The Best 90-day Workout Challenge

The New Year is coming rapidly which means all your health and fitness resolutions are coming just as fast. There is no better time to start thinking about how to get your goals done than now. There is also an abundance of information on different diets and challenges on the web that can feel overwhelming.

That’s why we are giving some inspiration on the best 90-day workout challenge to get started with ASAP. 

P.S. it’s not just working out. Food and healthy habits help too. 

What is a 90-Day Workout Challenge?

The 90-day workout challenge is a commitment to better yourself and transform your body and mind in three months. The three-month commitment has you working out every day in a variety of workouts based on your skill level. How well you do is directly related to how hard you push yourself. We’ll offer workout challenges for beginners, intermediate, and advanced fitness programs. 

Benefits Of Doing a 90-Day Challenge

The list of benefits.is never-ending. But here are some of the top reasons to work out (1). 

• Through various workouts, you will increase your cardiovascular endurance. This will come from cardio and HIIT workouts. 
• Since a lot of the workouts involve strength training, you will not only become stronger but work on your balance and agility. This prevents injury and makes daily tasks easier since our bodies will be more equipped to deal with them. 
• Our immune system will improve and will lower our risk for diseases. Especially heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses. 
• Strengthening your bones will is important as you age. 
• Manages and helps you lose weight and fat. 
• Ultimately with all of the benefits, it increases your chances for a longer and healthier life. 

Do I Need Equipment?

Anything in the workout can be done with body weight. Having said that, it would be useful to grab a pair of three different weight ranges. Light weights, medium weights, and heavy weights. Some parts of the workout will focus on repetition, while other parts of the workout will focus on increasing strength and muscle. 

Lifting heavily is not the only way to gain muscle growth (2). However, there is a clear benefit to lifting heavy. The heavier the weight (within your ability), the more you are training your muscles rather than cardiovascular benefits.  

However, it’s important to know that you can get the same physical appearance when you increase the volume with lighter weights. The difference between lifting heavy and lifting light with more reps is that you are likely to gain more strength with heavier weights even if the physical appearance or muscle growth looks the same. 

Do I Need to Be In Shape?

Nope. The best part of starting a 90-day workout challenge is that anyone can get started. In theory, it’s even more motivation for those who are out of shape. Having said that, it’s really important to know your boundaries and limits so that you don’t cause injury or, more commonly, fall off track. 

Let’s devote a minute to understanding where you are and how you should determine your fitness levels before choosing the right level of intensity. And always remember, you can always adjust to push more or back off as you go. As long as you are sticking with it, you are doing great. 

Something that is important to keep in mind is that you have to eat relatively healthily to see physical results. You will certainly feel stronger regardless but eating healthy is what makes you look the part. In order to lose one pound a week, you need to have a deficit calorie count of 500 per day. You can lose 2 pounds per month with a calorie deficit of 250 calories per day. 

Determining Your Fitness Levels

Beginner workouts are for anyone who hasn’t worked out consistently in the last few years. Consistently means once a week or more. A beginner may also be someone who has no experience with lifting weights or strength workouts. 

Intermediate may be someone who works out more consistently but keeps it simple in terms of walking or running. They have relatively good stamina and may be able to do an hour workout a few times a week. If you are an intermediate, you likely have some experience lifting weights. 

Advanced are people who work out consistently and have experience in different types of workouts, including strength training. They may even play a sport or work out for competition. 

We will keep reminding you, but you can always jump back and forth between the levels of working out. Sometimes our bodies are tired and can only handle a lower level of working out. The biggest differentiator is for a beginner not to start off in advanced or even vice versa.  

How Much Can Your Body Change in 90 Days?

90 days is a good amount of time to transform your body. Four weeks is generally the period where we start to notice the slight change, and definitely after week six. Some workout programs try to get their clients to lose more than 5 pounds a week. These workouts and diets can be harmful if not done carefully, which is why this 90-day workout is the perfect challenge for anyone. It’s effective and safe. 

90-Day Workout Challenge

Ok, let’s start. All 90-day workout challenges will revolve around a weekly schedule. Month 1 will be different than Month 2, and Month 2 will be different than Month 1. Tip, if you can monitor your workouts with a smartwatch or fitness watch that counts calories and heart rate, we can monitor your workouts and progress much better. 

This workout is designed for a beginner. But at the end of this template, we will give tips on how to make this workout for intermediate or advanced levels. The main difference is the duration of time, weight, and intensity. 

Month 1

The difference between Months 1, 3, and 3 will be the exercises under the strength section. 

Monday

The way to go is to start the week strong with a combo workout. 

• 20 minutes of cardio or your choice. Walking, light running, elliptical, bike, etc. This will also be a great warm-up. 

Total Body Weights

Each bracket of three should be done in order three times before moving on to the next bracket. So you will do each exercise three times, alternating in order. Beginners only have two brackets. 

1. Chair squats – Take a chair and slowly lower yourself, tapping the chair with your butt and standing back up again. Do this for 10 reps. 
2. Wall pushups – Stay 3 feet from the wall and lean forward to do wall pushups bending and extending your arms. Do this for 8 reps. 
3. Toe touches – Lay on your back with your legs straight up in the air. Reach your hands straight up to your toes. Do this for 10 reps. 

Next Section. 

1. Lateral arm raises – Hold 5 lbs or something equivalent and raise your arms out in front of you. Squeeze your abs and glutes. Do this for 8 reps. 
2. Lunges – Do this exercise bodyweight or with light 5-pound weights. Take a lunge stance and drop the back knee to the floor while the front knee meets a 90-degree angle. Do this for 6 reps on each leg. 
3. Front plank – Hold a plank position with your elbows on the floor underneath your shoulders with your back flat. Hold for 20 seconds. 

This should take you 10-15 minutes to do. Finish with a light stretch to ensure you are not sore for tomorrow. 

Tuesday

Tuesday is dedicated to cardio and trying to get your cardiovascular endurance up. 

• 45 minutes of cardio of your choice. Aim to try and burn 350 calories. 
• 7-minute ab circuit to finish the workout. We built in a little buffer of time. Go at your own pace. 

1. 30-second plank
2. 30-second rest
3. 25 toe touches
4. 30-second rest
5. 15 oblique crunches on both sides
6. 30 seconds
7. Scissor kicks for 15 seconds 
8. 45-second rest
9. 30-second plank
10. 30-second side plank
11. 30-second side plank
12. 30-second rest 
13. 15 leg raises (should be about 30 seconds)

Wednesday

HIIT Workout is for Wednesdays, and you can choose the type of HIIT workout you want. HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. Here you will do short bursts of intense exercise with short recovery periods over an extended amount of time. For beginners, you should aim to do 20 seconds of activity and 40 seconds of rest.

Here is a list of exercises you can do this with:

• Sprints outside or on a treadmill
• Boxing
• Tabata workouts
• Dance workouts
• Biking or Cycling

There are a number of free HIIT workouts on YouTube that can mix a number of exercises. The goal is to get your heart rate up and bring it back down. You can do a lot of work in. a short period of time. That’s why you only need to do 15-30 minutes of HIIT workout on Wednesday. 

Thursday

Thursday is a repeat of Monday’s workout since we will be doing strength and conditioning three times a week. 

Friday

Friday is a Low-Intensity Steady State is a fat-burning workout that is the opposite of a HIIT workout. The goal is to keep your heart around 60 percent of its max, which is when you are in a fat-burning state. LISS workouts last longer and generally range from 30-60 minutes. There are a number of ways you can approach this. 

• Walking on the treadmill with an incline
• The Stairmaster or walking stairs
• Baking over an extended time
• Swimming laps

Choose one of these exercises and go after it for 30-45 minutes. 

Saturday

Repeat Mondy and Thursday’s workout. 

Sunday

Active recovery day is on Sunday. The goal is not to work out hard but to give your muscles and body a chance to rest and recover. However, this doesn’t mean doing something. Taking a nice walk or a restorative yoga class is a great way to do active recovery. Spend 30 minutes walking, yoga, or stretching. 

Month 2

All workouts remain the same except for the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday workout branches. Here are the changes. 

1. Single leg chair squats – Standing on one leg, take a chair and slowly lower yourself tapping the chair with your butt and standing back up again. Do this for 5 reps.
2. Knee pushups – On your knees, get into the push-up position. Do 8 reps. 
3. Leg lowers – Start on your back with your feet straight up in the air. Lower them to the ground slowly and back up again. Do this for 8 reps. 

Next Section.

1. Curls – Hold 8 lbs in each hand and curl the weights together and back down. Do this for 8 reps. 
2. Reverse Lunge – Do this exercise bodyweight or with light 5-pound weights. Take a step back into a lunge and stand back up. Do 5 reps on each leg. 
3. Side plank – Hold a side plank for 20 seconds on each side twice. 

Month 3

1. Jump squats – Get into a squat position and jump up, extending. Land back in a squat position. This is one. Do 10 reps.
2. Pushups – Take a regular push-up position and do 5 bodyweight pushups without your back rounding or caving. 
3. Plank with leg raise – Take a plank position but widen your feet. Without rocking your body, lift a foot into the air a few inches and put it back down. Do 5 reps on each leg alternating. 

Next Section.

1. Overhead presses – Hold 5 lbs or something equivalent and press the weights above your head and back down. Do this for 10 reps. 
2. Walking Lunges- Do this exercise with 10-pound weights in each hand. This time lunge forward and then walk forward. Alternate your lunge leg and do 8 reps on each leg. 
3. Shoulder Taps – Hold a plank position with your hands on the ground underneath your shoulders. Keep your feet wide and your hands in the middle. Tap your shoulder with the opposite hand and alternate. Do 6 reps each. 

How To Level Up

This workout plan is challenging for anyone, but the reps and weights are designed for people who have not worked out much. To change it to a workout that meets intermediate athletes and fitness levels, try this. 

• Increase your cardio workout times by 20 minutes more, 
• Do 4 sets of brackets instead of 3 sets. 
• Up your weights from the body weight of 5 pounds to 10 to 15 pounds. 

If you want to level up again to advanced workouts, try the following. 

• Increase your cardio workout times by 40 minutes more, 
• Do 5 sets of the brackets instead of 3 sets.
• Up your weights from a body weight of 5 pounds to 15 to 25 pounds.

Keeping the Balance

The key to the 90-day workout challenge is to show up every day. The workout template is great for consistency and routine, but it does not have to be followed perfectly. Sometimes you may feel stronger some days and more tired on others. The key is to do the workout the best you can. 

With this workout, you should see impactful physical results after 4 weeks. After 12 weeks, you will feel and look stronger and more toned as long as you keep your eating habits clean.