Hi and welcome to another week,

Rather than talking about the classes last week, I wanted to kick off this week’s blog by saying a big thanks to everyone who has been bringing their friends and family to Round 1 to train.  When people train with their friends it really does help build the community that we have at the gym – and also adds to the burpee numbers with all the chatting on the floor-to-ceiling balls!  From a gym perspective, we do try to look after everyone who brings along a friend by giving out referral bonuses for our members and providing the newbies with free 3-day passes…I would also ask that you look after your friends by bringing them along to a Beginners session to start them off rather than dragging them along to a Body Work class!  Just on the referral system, remember – if one of your friends or family joins Round 1 and quotes your name you receive a free-extension to your membership of up to one month!

I had a conversation with a member during the week about their training and diet.  The conversation was all about the fact that they haven’t seen much ‘change’ in themselves physically over the last couple of months despite doing 2-3 classes per week and getting out for a couple of runs.  Now for a lot of people this might be the ‘perfect’ routine – it certainly sounds like one I would like – but the reality is it might not be right for you…and it might not be right for them.  But this person is training pretty hard and their routine certainly isn’t terrible – but it was when we started talking about food that the real story started to come out…and when most of the resistance started to appear as well.

Here’s the thing.  Do whatever exercise you want.  Eat whatever food you want.  Because it isn’t until you start feeling uncomfortable with the person you see in the mirror that you are going to make a real change.  The only time that this isn’t true is if you find something that you really want to achieve – really, really want to achieve – and that ambition drives your behaviour.

Now when it comes to your training, most everything you ‘like’ will work for you if you are persistent and stick to it.  What do I mean by this?  Well it is pretty simple – if you want to do five Boxing classes each week but still have weekends off – do that.  If you want to do Body Work every night and Tanks on Saturday – do that.  If you want to lift weights every day and do one class every week on a Saturday morning – do that.  If you are consistent with your activity levels and train with real effort, your strength and fitness will improve – and, as I saw when I ran the marathon a couple of weeks back, it doesn’t really matter what size and shape you are when it comes to achieving ‘fitness’ challenges because there were a large number of people running the event who had a body composition that suggested an idle life, not one spent pounding the pavements around town.  To steal a line from ‘Moneyball’, when it comes to the ‘doing’ (whether it is lifting heavy, running fast or jumping high), it is about how you have prepared and how hard you have worked, not about how you look!

When it comes to your diet though, if you take the same approach with your training and just eat everything that you ‘like’ then you are not going to get anywhere.  That is, you are not going to get anywhere unless you are lucky enough to prefer fresh meat, vegetables and water to pizza, garlic bread, chips and beer…in which case you are in luck.  But if you are like most people and you like eating those sort of foods on a regular basis then you have to show some discipline to make any progress…and as I said (probably badly) a few weeks back, even one ‘blow-out’ per week can be enough to completely scupper any progress you might have made in the rest of the week.  Unfortunately the line I keep hearing in the gym – “Abs are ‘made’ at the dinner table, not in the gym” is true.  If you want to ‘look’ good, yep, you need to train to attain muscle definition but you simply MUST show discipline when it comes to what you put in your mouth.

If you are serious about change, you need to make yourself uncomfortable.  Start writing down every single thing you put in your mouth – and be honest.  I promise taking this simple step will sort out the simple changes you might need to make just because you wont want to read the words ‘Mars Bar and triple latte’ in print.  Once you have done that, bring the diary in after a couple of weeks and we can try and help you figure out the harder changes you might need to make in order to get to where you want to be.  It is nearly summer time.  The time to start feeling ‘uncomfortable’ about fitting into your bathers is now – not when the water in the pool is warm enough to stick your toes into.

See you at Round 1,

Michael.

Gym Update #1 – Aubin Grove Physio Lecture

Thanks to everyone who showed up to the lecture last Monday night.  It really is great that the guys from Aubin Grove Physio were prepared to give up their time to present to us on shoulder and knee prehab and injury maintenance.  The team down at AGP do a great job (as many of our members can attest) and they have a great treatment philosophy which will get you back and training – even in a modified way – as soon as possible…you will not be disappointed if you use them for treatment.

One request from me – if you do drop in to see them make sure you tell them you are from Round 1.  It isn’t that it means anything financially to the gym (because it doesn’t) but it does increase the likelihood that we can ask the guys back to talk to us in the future.

Gym Update #2 – October WLC is On the Way

Following on from the opening post, if you have a goal to achieve OR you are just ‘uncomfortable’ with how you look/feel at the moment, maybe you should start thinking about getting involved in the October 2013 Whole Life Challenge.  In our two previous life challenges, we have seen some great results with who see it through losing approx 4.5kgs in weight whilst seeing their measurements/skinfolds drop by around 10%.  People who make sure they score 3 food points every day – who really take it seriously – do even better than that.

The challenge will work in exactly the same way as it has in the past.  Each day you will be eligible to receive ‘points’ based on your diet and exercise regime.  The points will look like this:

3 Food points per day.

3 exercise points per day (but MAXIMUM of 15 exercise points per week)

1 Rehab point per day.

1 Supplementation point per day.

The food stuff is pretty simple – you start every day with three (3) points and you lose one (1) point each time you eat something from the banned list.  So…what is on the banned list?

All Grains and starches (sweet potatoes are allowed).  For the sake of clarity, this includes Quinoa, Buckwheat and any/all grain wannabees.

All Dairy products (though WHEY protein will be allowed this time).

All products containing sugar or sweeteners of any kind.  Yes, this includes diet cool drinks – it includes ANYTHING with a sugar or sweetener.

All Alcohol.

All FRUIT juices (vegetable juice is allowed).

‘Compound’ foods (like pizza which would usually include grains and dairy products) are a deduction of one (point)…but two slices of pizza would be a deduction of TWO (2) POINTS!

The supplementation point comes from taking fish oil – 3g per day.

With the exercise points, that will also work the same way as in the past – you will receive two (2) points for each Round 1 class or PT session you complete and one (1) point per 30 minute ‘block’ of ‘other’ exercises.  The stretching point is earned by completing 10 minutes of stretching.

Everything in this challenge is self assessed – you record your own points in a google docs spreadsheet that I will collate on a weekly basis.

Now – if you want to have your measurements done as part of this challenge, this will be done on Monday September 30^th between 4:30pm and 9pm.  The cost of having this done is $5 per person.  Again, these will be getting done on Monday September 30^th between 4:30pm and 9pm…so if you want them done then please start thinking of a way you can get into the gym in that 270 minute window rather than thinking of other times you might be able to ask us to measure you in.

For those of you who REALLY like to plan ahead, if you are doing the challenge and think you might like to get your measurements done again at the end of the challenge – we generally see body weight changes of approx 4.5kgs and measurement changes of around 10% for people who take it seriously AND see it through – then post-challenge measurements will be done on Friday November 1^st between 4pm and 8pm…again, if you want your post challenge measurements done then Friday November 1^st between 4pm and 8pm is the time/date to enter in your calendar.

Gym Update #3 – New Gear, New Gear

We have some more new equipment on the way:

Additional 4kg and 6kg Kettlebells

Additional Deadballs

New 10kg and 20kg weight vests

Should all be in the gym this week so keep your eye out for the new gear.

Gym Update #4 – Round 1 Fitness Dream-team and Footy Tipping

With all the upsets that occurred, I am quite shocked to say that we had two (2) tipsters (Brad Mahar and Jason Barnes) who correctly selected all four (4) winners.  I am very impressed guys – it was not an easy round to tip.

Up at the top of the ladder both of our leaders – who it must be said are more than 30 points ahead of both of this weeks ‘perfect’ tipsters – only managed to select one winner each and therefore remain locked together on top of the ladder.

So – there are just five (5) games left and Dayle and Leigh remain level on top…who will be the one to take a chance in an effort to win the competition?

Facebook Highlights

A quieter week on Facebook this week – at least in terms of the number of links that were put up.  My fault entirely –unfortunately with both Lloyd and Sean away on holidays it was left for those of us who remained to pick up the slack in terms of classes…so there was less opportunity for reading and research.  Never-the-less, there were a few good posts:

Skippity skip (and why you should):  http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/3_fat_loss_steps

Aubin Grove Physio:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aubin-Grove-Physiotherapy-and-Pilates/124374627634475

Sleep:  http://breakingmuscle.com/health-medicine/9-all-natural-tips-for-better-sleep

Link of the week

Coming up to the anniversary of 9/11 I thought this was appropriate for this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT7tfngkeuE

See you in the gym!

Michael.