I try to do the splits in 30 days

(Image courtesy of Blogilates)

1st March 2021

By Amelia Fewings

Fitness trends have gone mad in lockdown. What with gyms being shut and most of us being permanently glued to an office chair to attend a Zoom lesson or write an essay, it’s really important to keep active and get moving in new innovative ways. If you’ve had enough of leaping around your living room to Joe Wicks and super intense ab workouts don’t inspire you, we have an alternative for you! I tried the 30 day split challenge and wanted to share it with you.

‘Blogilates’ 30-day split challenge’ was originally created in 2015 by Cassey Ho, a yoga and fitness blogger/YouTuber. Although this trend is nearly 6 years old, I’ve seen many people on social media still attempting to complete her challenge. She claims that by using her stretch routine every day, you will be able to do the splits in 30 days. Her series consists of five core stretches which you repeat every day and then add one more stretch to the 5 (totalling in 6 stretches) depending on the day. Each stretch needs to be 30 seconds to a minute long. Two of my housemates and I, all not particularly flexible decided to take on her challenge.

We attempted this routine every evening, each stretch lasting 40 seconds. The hardest part of the challenge was to stay motivated to stretch every day, doing the stetches with each other definitely helped with this issue. However, choosing the evening to do the stretches, often meant we would forget and end up doing them in our pyjamas after getting ready for bed. A few times I ended up attempting them drunk, which was not the best idea fitness wise or nausea wise so that is my biggest no-no! However, you have to do them every single day according to the challenge or you definitely won’t be able to do the splits in such a short space of time. So, if you do attempt the challenge, pick a time which suits you (and your friends) and keep yourself and others around you motivated to continue. The other main issue of this routine is for stretch five and six you do have to own some equipment unless you improvise like we did, using sofa cushions and stretching each other’s legs.

The five core stretches visibly improved after the first week, one of my housemates was unable to touch her toes before we started, but thanks to stretch number one, she was able to achieve this about halfway through. Most of the stretches are easy to do and to fit around your own level of flexibility, some of them are a bit more interesting and require a bit of balance. But are particularly fun to do as a group and a bit of a challenge is definitely what my house needed in lockdown.

The main thing that needs to be discussed is… Does it actually work? Can we do the splits now? The answer is unfortunately no. My housemates and myself were not particularly flexible beforehand, however we have made a huge improvement compared to day one of the challenge. I am nearly able to do the splits and with a week added to the challenge I think it will be possible to do. Just because we hadn’t made it to the splits doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, perhaps if we pushed ourselves a little more and held the stretches for a bit longer we would have got there. All my housemates have agreed that we will continue stretching until we do make it to the splits and even after that. It’s also a great way to keep your body moving in lockdown, after sitting at your computer all day. I would highly recommend this fitness challenge, particularly as there is a measurable goal and aim at the end (plus doing the splits it pretty cool, can’t wait for the Instagram post when I finally do them!). However, doing the splits in exactly 30 days found itself to be a bit too unrealistic for my household and I.

And here are my before and after photos!