Presidential Challenge

Most serious athletes keep a training log of some sort. All of you boxers might want to consider doing the same. I've been keeping mine at the President's Challenge for the last couple of years. I log all of my running, cycling and boxing activities and I earn points for everything I do. The points are roughly equivalent to the number of calories burned doing the exercise and the points accumulate towards fitness awards - bronze, silver and gold. If you want, you can get a certificate and medal for achieving the awards for a few dollars. I've already achieved the gold level and have continued tracking my workouts towards the platinum level . The gold award requires 50,000 points and a decent night at the gym will earn you at least 500. The platinum level takes 500,000 so that's going to take me awhile but I'm up over 300,000 so far.

In addition to the individual record keeping, you can also form a group. I'm a member of a group called Keeping Up With Mengel, oddly enough. Presently I'm ahead of my closest competitor by about 20,000 points. I started this school year off 16,000 behind but with my gym workouts and my supplemental running and cycling, I've managed to take the lead once again. If you're at all competitive, and who shows up to a boxing gym who isn't, the Presidential Challenge is a great way to have a little friendly rivalry with a few of your buddies and keep yourself motivated to workout.

We all need to exercise on a regular basis. The President's Challenge is a great way to get the whole family involved. There is a long list of physical activities to choose from including strenuous things like boxing but also easier activities like gardening, bowling and even household chores. And those of you training for a fight can look back and see how much preparation you actually did. If you ran out of gas in the third round and the training log doesn't show any road work, that's going to be the proof in black and white. As long as you're honest filling out your log, you'll know what you need to do to continue at a level or step it up to hit the next level.

Get signed up and start keeping track of what you're doing. It doesn't cost a thing and only takes a couple of minutes to get your account set up.