Tips & Tricks | Estimated Read time – 3:28
2022 is just around the corner and it has many of us thinking about our goals and resolutions for the year. It’s undoubtedly a popular time to consider getting back into a regular exercise routine or to set new wellness goals. It might just be the perfect occasion to think about how we, as event industry leaders, can help others challenge themselves and finally fulfill those resolutions.
One of the best ways to challenge our communities is to literally host a challenge! There are various possible challenges you can host within each of these four types of virtual challenges available on Race Roster:
- Cumulative time/minutes per day
- Tally
- Elevation
- Distance
When determining which challenge to host, don’t be afraid to get creative! There may be only four types, but each one has infinite possibilities. You know your audience best, so think about what might be the most engaging to your participants.
To help kickoff your brainstorm, we’ve put together a challenge idea bank.
Challenge idea bank
1. Cumulative time/minutes per day
With a time-based challenge, participants can work towards spending a specific amount of time doing a certain activity or to spend as much time as they possibly can on that activity within a specific time frame.
These activities could be:
- Mediation (e.g., spend 10 minutes meditating every day in the month of January)
- Strength training
- Yoga
- Running/walking/rolling/cycling/swimming/etc.
- Planking
- Sleeping (e.g., sleep for 8 hours every night this week)
2. Tally
Never underestimate the power of repetitive movements! Challenge participants to do a set number or as many reps as possible of a specific exercise. You could even get creative and challenge participants to consume something that can be measured numerically, such as water or vitamins.
Ideas for tally challenges:
- Push-ups
- Burpees
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Jumping jacks
- Crunches
- Punches
- Sit-ups
- Amount of water consumed
- Amount of nutrients consumed
3. Elevation
A virtual challenge that incorporates elevation is a great way to increase engagement while training for an event without cluttering the running schedule or burning out your participants!
- Cover X amount of elevation this month
- Cover as much elevation as you possibly can this year
4. Distance
This classic challenge type is a great way to get participants moving. You could create the following types of distance challenges:
- Any activity distance challenge – Allow participants to move in any way they want in order to cover distance.
- Specific activity distance challenge – Specify which activity they need to do in order to cover distance
- e.g., cover 50km in January while running, cycling, mountain biking, walking, hiking, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, skating, swimming, moving in a wheelchair, rowing, using an elliptical, etc.
- e.g., cover 50km in January while running, cycling, mountain biking, walking, hiking, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, skating, swimming, moving in a wheelchair, rowing, using an elliptical, etc.
- Specific distance to cover a custom map route – Since challenge maps are used to indicate progress and do not represent the actual route that participants are covering, you can be as creative as you like with your map shapes!
- e.g., a custom route in the shape of your event or organization’s logo.
- e.g., going with the New Year’s theme, your custom route could be in the shape of “2022” or “Happy New Years”.
Enhance challenge excitement with digital medals and custom finisher certificates
You can add even more excitement around your virtual challenge by introducing digital medals, awards, and custom finisher certificates.
Digital medals
Provide your participants with a commemorative keepsake they can hold onto for a lifetime. Simply upload your custom medal design and choose how it can be earned by your participants. Challenge medals can be awarded based on the following circumstances:
- First activity posted
- Posting a specific number of activities
- Completed challenge goal
- Partially completed challenge goal
Finisher certificates
Leverage our “advanced customization” feature to import our pre-made template and make adjustments or design your certificate entirely from scratch! Select from our list of merge tags to pull in all the necessary information you’d like to include on your finisher certificate.
For example, your “January Deadlifts” challenge could use the [%Tally%] merge tag to pull in their total number of deadlifts completed. You can also create your certificate using HTML or by building in our WYSIWYG editor.
Ready to create a challenge? It’s quick & easy!
Visit our knowledge base article for step-by-step instructions on how to create a virtual challenge.
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