The Fitness Challenge Helping Me Socialize During COVID
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Fitness, Philosophy, Spirituality, Culture, Coronavirus

The Fitness Challenge Helping Me Socialize During COVID

Our problem during the pandemic is a Sisyphean struggle that doesn’t seem to end.

Photo by Jenny Hill on Unsplash

In popular anime, One Punch Man, protagonist Saitama becomes the most powerful anime hero in the world. How? He had a rigorous workout regime of the following:

100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10-kilometer run.

Of course, when Saitama describes his workout regime to other heroes, they are utterly baffled. In the world of super serious anime characters who have preposterous workout regimes, Saitama’s daily workout is, well, nothing. They think he must have some secret to have gotten to become the strongest hero in the world, but there is no secret — by doing what is popularly known on YouTube as the One Punch Man challenge, Saitama is able to defeat his enemies with only one punch with nearly God-like power.

Yesterday, I started the One Punch Man challenge. The goal is to do 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and 10 kilometers for 100 days. It doesn’t seem like it’s hard for an anime superhero, but yesterday and today, my whole body has been in pain. I thought the most difficult part of the workout was the run, and the least difficult was the squats. However, I failed to recognize that the squats were the most difficult because I simply haven’t been very used to them. As a runner who runs every day, the run has actually been the easiest part, but I dread the soreness I feel through my whole lower and upper body every day.

The challenge, for me, started off as a joke. My roommate mentioned the One Punch Man challenge while we were watching the show on TV, and I mentioned the challenge to a group chat of my friends from college. We decided that seven of us were going to do the challenge and see the results.

However, I must note that I’m the only person in the group doing the 10 km run every day. Everyone else is only running 20 miles a week or replacing the running with pull-ups, and we were all runners during college! Needless to say, I feel a bit cheated. But I will endure. This morning, I did a nine-mile run, and I still have squats, push-ups, and sit-ups to do. Yesterday, I did a seven-mile run, and this is only the beginning.

There are only pros and no cons to being in the fitness challenge. First of all, it’s a great way to, well, grow fitness. As a runner, I have always been very slim. My family tells me often that they worry that I’m too skinny because I run so much, so putting in core, pecs, and shoulder exercises will help me work out other parts of my body besides just cardio.

During COVID, it’s also a great way to socialize and build camaraderie with friends. I wanted to go to Atlanta and other cities to see my friends this year and especially this summer, but with a pandemic, travel has been mostly restricted.

According to Stephanie Mansour at NBC News, 30-day challenges have been the talk of the town across social media for quite some time now. People do 30-day plank challenges, 30-day cardio challenges, and 30-day squat challenges. They have their pros and cons in terms of fitness and health, but what often goes unstated in terms of these challenges is the social camaraderie aspect. According to the American Psychological Association, loneliness has negative effects on health that parallel smoking 15 cigarettes a day or having alcohol use disorder.

I consider myself an extrovert, and the lack of social interaction outside three or four people in my daily life is getting to me. With the rise of COVID cases in my state and all over the United States, it’s clear we’re in this for the long haul, and there is no way I will be out on the streets meeting dozens of new people in public gatherings any time soon.

Sure, a humorously challenging fitness challenge probably isn’t most people’s idea of socializing, but it is a change from the norm. I don’t expect an eight-pack and a huge chest by the end of the challenge, but I do expect to be more fit than I was at the beginning and connect with not only my friends, but a litany One Punch Man fans all over the Internet and social media.

And I can’t help but feel a Sisyphean, existential struggle in the challenge as well. When Sisyphus was cursed by the Gods in Greek mythology, he had the task of pushing a rock up a mountain that would roll down every day. It would be akin to torture, with Sisyphus never seeming to make progress or leeway, never being able to escape his punishment.

Perhaps it isn’t always punishment. Think about it — you finish the workout on a given day, only to have the rock move down the mountain the next day, all over again. The rock doesn’t change. The mountain doesn’t change.

But you do. You get stronger. You build the support network you need to get through it. You develop the tools and wisdom to find ways to succeed.

And that’s our long struggle during this pandemic in short — a Sisyphean struggle that doesn’t seem to end, where the rock doesn’t change, where the mountain doesn’t change. The pandemic doesn’t seem to end any time soon. The only thing that changes is us, and the One Punch Man challenge is a larger analogy for the fact that life doesn’t get easier. We just get stronger.