What happens when you row 10k calories in a month?
Aside from being a little bit of a mental headcase, how does the body respond?
Well, I’m glad you are asking those questions because I have the answer for you! I spent the month of January doing “The Burn” challenge, one put together by Concept2 (The rowing company we use here at the gym).
As a disclaimer, I’m not someone who has this innate workout regime. Since having Avery and becoming a dad my workout game has been average at best. I might still hit 1 or 2 days a week of some movement, but there have been some weeks that I miss completely.
The reason I want to write about this today is to give you a realistic expectation for doing any type of exercise consistently. I’ll discuss what kind of physical changes I had, mental changes, as well as emotional.
We are going to hit it all today!
The motivation
About a month ago I wrote about how motivation is only good for getting you STARTED with an exercise routine. Discipline ultimately decides if you stay consistent with it.
However the importance of motivation gets the foot in the door. So for me, this motivation came from 2 other trainers and a client here at the gym. These 3 helped to encourage me to do the row challenge. Two of them were already doing it, so it would be something that would be shared.
For me, this is huge. Doing something with others is a very motivating factor. It means I don’t need to go at it alone, that I can share my ups and downs with others going through the same thing.
So with that initial spark of motivation, I was off and away…with a goal of rowing 331 calories everyday for the month. (For those not familiar with rowing this takes about 25-30 minutes)
My piece of advice for you : Find others who will help to motivate you. That can be at best a trainer, an exercise class with like minded individuals, or a workout buddy.
Staying disciplined
When you commit to doing something “everyday” you need your habits to be on point. You need to do the thing even when you don’t feel like it, you need to summon the energy to get up and go.
Now for me, I love rowing. Rowing is my favorite form of exercise there is. IF there is one machine that will get you the best results…the rower is that machine.
It makes it easier to stay disciplined when you are doing something you enjoy. If someone told me I had to RUN let’s say a 5k everyday - there’s no shot that I would do that. It’s just not realistic.
Doing something you enjoy, at least at the frequency of a challenge like this, you need to enjoy it to some extent. Maybe that looks like doing pushups everyday, abs at night, or mobility every morning.
Some things I learned that helped me to stay disciplined:
Looking forward to listening to a fun podcast
Focusing on the small wins, IE: using the day before as a guiding hand to continue the progress forward.
Posting my results on a daily basis to social media
Thinking about how good I will feel after I finish the workout
All these factors were aiding me in getting to the point where my butt is on the seat, feet strapped in. Once you get to that point there’s nothing else to do but start moving.
And that is the hardest part about exercise - just getting into the environment to do the thing.
I think this is why we have anyone here at this gym. We create an environment that sets you up for success in exercise. The hardest part is getting the shoes on, getting out of the door and getting to the gym. Once you are here, the rest is “easy”.
For me it was all about looking forward to listening to a podcast as well as that sense of accountability knowing that I wanted to post a story about doing the row.
A side bonus for me was that I had several people tell me that my posts were motivating them to workout. So now it wasn’t just for me, it was for THEM. This made it feel more important, like it was something that can help others!
My advice to you: Join a community that is like-minded, and do things you enjoy!
The challenge
Entering this challenge knowing I had to do at least 331 calories every single day was daunting. When’s the last time I ever did exercise everyday?
It’s probably back to my high school days of playing football, track, and baseball. I never stopped and it felt similar to that in terms of frequency, and in terms of it being a daily habit.
I knew it was something that was going to be uncomfortable, but not impossible.
This is the sweet spot in terms of challenge. If something is too easy, you’ll get bored. If something is too difficult, you’ll get discouraged and fail.
For example, is doing 10 pushups a day really going to be a challenge that forces you to get out of your comfort zone just a bit? Maybe it is, but I would argue that for many…this challenge would not suffice.
What if you made those 10 pushups into 500 pushups? IS that realistic or is that too big a goal?
I like to think about running in this respect. So many people love running, and that’s great….but let’s set up the challenge to be in line with reality. Maybe attempting to run 3 miles everyday is too much, but running 2 miles a day is more realistic.
So my advice here: pick something that is a bit outside of your comfort zone, but not too unrealistic. Having someone with expertise in what is realistic for a challenge / goal is super helpful. (Email me about this if you need help!)
The physical changes I experienced
So aside from doing a challenge just to move and feel good…we all want to see some physical changes. Weight loss, getting lean, putting on muscle and looking better in the mirror is the goal for many. For me, this wasn’t the primary goal but it’s something I wanted to track and see what would happen.
Firstly before I talk about what DID happen for me, I want to talk about weight loss and exercise.
It is extremely hard to lose weight with just exercise alone. Let me explain…
With a challenge of 10,000 calories to burn in January…it requires at least 30 minutes of rowing a day.
We need to burn 3,500 calories to lose one pound. So in a month rowing as much as I did, as consistently as I did…the expected amount of total weight loss would be just under 3 pounds.
3 pounds!!! What the hell. I’m rowing every single day and I’m only going to lose 3 pounds?
Yeah…sorry but exercise alone isn’t going to burn that weight off.
So what changes DID I have?
Here are my stats:
Weight: Went down from 210 (ugh I’ve never been this heavy) to 207!
Body fat: Went down from 20% to 18.5% (I’m happy with this!)
Muscle Mass: Stayed the same at around 95 lbs of muscle.
Other than strictly my body stats, other physical changes happened for me.
I felt more energy throughout the days, and felt amazing after many of the long rowing workouts I had done. Like literally the endorphins and sweat…just felt so revitalizing even if it was 7PM and I was squeezing in the row before bedtime!
So far all good things…but what were some negatives after rowing this much?
Old injury flaring up…
I’ve been dealing with achilles tendonitis for quite a few months. I’ve done some rehab work for it, and it felt better entering the new year.
However around day 10 or so, my achilles was starting to act up. And I think this is where many people get into trouble as well.
If you don’t rest properly or do the proper body work to help with cranky spots on the body, consistently doing the same movement patterns will have a negative effect on the ability to heal and improve.
This runs true for any injury that isn’t given proper time to heal. Another example is if you are, let's say, hitting orange theory 5x a week and are constantly doing squats. If you have a knee issue, this issue may flare up and continue to flare up if not taken care of.
Overall though I have felt really good and noticed that I was leaner, had more energy, and just felt accomplished and proud about doing this.
My advice to you: Focus on the habits over the results at the start. Results come in good time, usually slower than we would hope.
Mental and Emotional changes
What do you do when no one is watching?
This is something that I always have thought about and something that I actually saw recently during a documentary about Jerry Rice.
When no one is pushing you to work harder…who’s pushing you?
Because when it comes to working out, changing your body…hard work and effort is required. It’s “easy” to work hard when you have a coach motivating you, telling you that you can do more.
But what happens when you are all by yourself, in your home gym or at planet fitness with no eyes on you. Do you still push? Do you still put that effort in?
This is something that as an athlete, I’ve always strived for. When it’s me against me, I want to beat me. The same can be said about Jerry Rice.
Jerry Rice historically did a hill run multiple times a week. He would sometimes run with teammates or friends. He would always try to finish first.
Now what happened on those days that no one was there?
He sprinted to the end, he finished strong because he knew what HE was capable of. If he let himself take a break, he would hold that personal grudge against himself.
This is exactly what I felt during my Rows…no one actually cares if I go harder, if I beat a previous time. No one except for myself…
This creates a stronger mental headspace when things get tough, you get tough.
My advice to you : who you act and how you train when no one watches is the true test of your character and resilience. Giving your effort matters when it comes to working out. You’ll get better results, be stronger mentally and overall feel better when you give the extra effort.
How this applies to you
I’ll finish this post up by relating this to YOU and how you can benefit from the things I’ve learned about myself, and about consistent movement.
I think the biggest takeaway from all of this : 1 month of doing consistent exercise isn’t going to transform your body.
No doubt that I’m proud of the completion of this challenge but it’s far more important to continue this momentum into February.
After all that rowing I only lost 3 lbs in a month. Not that I’m not happy about shedding some weight….but it was a TON of effort.
What’s more important is a combination of consistent exercise AND good nutrition habits. I didn’t mention this above but I probably had about 8 days during the month where I had desserts, and 3 nights I drank.
You can’t out exercise a bad diet - the numbers just don’t work.
I’ll reiterate that if you are looking to really be consistent in exercise, having some form of accountability is key.
I’ll leave it at this : curtail your expectations for any type of exercise for a month. Nothing grand will change, sorry to tell you this.
I’m here to help with any accountability as well as guidance for what you CAN expect in your results.
Thanks for reading my story!
Good stuff, RT! So many great points in this blog including consistency, picking a challenging, but realistic goal, and you can't outwork a bad diet. Keep it up!