Get Your Glutes in Gear With This Fitbit Tight-End Challenge

It’s an American tradition to gather around the TV on the first Sunday in February to watch football, but the big game isn’t the only thing that’s oversized. Consider:

• Households purchase the largest number of calories per serving of food in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, finds a study in PLOS ONE. The second unhealthiest week? The week before the week of the Super Bowl.
• Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest day of eating, according to the USDA.
• Even a relatively modest consumption of common gameday foods and beverages can add up to more than 2,400 calories and 121 g of fat during the game alone, finds the Calorie Control Council.
• The average fan forfeits 1,700 steps when they sit down to watch a football game, according to Fitbit data.
• People living in cities with NFL teams eat 10 percent more food and 16 percent more saturated fat the day after the loss, finds a study in Psychological Science.  

So what’s a diehard football fan to do? Don’t bench yourself: Build more movement into your viewing party with this simple squat challenge. The better your team does, the better your booty will look.

Fitbit Tight-End Squat Challenge

Here’s how it works: Each time your team scores, you get up and do a number of air squats that’s equivalent to the score.

For example, if a your team kicks a field goal, you have to do three squats. If that team later scores a touchdown and the extra point—bringing their tally to 10—you do 10 squats.

Overachievers become automatic MVPs by squatting out both team’s points. But don’t cut corners. Form counts.

How to Do the Perfect Squat

Stand with feet just wider than hip distance. You can turn your toes slightly out—as long as it feels like a natural, comfortable position. Interlace your fingers behind your head, or extend arms out in front of your chest. Keeping your chest up and eyes ahead, and the bulk of your weight over the centers of your feet and in your heels, lower your body toward the floor, bending your knees until they reach 90 degrees. Press back up through your heels, to start. That’s one rep.

Danielle Kosecki

Senior health and fitness editor Danielle Kosecki is an award-winning journalist who has covered health and fitness for more than 10 years. She’s written for Glamour, More, Prevention, and Bicycling magazines, among others, and is the editor of The Bicycling Big Book of Training. A New York native, Danielle now lives in the Bay Area where she doesn’t miss winter at all.