I just completed Solidcore’s “solidays” challenge and here’s what I realized:

First, a quick little story time on how I got here. I decided to give solidcore a try 6 months before my wedding because I was looking for better results than I was getting from my regular workout split. I’ve been a weight lifter for the last 10 years, and while initially, it did help me transform my body and put on muscle mass, I stopped seeing physique upgrades over the last couple of years. In 2023, I gave reformer pilates a try only to discover I actually lost strength and muscle mass - so I went back to lifting. Then came a brief stint at lagree, but they don’t have any lagree studios in Connecticut so that wasn’t manageable for me. Ultimately, I landed at solidcore, because I had heard it was similar to lagree, but even harder. And nothing seemed more like me than a workout class that emulated upbeat dance club vibes (because ya girl looooves EDM).

I was incredibly humbled by my first few classes at solidcore.

As someone who has tried almost every workout class out there, I couldn’t believe how much this class challenged me. And to my surprise, I had never seen my arms become so lean and toned. Lifting really helped me get a muscular back and strong legs, but it never did much for my arm definition. And I can’t forget the core work that gets done in this class. As someone who puts off training abs when I’m running my own lifting workouts at the gym, this completely transformed my ab definition, and made my core SO strong.. Rather than losing strength like I did with reformer pilates, solidcore actually made me stronger for the days I did lift. My split was 2 days of solidcore, one upper body lift and one lower body lift, on top of my cardio schedule because I was on a mission to look my absolute best for my wedding.

But I digress because let’s fast forward to the solidays challenge that happens during December for the holiday season (hence the name solidays). For those who aren’t familiar, solidcore runs a challenge to complete 10 solidcore classes in a 14 day window. This was 100% going to be a challenge for me because not only has solidcore been the toughest workout I’ve tried thus far, but I had only been going twice a week. The funny thing is, every time you hit a class milestone, you get assigned new spring levels that you select on their megaformer machine that make the class even harder. So I hit my 50 class milestone about 2 weeks before this challenge which brought me to the hardest resistance levels to use.

I was half afraid I wouldn’t be able to do that many classes back to back, but also half excited at the challenge. Nothing lights a fire under me like a workout challenge. I love exercise and challenging myself so even though I questioned my abilities, I was going to go all in. At the very least, I had to get it done for the cute sweatshirt they give you for a prize of completing the challenge…right?

So as of today, I have completed 10 days of solidcore classes in a 13 day window (because the challenge ends tomorrow).

And here’s what I learned: 

I realized that my brain was ready to quit way before my body would. There were so many times before I left my apartment to go to class that I doubted myself, wanted to give up, or felt too sore to show up. And then in the class, there were so many times my brain was trying to convince me “I can’t do this” or “I need a break”. I found that when I let these thoughts come over, I would take breaks more frequently, or go down a spring level. So I decided to bring in some neuroscience and energy work into the class to help me persevere through. I have a whole perspective on mantras, affirmations and things like that which I plan to share in a future article, but to stay on topic for this article, I want to share the one mantra that kept me going throughout every class:

I found that the more I repeated this statement to myself, the longer I stayed in the work - aka more time under tension and less breaks. The reason for this? Well, it’s a better way to switch up your brain because if you just say “I’m strong” or “I can do this” - it’s easy for your brain to clap back and say “no you’re not” or “no you can’t”. 

When you say “I choose”, it’s like an energetic unlock that opens you up to levels of strength you hadn’t been able to access prior.

Now it isn’t the question of if you’re strong enough or not, if you can do this or not, rather, you’re deciding to just DO IT. So by implementing this mantra during my workout, I learned I’m much stronger than I realized - not only physically, but mentally too.

And the second thing I learned was - the reason I love challenges like this is because it is physical evidence proving to yourself that you’re stronger than you know.

There are a couple reasons why this positively benefits you. For one, from a neuroscience perspective, getting evidence like this is actually programming new belief systems such as “I can do hard things” and “I keep commitments to myself”. Those are GREAT things to have in your energy field. Because when you have that belief about yourself, it raises your self-image for starters, but also, it will carry over into other areas of life. Say you’re building a business or doing something out of your comfort zone at work, if you have the belief that you can do hard things after seeing the proof from your workouts, you’ll be able to carry that belief over into whatever you’re struggling with in your career area of life. And that’s exactly what I learned and what was happening for me. When it came to doing something new and out of my element in my business, I had the evidence that I can do hard things, and even when I have doubts of my abilities, I am stronger than I realize. So not only was I leveling up my physical and mental strength through exercise, I was also doing it in my business, making me become more successful in multiple areas of life.

You don’t need an exercise challenge run by your chosen fitness studio to do this, all you need to do is commit to becoming 1% better than you were yesterday.

Every single day you show up stronger, clock it - you’re stronger than you realize. You can do hard things. Every time you complete a workout, clock it - you kept a commitment to yourself. Every time your brain is trying to convince you to give up, say “I choose to be strong”.

I challenge you to implement at least one of these things into your life and I guarantee that you will start seeing insane upgrades in your life and with your self-image.

Let me know how it goes if you try it :)

Love,

Marea 🦋