Greater Philadelphia YMCA App Challenges

Go for Gold and challenge yourself by completing two group exercise classes each week in August based on Olympic summer sports like swimming, cycling, and weightlifting. 

Challenge Info:

Channel the excitement of the Olympics and join two group exercise classes each week (eight classes total). Any group exercise class counts toward this challenge, but we suggest trying a class that resembles an Olympics workout, like:

BODYPUMP™ - Using light to moderate weights with lots of repetition, BODYPUMP gives you a total body workout. It will burn up to 400 calories. Instructors will coach you through the scientifically-backed moves and techniques pumping out encouragement, motivation and great music – helping you achieve much more than on your own! You’ll leave the class feeling challenged and motivated, ready to come back for more.

Cycle - An indoor cycling class created to challenge both the beginner fitness enthusiast and the seasoned athlete. Each ride on the bike helps to increase your cardiovascular endurance, reduce body fat and increase muscular strength. As part of the team you travel on flat roads, climb hills, sprint and race!

Aqua Zumba - A low impact, high energy aquatic exercise program for people of all abilities. Water creates a natural resistance, which means every step is more challenging.

You can find the full list of available group exercise classes in our mobile app or on our website below.

Group Exercise Schedule

Summer Swimming Spree! Take your workout to the water and cool off while you work hard! We're building on our other summer Move challenges to finish the summer strong!

Challenge Info:

Log your laps as time (25 minutes or more) in your fitness tracker attached to your Y account or manually under Track Workout. The goal is 8 sessions of 25 minutes swim/water walking workouts totaling 3:30 hours in the month of August.

Find Open Swim hours for your local Y in our mobile app or by visiting our website page below.

Open Swim Schedule

Power like a Pro and follow this 3-day a week beginner powerlifting program for a month to train like an Olympian and earn Y rewards as you gain strength.

Challenge info:

Complete three sets of five reps in each exercise below with the exception of the lat pulldown where you do eight reps per set, and not counting warm-up sets.

Here’s an outline of the training week:

Workout A
Squat: 3 sets x 5 reps
Bench Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Barbell Row: 3 sets x 5 reps

Workout B
Deadlift: 3 sets x 5 reps
Overhead Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Lat Pulldown: 3 sets x 8 reps

Workout C
Squat: 3 sets x 5 reps
Bench Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Barbell Row: 3 sets x 5 reps

Workout notes:

Start with a warmup, then pick a weight for each exercise you can easily do all three sets of five reps with good form.

Keep adding 2.5 kg or 5 lb to the bar (and to the lat pulldown) every time you successfully complete all the sets.

Eventually, you won’t be able to get all three sets of five reps (or eight in the lat pulldown). When this happens, stick with the same weight for your next workout until you get all three sets of five.