21DFC Day 19 – Try a Different Fitness Activity

This is Day 19 of the 21-Day Fitness Challenge held in Feb 2012. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.

Gymnast

Hello and welcome to Day 19 (Feb 21) of the 21-Day Fitness Challenge! :D We now have only *3* days left before 21DFC comes to a close!

21DFC Day 19 – Try a Different Fitness Activity

What fitness activities have you done before? What fitness activities have you been doing for 21DFC? What activities do you plan to do in the future in living a physically active life?

In today’s task, I’d like to challenge you to try out a different activity for fitness.

Meaning rather than exercise a particular body part in the gym all the time, try to workout a different body part.

Meaning rather than stick to the same few sports, try a different sport.

Meaning rather than do the same fitness activites each week, try some new activities.

The objective is to open yourself up to different ways to keep yourself fit.

After all, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of physical activities out there! From dancing (salsa, tango, ballroom dancing, etc), to ball games (basketball, rugby, football, volleyball, etc), to racket sports (tennis, badminton, squash, baseball, etc), to martial arts (judo, taekwando, mixed martial arts, wushu, karate, etc), to water sports (swimming, water polo, water aerobics, etc), to sea sports (canoeing, dragon boat, kayaking, sailing, surfing, wakeboarding, etc), to many other kinds of fitness activities (ballet, yoga, pilates, fencing, gymnastics, wrestling, frisbee, etc). Why limit yourself to the same few activities you’ve been doing?? :D If you don’t like it, simply quit after the first try. There’s no obligation to continue at all.

Identify a few new activities to try out. They could be activities you’ve always wanted to do but never got the chance to do. They could be activities you would have never imagined yourself doing, but you want to branch out of your comfort zone and try that now.

You don’t have to do that right away today, since it might not be possible. (But if you can, by all means – go ahead and do that!) Go read up on the activities today, research on existing groups / classes you can join in (if applicable), then plan for it in your schedule.

For me, the new activities I want to try include a sea sport (sailing?), dragon boat, and rollerblading / ice skating. I already have a friend who does dragon boat, so I’m going to check with him on his plans and join him in his next dragon boat session. With rollerblading, I’m going to check on classes later today. And I have a friend who has been keen to try sea sports for recreation, so I’m going to link up with her today to set up plans in that regard.

How about you? What new activities do you want to try out? Why? When are you going to do them?

Share Your Plans/Progress for Today!

What is your intended fitness plan for today? What physical activities are you going to do, and how long do you want to do them for? Share with us!

Update your progress as you go along. At the end of the day, review your progress and share your learnings.

Check out other participants’ responses and join in the discussions!

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22 comments
  1. Celes
    Celes 13 years ago

    1+ hour in the gym today. 30 minutes recumbent bike, 20 minutes stationary bike, 3 minutes knee presses and 10 minutes indoor rower. Yeah! :D Tomorrow would be the same gym workout + kickboxing lesson in the evening. I might give morning gym a miss due to the kickboxing lesson – I’ll see how it goes.

    On a totally separate note, my internet is still giving me issues. I’ve narrowed the problem down to the cable (wire), so maybe I’ll go buy a new wire later. Buggers how having computers / internet down nowadays can cause so many problems (for me, anyway – last week it was the “breakdown” of my computer, and now I’m not able to connect to the internet). I guess as a society we are now heavily dependent on the internet. :rolleyes:

    • Celes
      Celes 13 years ago

      Update – Now my internet is miraculously working? :rolleyes: LOL. Hope it doesn’t go back down now. I realize quite a lot of my time was wasted in the past on troubleshooting / administrative hiccups such as this! Moving forward I’m weeding out such events. Buying a new computer was a big step!

      • Good to know that your internet is working again. It’s very annoying when our internet or laptops break down ( in my case, my laptop totally said a goodbye to me :rolleyes: )

        Although the internet and other mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablets bring us a lot of benefits, we are hugely dependent on them. :( Sometimes, they can cause enormous troubles when they die or have problems. So I sometimes don’t feel like how dependent I’m on them. @.@

  2. As I said before in one of my older posts, I’d like to try out jogging, just gotta wait for warmer weather (and the good news is that snow is finally melting :D so I really hope spring will come soon!). Other than this, I’d like trying one of those Brazilian dance-workouts which are fun but really work your body. I’ll try and see if I can find a video online since we don’t have a Brazilian dance school here, lol.

    Today I did my 30 minutes workout and I’ll go for a walk in about half an hour. Going to take advantage of the warmer weather and walk to the library instead of taking the tram :)

  3. hi celes, you are right doing different kinds of activities good for our physicle & as well as our mental health. usually my exercise week include in 3 days aerobics & 2 days strength exercise & on weekends i do rest :D . in future i will add yoga in my fitness routine because yoga is very helpful to prevant heart disease & maintain over all health & flexibility.

  4. I wish for a lot of sports, I admire people who go for diving, but I don’t have the chance to go for that, just had a chance to go for snorkeling a few years back. I wish to get a diving license, but I guess it needs good stamina and good in swimming. That is the reason why I wish to increase my stamina and learn swimming. :P Of course, money is one of the issues too…

    Today, I have event tonight, so my time was quite rush, until I just took bread for dinner. Now I would just do around 20 minutes of stretching, then quickly go for meditation and sleep after all. I feel kind of exhausted today… >.<

  5. Christine Aicken 13 years ago

    Yes when I get home I will give it a try to mix it up more & make it interesting with different excersises, while I’m away I am doing hours of walking seeing the sites, which I would normally not be doing when I’m home so today after taking the scooter back after riding around the island, then I had to walk again, did over 3 hours of walking for the day!!!!!

  6. What new activities do you want to try out?

    I would like to try some sort of snow sport or activity while winter lasts here is Canada. Going out skating, skiing, or other activities like that would be great.

    Why?

    I am a huge fan of using what you have around you at your present situation. There is nothing stupider that longing to do something way far away or something at a different time, waiting for sometimes years to do this activity or thing, and then once you have moved or are at a different age wishing to do something in that old area or when you were at a younger age. (me wanting to be finished high school and out into the world, and then wishing to be back in high school).

    Just take advantage of the way things are right now and use it to the best of your ability.

    When are you going to do them?

    I know this kind of defeats the purpose of this activity, but I do not plan on doing these activities right now. I am more focused on trying to exceed and master certain types of exercise before moving onto other ones.

    Today I went for a nice, mind-clearing walk for about 20 minutes. It was so nice because it was early in the morning and when it was nice and quiet out. The birds were singing and it was great.

    Keep it up! We are almost there everyone.

  7. What an experience today!!! No exercise for day as I was out of town all day attending to some personal work, though it was a thrilling experience as we supposedly walked a tad bit of a distance due to having a driver whose sense of driving (parking rather) is way in the ICU, then we have our city officials who can’t seem to speak straight and polite (and they call tourists to our country with the promise of making them feel home)..so it was a merry-go-round just the fun part seemed to me out….so though it’s gut wrenching to think of, but I missed proper-well organised exercise session….yeah Celes, i know i should kill myself over it, but in a way, I enjoy this as it strengthens the promise of the pledge that I’ve made keeping exercise a life-long process……
    Awrite then, as for a new activity, i’d love to try out swimming, at perfect harmony with the azure waters of the pool…though it wouldn’t be as musical and graceful for me as i’d be starting from square one……and also on my list is gym and aerobics…yes this activities can be done at home but then also we’ve seen the benefits of us growing together on this PE challenge, how awesome would it be to recreate the same enthusiasm of growing together on a different place yet intended for the same purpose……
    Wishing you all a love filled, happiness filled, hitches free, fitness filled day/night ahead…….. :angel:

  8. Kate Britt 13 years ago

    Celes, your list of activities gave me all sorts of good memories of having done almost all of those in your list, and I’ve excelled at many of them, competitively. I don’t want to be age-ist about myself, but give me a moment here — sometimes I miss my younger body and all it was capable of without even thinking, certainly without causing me pain that won’t go away. Sigh. I never thought I’d “let” my body accept the limitations imposed by aging bones, but it appears that sometimes there’s no choice. OK, climbing back out of that frame of mind now….

    To the end of slowing down the body-aging symptoms, I’m gradually incorporating weights into my gym routine to keep those muscles and bones strong.

    My partner and I have signed up for fly-fishing lessons in March, plus a 3-night class learning to tie flies for fly-fishing. Neither of us has done this sport, so this is very special — it’s rare to find anything that we can do that’s the first time for both of us. I’m also excited because this new hobby will combine keeping active with doing a new craft.

    I’m also working at overcoming a fear I have of riding in mountain gondolas, because then I can go up the mountain with my partner whenever he goes skiing and I will skate on the skating rink up there, overlooking beautiful Vancouver.

    Come summer, I plan to do more hiking and biking and whatever else that’s fun and outdoorsy.
    ………..

    OK, I’m headed out to today’s activity: It’s aqua-fit day again! Yay! The one thing right now that doesn’t hurt by hip, so I’m really looking forward to the class.

    • ^^ I really admire your attitude. It’s rare to see people who really exercise regularly and enjoy it :D
      I’ll be happy if I’m as active and positive as you at your age :dance:

      • Kate Britt 13 years ago

        Thanks, Linh! I appreciate your support. Funny thing about getting older — the inside of us remains the same young person. I mean our minds, hearts, souls, emotions, everything that we think of as “me”, it doesn’t get old. Every older women I talk to has an age they feel they still are, inside. Mine was age 23 until a few years ago, and then I realized I actually feel more like 43 (because I realized I no longer have the fleeting attitudes of a 20-something, like the need to party hardy, or make babies, or food binge, or get into the drama and angst about relationships, etc.) So here I am, 63 and still feeling like a 40-something woman. The mirror, well, I think maybe that’s my mother in there — no idea how she got stuck in there, but oh well, I’m growing to like her more and more as I get nearer the age I remember her as.

        Not that that has much to do with our topic here :p …. except as a fun note, something for all you younger women to think about as you get older.

        One of my secrets to saying active and positive and healthy and happy? Being madly in love, which makes me want to live FOREVER with my guy, and not just live a long time but live as fit and healthy as we can so that we can enjoy our lives together until the very last minute. :heart: :heart: :angel:

        • I feel the same way you do Kate…feeling 20 years younger than I am! You have really expressed very well how all that makes “me” just does not age! :D

          That is so awesome that you and your guy are so in love, and staying healthy to enjoy yourselves and each other till the last minute! I just LOVE that! :heart:

          Your physical activities all sound very attractive. I’m interested in how you do with this topic of fitness/physical activity in the upcoming months, and beyond! :D

  9. Kept up with walking exercise today and yesterday. Think today I did about 6.5km.

    Been a bit busy but still keeping up with the challenge (apart from finding new activities!)

    Best wishes everybody for the last 2 days! Go team! :dance:

  10. Tina Davis 13 years ago

    When it gets warmer, I would like to take a kayaking class because I don’t know how to roll. Once I learn that, I’m going to ocean kayak! :cool:

  11. will try these after 21dfc and warmer weather :

    Biking. soon (kd)
    Kayaking on the Hudson
    rollerblading (call Christopher)

    tomorrow i am going to try the cardio kickbox class (yikes sounds scary) and if i hate it i have a back up class i can switch into

    also aqua fit class i did once it was REALLY hard…gonna try again

    • Today i did 45 minute spin class that was very different than the others i take…teacher was very zen – energy transfer ..spiritual about it….i was turned off immediately because he was nothing like my favorite teacher but i let go of all my judgements and assessments and just did the class…it was great. left feeling uplifted

  12. On Day 19 I did almost maybe 3 minute and 29 seconds of burpee.

    What new activities do you want to try out?

    Single-leg rising deadlift

    Why?

    It doesn’t require any equipment.

    When are you going to do them?

    I am planning on doing it tomorrow.

  13. ^^ I walked for 15 mins and did some simple workouts. My day wasn’t really active :(

    Anyway, reading your activities list makes me realise that there are so many new and interesting things. It seems that I’ve been quite restricting myself to some common kinds of fitness.
    Because of this challenge, there is an eagerness for new sports growing in me now. :) I really want to dance and play tennis. But all these activities have to wait until summer when I come back home, I guess. ^^”

  14. A good alternate activity for me would be cycling. Except I don’t have a bicycle! I’d eventually like to get a Dahon folding bicycle, but it’s not really a priority right now.

    Dancing would be good too.

    I’m a day late here again, but did another 25 minutes of rebounding for day 19.

  15. This day was a great day since I started a new routine. I did a “practice round” of the workout. I exercised conservatively since it was new and I wanted my body to get used to the exercises. I performed every exercise with perfect technique and I did one set of each exercise in this first workout! I recruited some social support partners. I picked up a copy of Men’s Health. Can I say that? I got some support from a buddy at work. Here is the work out that I did.

    I did some Metabolic Conditioning Training
    – Burpees (30 seconds)
    – Diagonal Prisoner Lunges (30 seconds)
    – Plank to Triceps Extension (30 seconds)
    I repeated 3 times with 30 second rest.

    Then I did a superset of:
    – Jumping Jacks (60 Seconds)
    – Slow pushups (3 seconds up, 3 seconds down)
    I repeated 2 times

    Then i did a triset of:
    – Burpees (20 seconds)
    – Prisoner Lunges (30 seconds)
    – Bodyweight Squats using the 20 second reps, 10 second hold (AWESOMENESS!)
    I repeated 3 times.

    I had a grreat time!!! :D

  16. When I get back to NC in the Spring, I would like to add Pilates to my list of physical activities.

    I will keep swimming and water exercises in my exercising plan. I will keep working with the resistance bands, and doing the other exercises I do.

    Of course, when I achieve my goal wt and my knee joints bend appropriately, I will hike, bike, and dance to my heart’s content! I am sure there will always be many many activities that I enjoy when I am at liberty to experience them! For now, I am grateful that I have come this far, and I look forward to much more to come! :heart: h

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