I finished the burpee challenge

Elizabeth Templin McCamic

The 100-day burpee challenge is over. Thank goodness! It's not that I didn't enjoy this challenge, but some days it was really hard. I won't miss having to do a few sets of burpees every day, though I will continue to incorporate them - occasionally - into my regular workouts.

I intended to post about day 100 last week but was on vacation and didn't get around to logging in. I hope you'll forgive my tardiness.

Day 100 was everything I'd hope it would be: challenging, exciting, exhausting and final. I was a little sad to see day 100 come because parts of this challenge have been fun. It's nice to be working toward a goal and sharing that goal with someone (in this case, my husband).

We broke our final day into five, 20-burpee sets. I was surprised by how quickly we finished, in about 14 minutes. I still get winded after doing a few sets, and pretty sweaty, but I think that's a good measure that I'm working hard. It's the way the burpee was intended.

There were moments in the challenge when I was ready to quit. Many of those moments occurred between days 60-100. But we stuck with it.

I did miss a few days along the way, including a couple days when my wrists were hurting and I thought I needed to give myself time to recover. Despite these hiccups, I am still happy with the way things went. I don't claim to have a perfect record, but I did my best and learned how to do a pretty effective burpee.

In case anyone is interested, here are some tips for your 100-day burpee challege:

1. In the first few weeks, work on your form. Figure out how to do a good pushup. It will help later when your muscles are tired and you still have 40 burpees to go. There are tons of video demonstrations online, if you need inspiration.

2. Find a friend to do the challenge with you. It keeps you accountable on days when you don't feel like it or when you're mid-set and want to give up.

3. Consider a mini challenge if 100 days seems like too much.

4. It helped me to listen to music or do my daily burpees while watching TV. My husband doesn't require entertainment when he works out, but I like to keep my mind off of the pain.

5. Figure out a system for counting your burpees. This won't be a problem until you get into the 30s or 40s, but I found I got really frustrated when I lost track (and I'd lose track some days even when we were dividing our burpees into smaller sets). I had the most success with counting outloud, though in the end I think I did quite a few extra burpees - just in case.

Have fun! I'd love to hear about your experiences, if you decide to give it a try.