Bucked Up is a nutrition supplement company based out of Utah. With product names such as ‘Woke AF’, ‘LFG’ and ‘Mother Bucker’ they try and shirk the traditional Utah vibe but the mule deer logo on everything brings a lot of Utah with it. I am not much of a supplement guy. I do like a good caffeine jolt from a pre-workout but there are some products that are a bit too much of a jolt for my dainty heart. I first tried Bucked Up products when a promotion popped up on Facebook offering a sampler pack and a tee-shirt for $10. The first time I wore the tee-shirt one of my kids mentioned that it looked like something my nephew would wear. Sure enough, my nephew, who lives in Utah, is an ambassador for Bucked Up products, and does have the same shirt– it was a good ‘fit’.
They have run these challenges for the past 3-4 years and seem to do one for Winter, Summer and another in the Fall. I somewhat participated in their Fall 2023 Bootcamp but ended up travelling a ton so didn’t really go all in. A lot of the structure of that one is the same for the Winter one so commentary will be a mix of experience on the Fall challenge and how that looks compared to the Winter one.
Workouts are every day but Sunday (which is listed as ‘active rest’) with Mondays and Fridays being a little bit more aerobic where you need less equipment and might be able to do from home. The other days you will pretty much need a gym with a decent selection of tools. During the Fall challenge I could hear a Christopher Walken parody of SNL in my mind saying ‘I need more Kettle Ball’ as it felt like everyday was Kettle Ball day. Winter challenge seems to omit that tool.
The Fall challenge started the week with cardio & core and Friday was a full-body workout (mainly with, yes, the Kettle Ball) and the Winter one switches those days and has minimal equipment requirements (Dumbbells, stability balls and Bosu balls). The other days are the same for both the Fall and the Winter versions: Tuesday is shoulders, Wednesday is leg day, Thursday is chest & triceps (push day), and Saturday is back & biceps (pull day).
You do the exact same workouts every week for the duration of the challenge (6-weeks in the Fall, 8-weeks for Winter) but you add intensity in either number of reps, sets or amount of weight each week. By the end of the challenge– you will be ready to do something different with your workout.
The Winter challenge allows you the choice between a ‘weight loss’ track and a ‘muscle building’ track. These are fairly similar (Mondays and Fridays are exactly the same) but the muscle building has additional movements and more advanced exercises.
The workouts seem to be achievable in a theoretically reasonable amount of time; an hour, but the rest periods between sets are suggested at 45-60 seconds. For some compound movements where you are supposed to be going with maximum effort (squats, deadlifts, etc.) that is not a lot of recovery time for guys (women actually need less time to recover typically). My wife really liked the Fall Challenge workouts and they are fun to do together with a partner (we would pass the stability ball back and forth at the gym). For some of them I still needed to do some modification– dips and pull-ups are just a bodyweight bridge too far for me.
The workout guide does come with video illustrations performed by the Bucked Up team members. This is extremely helpful as for non native gym-bros, Bulgarian split squats, Romanian Dead Lifts and Good Mornings aren’t entirely intuitive enough of a description to actually do the exercise. While you can usually figure something out with google, even that has various options that pop up so the videos are great.
Anyone can access the challenge at no cost, but in order to win money, you need to buy at least one full-sized product during the specified time. As one of the ‘benefits’ of winning is that you become a product ambassador, it makes some sense that you actually need to try something.
They don’t publish the number of people who participate in the challenge but with over 50,000 members of the Facebook group, there are likely a lot of people competing for the prize money.
I like that they have separate but equal prize money for men and women. Top three of each gender get money prizes with the top prize for each at $5000 cash +$1000 store credit for the Winter challenge. Everyone top 10 gets at least $100 in store credit. The Bucked Up team chooses the top 10 but then there is voting process by group members to choose the winner. That approach seems more democratic and transparent than other contests I have seen. They even crop the photos for the voting so it is focused on body transformations and not a ‘winning’ smile or a full head of hair.
You are required to take a photo the first week of the challenge, at contest midpoint, and then a final photo. They encourage you to look natural (no flex) and also avoid overly revealing clothing. This is another departure from other fitness challenges I have seen where many of the people seem to be advertising a bit more than nutrition supplements. From some of the photos I have seen of past participants, it is unclear everyone got the same memo on revealing clothing. I suppose if you got it, flaunt it.
A lot of communications through the Facebook group and there are two women (Rachel and Larissa) who seem to be the main admins and run most of the live events and manage questions. They are adorable in a goofy, self-deprecating sort of way. Again, refreshing compared to other company challenges which are a bit more intimidation-focused and ego-centric with lots of virtual yelling. This one feels like more of a welcoming community; can’t escape that Utah vibe if they tried.
The pdf workout guides are included below (assuming these are in the public domain and not proprietary) as is a link to the trainerize app site where all of these have been loaded into an app. Might update this after the challenge, especially if I win– sometimes you get lucky in Vegas more than once right?
Renovation Fitness 
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