Hi and welcome to another week,
Fantastic week of classes last week. I was just thrilled with the way they turned out –heaps of variety and some that were real challenges. Favorites of mine were the Body Work class – perhaps not as ‘brutal’ as usual, but just a great full body workout with a lot of variety in exercises – and Friday’s ‘everyone to a bag’ torture fest. I know we don’t do sessions like the one on Friday very often – and I also know that a lot of people consider them the ‘hardest’ classes we ever do at Round 1 – but for those people who question why there aren’t more of them it is a simple matter of logistics. There are 33 bags in the gym (8 heavy, 8 light, 9 combo, 8 shields) and the only day we ‘know’ that there wont be any classes with more than 33 people in them is Friday…I promise though, next time we do this I will promote it a bit more (as long as you all promise not to roll up at the same time!).
As a few of you know, I have another role in life coaching a footy side and because of that I headed off to Sydney on Friday for a game vs Queensland on Saturday. I thought it might be interesting this week if I blogged a little bit about the trip – not so much the game, but the trip – so you had an idea of what was involved in these sort of undertakings.
I was up at the usual time on Friday (about 4:30am) and double checking my bag for the trip. Complicating matters was that I had decided that I would get through as much of the 6am session at Round 1 as I could and still make my deadline at the airport for 7:30am – so I needed my gym gear on, my stuff for the trip in one bag and another bag for my stuff to wear on the trip. Somehow, I managed all of this – I bailed on that brutal session at 06:40am, went for a quick walk to cool down then jumped in the shower – getting changed into my team tracky for the trip. It was off to the airport from there and my fears of the traffic on the Roe/Tonkin Hways was unfounded…I grabbed a spot in the long term carpark and then tried to figure out how to carry all my stuff – overnight bag, back-pack (laptop and notes) and 5 match-day white boards – over to the terminal using arms that didn’t want to work after Lloyd’s inch-worms, burpees, hindu pushups, clap pushups etc.
Somehow I made it and together with the other staff got everything loaded and by 8:30am all of the players had arrived – the flight wasn’t until 10:10am. Had a chat to the lone media person who came along to see us – not much interest in underage footy I’m afraid – and then we all piled on the plane.
My plan for the plane trip over was to review all my notes for that nights team meeting/game, then have a chat to a few players before trying to read a few pages of a book – George Dohrmann’s ‘Play their Hearts Out: A coach, His star recruit and the Youth Basketball Machine’ is my current one – and I managed to achieve all of this. Good news. We arrived in Sydney just after 4, grabbed our gear and jumped on the bus to Blacktown. Well – almost. One of the boys left his wallet on the plane, so we were stuck at the airport for a while until it was retrieved…we were finally on the road around 5pm.
The trip to Blacktown in Sydney’s Friday afternoon peak hour was miserable – it was nearly 6:30pm by the time we arrived. A quick walk and kick on the oval – thankfully, they turned the lights on for us – got rid of the cobwebs and we headed off to the hotel (Crowne Plaza Norwest) for dinner, team meeting and hopefully some sleep. As it was 7:30pm when we arrived we abandoned plans to check-in and went straight down to grab some food – from there, it was off to listen to a couple of guest speakers, conduct the team meeting (show the players some opposition footy and reiterate our game-plan for the following day) before giving them a bit of free time before the designated lights-out at 10:30pm. All up, I had been up since 2:40am Sydney time and travelling for 15hours total before finally hitting the pillow.
Saturday? Up at 6am for a quick workout with another Round 1’er on the trip (cheers PB) before a morning walk with the players at 7am, breakfast at 8am and checkout at 08:45am. The bus to the game left at just after 9am and we arrived at the Blacktown complex just ahead of the scheduled 9:30am arrival time. Usual pre-game stuff from there – medical time, team meetings and warm-ups – for an 11am start. The game itself didn’t exactly go to plan – whilst we dominated every statistic imaginable we lost the radar when kicking for goal (8 goals 16!) and went down by 2 points…not what we were hoping for and certainly not something that met the expectations of the footy community!
A quick post-game review with the other coaches followed, before heading back up to the stands to watch a bit of the 2nd game which featured our next two opponents – NSW and Vic Country. A chat with some AFL types about the key players for NSW (who we play next week) followed at half-time of that game before we all piled back on the bus and headed into Darling Harbour so the players could enjoy a little bit of ‘down’ time. That was the plan anyway, but traffic again stood in our way – we finally got to Darling Harbour at 4:30pm but needed to leave by 5:10pm to make our flight – so ‘down-time’ turned into ‘grab a quick sandwich and get back on the bus!’.
When we got to the airport the players were excited by a Miranda Kerr sighting (and photo op) whilst the coaches and other staff headed into the Qantas lounge to start working on the video review. By the time we boarded at 7pm all of the individual player footage (each player receives a video of all of their personal involvements in the game) had been cut and the rest of the video review had commenced. I spent the first couple of hours of the flight cutting the ‘team’ vision using the CIV system until my laptop battery threatened to die – at that point, it was shut down, grab my book (well, Kindle!) and relax. We arrived back in Perth around 10:30pm, unpacked and I arrived home just on 11:30pm Saturday night.
Ah, the glamour of it all. Thankfully though, Vanessa volunteered to cover the desk at the gym for a while this morning so I could sleep in a little – I finally made it to the gym just on 9am!
For anyone curious about how to use the new mechanical monstrosity we call the Glute-Ham Developer (GHD), have a look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMS2dU0FuPk
The Round 1 coffee machine is all go – just $2.50 per cup. It will be all go-go-go in the very near future when the coffee cards arrive…$20 for 10 cups! This will work on a ‘hole-punch’ system similar to the 10-pass cards.
Confirmed during the week that the new hoodies (and the missing skipping ropes – hoorah) will ship this week. Will take a few days to get here, but the good news is that there is news! The hoodies will be zip-front and this first batch will be grey in colour. There will be a small Round 1 Fitness ‘badge’ on the breast pocket and ‘The Boxing Fitness Gym’ will be enscribed across the back. The photos look great and I am hoping the real thing will be as well!
As per last weeks news, some more gear will be here in the next few days. A torsonator and a couple of barbell jacks for TANKS, some pro-grade kettlebells, ab wheels and some foam rollers for sale in the shop.
Another disastrous week in footy tipping for me – I got just 4 selections right (not good) and whilst I did pick a couple of upsets, the ones I tipped weren’t the ones we got! On a personal note I was really thrilled to see Mark Neeld get his first win as a senior coach – he is a ripping bloke and a good coach – he will turn the Dees around given time.
Dream Team? Well – I can’t quite figure out if I have won or lost at the moment. I am 57 points down after the last game, but have one emergency to use who scored 75 points and I am 57 points behind the 3’rd placed ‘Broker of Toe’ (Booker’s team). I think I have won – but I think Dream Team has robbed me in the past and am not prepared to call it right now!
A bit of a quieter week on the Round 1 Facebook site – my fault entirely I am afraid…I guess my only excuse is with the first ‘real’ game of the footy season upon me I was a bit short of focus! Back on the horse this week though, I promise!
25 Tips for Muscle Building: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/25-tips-for-more-muscle-and-superstrength.html
Rich Froning: http://games.crossfit.com/video/mens-event-6-heat-3-central-east-jumbotron-wr
Run for a Reason photo page: http://www.marathon-photos.com/scripts/home.py and here: http://www.hbfrun.com.au/?s_kwcid=hbf%20run%20for%20a%20reason&gclid=COmZru7dsbACFWhLpgodeh81Sg?cookie=triedonce (featuring a proud Round 1 Fitness singlet).
Please join us on the site and get involved with the daily conversations – it really does help keep you focused on your training and diet.
A post-workout/meal-replacement smoothie this week. From the below link (which is to the journal) there is a link to the recipe (PDF file) on the right hand side of the page as well as one to a YouTube video.
http://journal.crossfit.com/2012/05/hey-smoothie.tpl
See you in the gym!
Michael.
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