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How Innermost Can Help You Conquer the Dubai Fitness Challenge

14th November 2024

Fitness

14th November 2024

By Shivraj Bassi

With the end of the year fast approaching, it’s time to lace up those running shoes and get your bikes ready for your daily 30 minutes. The Dubai Fitness Challenge is back.

With rising sedentary lifestyles leading to a plight in global physical and mental wellbeing, our main goal at Innermost has always been to use a science-backed approach to empower individuals to live their healthiest lives.

The Dubai Fitness Challenge (also known as the 30x30 challenge) aligns perfectly with this mission. It encourages individuals to prioritise wellbeing through a combination of regular physical activity, a balanced diet, and targeted supplementation. This has the goal of helping people achieve optimal health and vitality.

But let's track back. For those not in the loop, what exactly is the Dubai fitness challenge?

What is the Dubai Fitness Challenge?

The Dubai 30x30 Challenge is a month-long initiative from October 26th to November 24th that aims to encourage a healthier lifestyle among Dubai residents. First launched in 2017 by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, this challenge encourages participants to commit to 30 minutes of exercise for 30 consecutive days.

The Challenge offers a variety of group activities that take place throughout the city, catering to all fitness levels. Some of the more popular activities are:

Through this event, Dubai aims to transform into one of the most physically active cities in the world, promoting a culture of health and wellness. The growing popularity and success has not only seen the challenge become a major event on the Dubai annual calendar, but individuals from all over the globe will take on the challenge this year.

Whether you are a seasoned gym goer or just starting your fitness journey, taking part in the 30x30 challenge is a great way to improve your physical and mental health.

Benefits of partaking in the Dubai Fitness Challenge

Before deciding to take part in the Dubai Fitness Challenge, it’s important to understand just how 30 minutes of exercise can greatly improve both physical and mental wellbeing:

Improved physical health

Time is precious - and while it might not seem like much, even just 30 minutes of exercise a day can do wonders for your physical health.

Studies show that even short amounts of consistent, “moderate physical activity” can halve the risk of heart disease. Regular 30 x 30 workouts are also a great way to burn calories and boost metabolism as well as build muscle and endurance. Weight-bearing workouts like running and weightlifting also strengthen bone health and reduce the chance of performance injuries.

A pretty good list of benefits if you ask us.

Improved mental health

When it comes to individual health and fitness, Innermost firmly believes that mental wellbeing plays a role just as important as physical health.

So how can the Dubai Fitness Challenge enhance wellbeing?

Well, studies show that even a short workout each day reduces the release of our stress hormones called cortisol and triggers the release of feel-good chemicals known as endorphins. The International Journal of Innovative Research in Engineering & Management highlights that Exercising for 30 minutes a day can immediately increase mood through greater self-image and confidence.

Add to this the community vibe that comes with the 30x30 challenge, and you’ve got yourself the added motivation and support to smash your workout.

Lifestyle improvements

Last but not least, the Dubai Fitness Challenge can lead participants to develop healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

Regular physical activity can boost energy levels, improve sleep quality, and enhance overall wellbeing. Moreover, it can inspire individuals to make healthier choices in their diet and lifestyle.

Tips to success in the Dubai Fitness Challenge

It all sounds so simple, right? Well before starting your 30x30 journey it’s important to understand just how you can best set yourself up to succeed in the challenge. Below we have included a few of our top tips to ensure you get the most out of the 30 days.

Set personal achievable goals

Our key tip to get the most out of the challenge? Take on the challenge with a focus on yourself and what you want to achieve. There is no motivation killer greater than setting yourself an impossible goal and falling at the first hurdle.

Look to set up a personalised training plan with a focus on workouts you enjoy and set individual goals for yourself that are difficult but achievable.

Help your body along the way

For great consistent workouts over the 30 days, it’s important to fuel your body correctly. Your body is your vehicle right and you must fuel it properly.

Hydration and diet – A healthy diet and hydration during the 30x30 will play a fundamental part in success. Consider plenty of water as well as high-energy foods and healthy fats. Just some of the benefits will be improved energy levels, greater ability to regulate body temperature and better joint lubrication, aiding in faster recovery.

Workout supplements – In addition to a balanced diet, supplements can enhance your training performance during the pre-workout, post-workout and workout stages of exercise. Consider our collection of innermost protein supplements, energy boosters and nootropic capsules.

Optimal Sleep – While pre-workout routines are important, it’s also important to prioritise sleep, to optimise your body's ability to recover, grow, and perform at its peak. Around 7-9 hours of sleep are recommended by the Mayo Clinic.

Celebrate success

Again, it might sound simple, but just remember to celebrate your successes – no matter how small.  This will help you maintain a positive mindset and fuel your momentum throughout the challenge.

The best way to achieve this is to break down larger goals into smaller, achievable milestones to create a sense of accomplishment. Reward yourself with something you enjoy, such as a new workout outfit or a relaxing massage.

Why Innermost products are the perfect partner for the Dubai Fitness Challenge

The Energy Booster

Innermost The Energy Booster is the ideal supplement to fuel your fitness journey during the 30x30 challenge. This powerful formula is designed to provide sustained energy, enhance performance, and accelerate recovery.

The Power Booster

Innermost’s The Power Booster is also a key supplement of choice as the pure creatine monohydrate formula is designed to increase your strength, power, and endurance, helping you push your limits and achieve your fitness goals.

The Recover Capsules

With so many workouts within the month, rest and recovery are key to preventing injury. Innermost’s The Recover Capsules contain research-backed ingredients that support the recovery process, reduce inflammation, and regulate hormone activity allowing you to hit your peak with every workout.

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How To Stick To Your New Year Fitness Routine

It’s that time of the year again - the New Year's fitness buzz. A time where motivation is high, new workout plans are made, gym bags make a return, and everything feels full of possibility! And yet, for many people, this momentum is short-lived. By mid-February, routines can start to slip. Sessions get skipped. Motivation fades. The resolution quietly dissolves, something often accompanied by frustration or guilt. If that sounds at all familiar, it’s firstly worth saying this upfront: it’s not a personal failure. In most cases, it’s a structural one. It might sound strange, but having a long term and consistent fitness routine isn’t solely about having the most ‘willpower’, or forcing yourself to run just because it’s ‘new year, new me’, it’s about building an individual routine that works for you and sets you up in the best position to hit your workout goals in the long term. To make things easier, we’ve put together this nifty guide diving into the science of new year’s fitness, why traditional workout resolutions so often fall apart, and what genuinely helps when it comes to building habits that last for the long term. Right, let’s get into it. Why New Year’s fitness resolutions don’t succeed  Before exploring how you can set your fitness goals for the long term, it’s important to understand why so many fall short.  The main reason comes down to something psychologists call the “fresh start effect”. This is a period that interrupts the calendar schedule (such as New Year's), creating a mental separation between the past and the future. Such a fresh start makes change - like the restarting of a fitness routine - mentally easier to overcome because the past feels neatly boxed away.  While this sounds good on paper, the problem is that motivation alone isn’t enough to sustain long-term behavioural change.  Many New Year’s fitness routines struggle to last because they often: Focus on outcomes instead of training plans and sustainable behaviours. Target instant change Focus on unrealistic fitness goals Shall we run from the top? Outcome-based targets One pitfall people often find themselves in is setting a New Year’s fitness goal that is driven by outcome without proper planning.  Some examples might be: Losing weight  Getting fit  Running a marathon All great targets to strive for, yet without a training plan or strategy to achieve them, they can quickly feel unattainable and therefore interest drops off. This makes creating and sticking to a new year’s exercise plan key to achieving your goals, asking: what do you want to achieve? What steps are you going to take to achieve them? And how will you measure your progress? Too much change and unattainable fitness goals With the fresh start effect, it can feel productive to try and overhaul all your health practices. A new training plan. A stricter diet. Earlier mornings. Fewer social plans. Better sleep. More productivity. Individually, these changes are all positive (we’ve spoken about the positive effects of many in the past ourselves). Making all these large life changes in a short space of time, however, can lead to something called ‘cognitive overload’. Each new habit requires attention, decision-making, and self-control, leading to decision fatigue buildup and increasing the likelihood that behaviours will be dropped rather than maintained. Sustainable change tends to work the opposite way. Small, manageable shifts layered gradually over time allow habits to stabilise before new ones are added. Instead of replacing your entire lifestyle in January, long-term routines are built by choosing one or two priorities, letting them settle, and then building from there. Unrealistic fitness goals Another common reason why new year workout plans don’t work is that the end goals being set aren’t realistic to achieve in the time frame given. Training every day. Completely overhauling diet. Expecting visible results within weeks are just a few sure-fire ways to see your fitness plans gone by the end of January. This is because when progress isn’t immediately visible, individual motivation drops. Any missed sessions start to feel like failure, and the routine becomes something to avoid rather than return to. This can lead to a plateau in motivation and a workout rut that sees you lose all motivation to continue your fitness plan. The best way to avoid this? Tailor your New Year’s workout plan to what is realistic for you to achieve. Remember, everyone is different and you should avoid trying to replicate someone’s workout plan who is at a much different point in their journey. What helps you stick to a fitness routine So now we’ve covered the pitfalls faced with New Year's resolutions, what are some of the ways that you can set yourself up for success going into 2026? Starting your workouts small It might sound a little backward, but maintaining a new year’s fitness routine is all about incremental improvements - starting small and building up to ambitious fitness goals. In essence, try to make your workouts feel manageable from the outset.  This removes much of the physical and mental friction caused by sharp changes and removes the possibility of overtraining syndrome - something that can lead to both physical and mental fatigue. Instead of asking your body and mind to adapt to a dramatic shift all at once, you allow both to adjust gradually - which is exactly how sustainable habits are formed. Personal, not performative goals A common reason New Year's fitness routines fall apart is that the goal itself was never truly personal.  Many resolutions are shaped - often unconsciously - by external pressures: how we think we should look, what others are doing, or what feels ‘socially impressive’. These goals can create a strong initial push, but they rarely provide enough depth to sustain effort in the long term. Personal goals, by contrast, are rooted in lived experience. They’re connected to how you want to feel day-to-day, not how you want to appear to others. 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Effective hydration: Staying properly hydrated helps support circulation, muscle function, and focus, making both workouts and recovery feel smoother and more manageable. Complete nutrition: Providing the body with enough protein, carbohydrates, fats, and micronutrients gives it the building blocks it needs to repair, adapt, and maintain steady energy over time. It’s also worth considering tailored nutrition-focused supplementation such as Innermost’s The Recover Capsules and The Hydrate Blend. Reframing New Year fitness: from resolution to routine An effective mindset shift you can make this new year is moving away from the idea of a “resolution” and towards a routine. Resolutions are often outcome-focused - lose weight, build muscle, run faster. Routines are behaviour-focused - train three times a week, walk daily, prioritise recovery. This reframing is also key when thinking about how to stick to your New Year’s fitness resolution. Instead of asking, “Am I seeing results yet?”, the more useful question becomes, “Can I repeat this next week?” Remember, the most effective fitness routines aren’t created in January - they’re carried through February, March, and beyond. References Dai, H., Milkman K.L., Riis,J. (2013).The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science. 60 (10), 2563-2582. Click here. Cezar, B., Macada, A. (2023). Cognitive Overload, Anxiety, Cognitive Fatigue, Avoidance Behavior and Data Literacy in Big Data environments. Information Processing & Management. 60 (6). Click here. Ntoumanis, N., Healy, L. et.al. (2014). Self-Regulatory Responses to Unattainable Goals: The Role of Goal Motives. 13 (5), 594-612. Click here. Cleveland Clinic. Overtraining Syndrome. Click here. Sebire,S., Standage, M., Vansteenkiste,M. (2011). Predicting objectively assessed physical activity from the content and regulation of exercise goals: evidence for a mediational model. 33 (2), 175-197. Click here.  
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Why the Festive Period Breaks Your Habits

Why the Festive Period Breaks Your Habits

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Hydration often drops at this time of year, especially when alcohol intake increases. Electrolytes support fluid balance, nerve signalling, and muscle function. Protein becomes more important when meals are irregular, helping to stabilise appetite and maintain muscle. Micronutrients also matter when sleep, stress, and food quality are inconsistent. This is how we think about Innermost products. Not as a reset. Not as a fix. But as tools that support the fundamentals when life is busy and routines loosen. The biggest mistake people make is treating the festive period as a write-off and the New Year as a clean slate. That approach creates a cycle of extremes. If you protect structure now, the New Year doesn’t need repairing. There’s no detox required. No dramatic restart. Just continuity. Finally, as we close out the year, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your support. Thank you for trusting us in an industry that often values hype over health. And thank you for being part of a community that cares about doing things properly. I hope you enjoy the festive period with your friends and loved ones, get some well-earned rest, and step into 2026 feeling steady, not behind.
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