tool for gaining notoriety, and when used correctly, can help you reach your target audience. The bigger your brand, the further your reach, making it easier to attract new clients and sell yourself as a premier fitness business. 

4. Establishes you as a fitness community leader

A diverse offering of fitness challenges can help unite your clients around common objectives, which can build community and foster a more positive, supportive environment. Once you’ve established that, more clients may look to you for your guidance and encouragement, giving them just the motivation they need to keep going. 

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10 Fitness Challenge Ideas

There are plenty of both physical and mental fitness challenge ideas you can incorporate into your clients’ regimens. Below is a list of examples you can customize for your own purposes. 

1. Step-tracking challenge 

Step-tracking is a great daily or weekly challenge idea, and it’s as simple as it sounds. Clients use the device of their choice to record their daily or weekly step counts. Participants with the highest number of steps in the given time frame can earn a reward or a special shoutout. Many challenges suggest 5,000-10,000 steps a day, but you can adjust this number to better suit your specific clientele. 

2. Bodyweight exercise challenge

With this challenge, clients commit to performing a set number of bodyweight exercises in a given amount of time. Bodyweight exercises such as planks, push-ups, or squats are typical for this type of challenge, with participants gradually increasing the amount of time or number of reps with each attempt. A timer or stopwatch will help accurately capture their exercise performance. 

3. Nutrition challenge 

Nutrition challenges focus on healthy eating habits, because how you consume your calories should matter just as much as your strategies for burning them off. The right diet can give us energy and improve the way we feel on the inside, while consistently eating the wrong food can cause digestive issues, mood swings, sluggishness, and a whole host of other adverse effects. 

For a weekly fitness challenge idea, see if your clients can eat a different color of the rainbow each day (green foods on Monday, orange foods on Tuesday, blue foods on Wednesday, etc.). For a monthly fitness challenge idea, ask your clients to give up processed sugar or alcohol for all 30 days. 

4. Core strength challenge 

Push participants to work on core exercises like crunches, leg lifts, or Russian twists, gradually increasing difficulty, reps, or duration over the challenge period. To up the challenge, clients can try to squeeze in more core workouts in the same period of time, or increase the amount of workout time each day or week. 

5. Personal record challenge

Personal record challenges let clients choose the exercise, whether it’s distance running, stamina training, or weightlifting – as long as they improve on their previous performance. For instance, if a participant ran a mile in 15 minutes, they should attempt a 13-minute mile the next time. Or, if they held a plank for 30 seconds on the first day, they should try to increase this time by five seconds each subsequent day. 

6. Attendance challenge

For some, simply showing up to the gym is a challenge in and of itself. In that case, an attendance challenge can help motivate your clients to get their butts to the weight room, yoga studio, or other fitness establishment and stay consistent in their routines. 

7. Meditation challenge

Mental wellness is an oft overlooked element of bodily health, but it doesn’t make it any less important. Create an objective centered around mindfulness, asking clients to increase the time they spend on their meditation practices. For example, on day one of the challenge, participants must do five minutes of meditation. Each day, they add another two minutes until they can comfortably spend at least an hour in a calm, meditative state. 

8. Disconnect challenge

Challenge participants to shut down their laptops, turn off the television, and put away their phones for a certain amount of time everyday. Have your clients use a timer, scheduled breaks, or an app-blocker for a specific period so they can instead focus on their physical or mental wellness. For an added challenge, participants may increase the time of their digital detox each day or week. 

9. Water drinking challenge

A water drinking challenge can motivate participants to get their fluids and their much-needed hydration. Encourage clients to use an app (or other tracking method) to log their agua intake, challenging them to either reach a consistent daily goal or slowly increase their water consumption over a period of 30 days. 

*How much water a person needs depends on their gender, weight, activity level, and other physical factors. Encouraging people to drink too much water in a short amount of time can cause water intoxication and lead to serious complications. All participants should check with their doctors before attempting any activity that may adversely interfere with their health. 

10. Headstand challenge

Not just for yogis, a headstand challenge can encourage participants to work on their strength and balance. With the right guidance, even beginners can attempt this challenge to see how far they can progress in a specified amount of time (typically seven to 30 days). 

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4 Tips to Create a Successful Fitness Challenge

Anyone can come up with a fitness challenge idea, but turning that into an effective activity is a challenge all on its own. Here are some tips to helping you craft the perfect exercise challenge: 

1. Set realistic goals 

Whichever fitness challenge ideas you consider, ensure they’re attainable for the majority of the participants. They should be challenging but not impossible – you want your clients to burn calories and sweat it out, but in a way that motivates them to push further, and not in a way that makes them feel weak and defeated. 

2. Provide clear and detailed workout plans 

Your fitness challenges should include all the necessary details for participants to execute successfully. Make sure you don’t just list the exercise descriptions, but how many sets and reps, length of rest periods, and which muscle groups the workouts will target. You should also detail the amount of time the participant has to complete the challenge (24 hours, one week, 30 days, etc.). 

3. Create social media posts or templates 

Post your fitness challenges online through your social media to increase engagement with your community and help attract new members. You can also create templates for exercisers to customize and adapt their own versions of your challenges to suit their own needs. 

Try GlossGenius today and take advantage of our advanced Marketing features to grow your fitness empire.

4. Provide regular check-ins 

Regular check-ins, such as weekly or bi-weekly, can help maintain accountability amongst your clients. Use these check-in times to offer feedback, answer questions, and provide motivation to participants. 

GlossGenius' Client Notifications can send automated confirmations and reminders on your behalf so you can focus on delivering quality service.

Manage Your Personal Training Clients with GlossGenius 

Fitness challenges can provide a refreshing boost to your same old routines as well as a new approach to exercise. Breaking up serious training with fun challenges to encourage friendly competition and set new personal records will engage your clients and keep them focused on their fitness. 

GlossGenius is an all-in-one tool for personal trainers to make the most out of their day. With features like Client Management and Client Insights, trainers can view and analyze valuable data about their customers and use that information to curate or improve each workout session. With Marketing, you can advertise your business across the internet to attract new clients and spread word of your brand. 

Try GlossGenius today for a 14-day free trial and see how we can benefit your fitness business!