It's game time.

Yes, this is a video of me doing my first 100 reps in 2 mins and 52 seconds. It's time to sacrifice some camera fear to motivate Steemians to improve their health and increase Steem engagement.

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I don't know about you, but I prefer doing reps for exercise over a "smart" device counting the number of steps I take. For example, I walked 19,537 steps for 8.8 miles yesterday and just call that "living."

I feel that we don’t need an app or tokens for everything. It’s too much. Sometimes we just need to do the work the old fashioned way. Our bodies will reward us more.

Early on in my Steem days, I ran a 100 rep daily fitness challenge. It ended the day of my Mom's car accident after 157 consecutive days. It was a lot of work to manage, but it was the most rewarding thing I ever did here.

During this time, I missed only 1 or 2 days, once because I accidentally fell asleep. Heck, I even did push-ups to get my reps a few hours after my Dad died downstairs.

It was about leading by example with no excuses. It got me great results for my baseball season (gained about 20 pounds), and formed a tight crew of Steemians who looked forward to it.

The final numbers were: 580,283 overall reps by 55 Steemians from 14 countries in 156 workout days. Boom!

How's that for real engagement and community spirit? It attracted many fitness-minded people, professional trainers, and also helped many amateurs start working out for the first time. We all looked out for each others and kept each other committed.

It was a great experience, but sadly, most Steemians now never knew about it.

Many asked me to bring it back, but I'd lost the fire when the larger community practically ignored it.

You should read these to see what it meant to some people:

From @musclegirlfusion:

"Since I started posting in this challenge, you've given me a reason to blog on steemit. No matter how discouraged I get when it seems like no one is reading what I write, I know I can write it and post it here and it adds to the challenge. So thank you for giving me the motivation I need to stick with blogging!!"

From @bitfiend:

"After starting 6 days ago I already feel stronger. This is definitely the most consistent exercise I've done in an extremely long time but I am happy to be taking part! While I walk around mostly in pain, I know it's all for a good cause! My health! I am feeling better and I'd say my sickness is mostly gone now. I think that if I had not been exercising, I may have been sick for a bit longer. Persistence pays off!"

From @mightpossibly:

"I find it deeply satisfying to do these reps, which is a big deal. I've always hated the gym and prefer to exercise at home. But I've lacked the discipline to do it. It sort of feels like I have gym buddies now, without the hassle of going to the gym."

From @notorious562:

"I seriously cannot explain how much this group pushes and motivate me to keep working harder. I love this fitness community and the support and encouragement will help us achieve our goals."

From @khufu:

"Your challenge has helped immensely to keep me motivated lately. I've had a lot of... problems going on so your challenge has been a quantum of sanity in an insane world for me."

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Here was the final complete challenge post.

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The fitness challenge took a lot of time when I had to manually tally everyone's entries and screen out some questionable reps. It was tricky to try to keep everyone's different exercise routines on an equal playing field. Not everyone did traditional reps, but I didn't want to turn anyone away. Some people liked that and some people didn't. While I'm not ready to bring the broader challenge back yet, I wanted to start a simpler challenge... something that would be healthy, encouraging and fun for people since I now have a larger following.

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New Steem/New Challenge:

This fitness challenge is going to be different than the first in that I'm going to nominate 3 Steemians on each post to join in and reply with either a video/pic/or assurance that they did the reps. It'll be an honor system. I hope people see the value in creating some excitement and personal growth when Steem is struggling.

I'll keep a running tally and chart it so people can follow along. It's rewarding to see your work accumulate, but it'll be even better when you start feeling/seeing results.

The first phase of this challenge: 50 push-ups and 50 air squats = 100 reps. No other reps will be counted at this time.

It's clean cut. If you don't have the strength to do 50 push-ups, add it to the squat count to get to 100. It might be hard at first, but it gets easier fast.

Proper form is a must, but you can do push-ups on your knees if you need to. Arms and knees should have almost a 90 degree bend with your back straight.

The challenge will rotate eventually to other exercises or open up to be broader to whatever people prefer to do. At this time, I want to get this off the ground in a simple fashion and these two exercises target a good amount of muscles.

I've barely worked out in about 2 months since I was tied up with two baseball leagues and some softball. I'm always afraid of getting tight or being fatigued for my games, especially because I pitch a lot. I dropped 14 pounds and am ready to dive into working out again to prepare for Fall baseball.

These 50/50 reps are simply going to be a baseline for me every day. In other words, it's the bare minimum for me. If I went to the gym before or will go after, these reps will get done. The only time I will deliberately skip a day is the day before my baseball double-headers on the weekend when I usually need to pitch. I'll want to be fresh for that.

The good thing about these types of reps here is that you can do them anywhere and no weights are required. There really are no excuses unless you're hurt.

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So... behold MY first video tonight in khaki shorts I spontaneously shot in my building's hallway before going out to hunt the curbs for recyclables to sell. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.

I'm not going for style points. I don't care what I look like. The reps are what matters.

I did 25/15/10. I should be able to do 25/25 with ease, but will quickly work up to that when the rust wears off.

Again, it took me 2 minutes and 52 seconds to do these reps. That's nothing in my day. Even if it takes you 10 minutes, that's still nothing, and you'll feel better about yourself when you're done. Don't rush it. It’s time well spent.

Make sure you stretch and exercise safely. It's not a race. Gain confidence from this and support fellow participants. It's an easy formula for success.

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First Nominations:

@rmsbodybuilding
@thevillan
@tarazkp

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Anyone can join at any time. You can come and go as you please. Meet new people and support each other. Nominations are to help with recruitment and getting the word out. Feel free to resteem. It's about the bigger picture.

Markets and spirits may be down now, but our health should always be on the rise.

Time to go walk a few miles...

Rep on,
@steemmatt

Edit: My push-up form was horrible in this, but thankfully I got some tips over my first week.