By the end of January, many people have already discarded their New Year’s resolutions to get fit and eat healthy. For the Health and Wellness Club, their fitness goals just got jump-started as they began an intense new challenge to start off the semester.
The group members started the Asylum Challenge on Monday, Jan. 23 and while some people might consider them crazy for getting up at 6 a.m. every day to do an intense cardio workout, they are already reaping the benefits.
Insanity: the Asylum is a 30-day program that involves extreme sports cross training. HAWC coordinator Trey Tietz said that this workout program is an ideal way to get active.
“The Asylum challenge is one of the most popular work-out programs in the country, and one of the most difficult,” Tietz said. “It’s one of the new breakthroughs in health and fitness and a lot of pro athletes and college athletes are doing it.”
The members of HAWC will be doing this vigorous workout for 45 minutes every Monday through Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. Not only is the Asylum Challenge a hardcore workout, but it also involves a meal plan, one that some may not be used to.
The meal plan requires six to seven small meals a day, eating about every three hours and tapering calories throughout the day. The meal plan is easy to follow and able to be completed in the Wilkes cafeteria. Tietz, a senior p2 pharmacy major, said the balance of eating right and working out is very important.
“You can’t workout and not eat right you need a little bit of both.”
After workouts, group members get breakfast together to encourage each other to follow the meal plan. Tietz says that there is a lot of support and motivation with this challenge.
“It’s a lot easier when you have 30 other friends who are doing it with you, instead of trying it by yourself,” Tietz said.
Members of HAWC exchanged contact information and they text each other for motivation to continue the program. HAWC treasurer Samantha Bickert said there is a lot of enthusiasm and drive to keep going with the Asylum.
“Everytime I get up I think, ‘All these people are expecting to see me there, I can’t not show up today,’” Bickert, pharmacy p1, says.
HAWC has been holding these workouts every morning since Tietz created the group in September. In the past, the group took part in a hybrid schedule combining the p90x, Insanity and Asylum workouts and will go back to this mix after the Asylum Challenge.
Last semester an average of eight or nine people came to exercise every day, but with the Asylum Challenge the group has grown to over 30 participants.
Besides personal goals of improving ones workout routines and diet, the HAWC club wants to promote itself and continue to gain more members. To reach this goal, HAWC will be selling t-shirts and water bottles during club hours.
If anyone is interested in getting involved with HAWC and the Asylum Challenge, contact Trey Tietz at [email protected].