Hi and welcome to another week,

Last week was a little bit emotional – with Jason finishing off his last lot of shifts/classes – and a little bit painful – as that same Jason tried to squeeze in as many bin runs, multi-jumps and one-legged burpees before riding off into the Margaret River sunset.  I am happy to say I survived three ‘Jason’ classes in his last week at Round 1…it is just as well he is leaving because if I am told to do one more multi-jump I am not sure I can be held responsible for my actions!   Needless to say, the mere act of walking today after his final ‘Walking Lunges’ class – sorry, I mean, his final ‘Body Work’ class yesterday has proved something of a challenge.

I wanted to talk (just a little) about stress, being happy and what a hippy nerd I have become lately.  Hard to believe?  Well, would you believe that rather than waking up to the sounds of the Afghan Wigs, these days I awaken to the sounds of the Afghan Wigs (after all, it is still 1989 on my iPad!) accompanied by a message that says ‘Boxing Class this morning – It is going to be an AWESOME Day’.  The exception is on Saturday, when it says ‘TANKS Class this morning – It is going to be an AWESOME Day’.  The first thing I hear every day is my favourite song (“I warn you, if cornered, I’ll scratch my way out of the pen”) and a message telling me it is going to be a good day.  No matter how cynical I was about ‘trying this’, I can tell you – it is making a difference.  I start thinking about the GOOD things the day will bring (taking some group sessions, lifting some weights) and NOT the bad stuff (chasing up memberships, financial reports, etc).  It just happens.  And of course the ‘bad stuff’ still needs to be dealt with, but somehow they seem a little less overwhelming when my first thoughts are about the ‘good stuff’.

Now whilst I am not suggesting everyone needs to send themselves a happy message to start each day, it is worth reflecting for a couple of moments on exactly why YOU are getting out of bed each morning.  What stops you from hitting the snooze button and just going back to sleep?  Think about this – why exactly do you get out of bed every morning if not to have a great day?

Being healthy isn’t just about eating right and training regularly.  It is about being able to look at things in a positive light – letting go of the things you can’t control and just focus on what you can.  I know this sounds ridiculously simplistic, but if we all responded to things not with worry but with action, I am sure we would be a lot happier in ourselves.  Don’t get angry at the traffic – put on a podcast or audiobook and take ADVANTAGE of the time.  Don’t worry about your sick friend/relative – give them a call and talk to them.  Don’t stress about the unreasonable deadline at work.  Just get started on the next task in the project and try to make some impact on what IS achievable.  And if you didn’t get to the gym four (4) times this week, don’t stand on the scales and grab at the fat around your midsection – be happy that you made it three times and work out when you can get there next!  After all, what the scales say doesn’t matter when you are giving it your best shot!

What am I saying?  I have become a hippy nerd and today is going to be an AWESOME day.  And tomorrow will be even better.  Make this your reality – be positive in your outlook and be determined from the moment you wake up that no matter what difficulties you face by the time you climb back into bed that night you will have made progress towards at least some of your goals – either those at work, with your family or with your health/fitness. After all – and with credit to Tommy Hafey – if you think every day isn’t a great day, try missing one!

See you at Round 1,

Michael.

Gym Update #1 – Whole Life Challenge Starts NEXT WEEK

As mentioned in the last couple of blogs, the October 2013 Whole Life Challenge is GO.  In our two previous life challenges, we have seen some great results with who see it through losing 4.5kgs in weight (on average) 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.  So – if you are looking to maybe change your body composition before you need to squeeze into your bathers, maybe this challenge is the one for you??

Now – all of the details are in the blog from a couple of week’s back which you can find HERE!  If you are looking for details on what you can eat – check out the Facebook group for either of the last couple of challenges…you will find that HERE.  Failing that, have a look at sites such as ‘marksdailyapple.com’ for inspiration – there are a tonne of these sorts of resources out there.  My advice – keep things super simple for a couple of weeks – omelets for breakfast, meat and salad for lunch, meat and veggies for dinner…and once you have your ‘rhythm’ you can start thinking about variety.  Trying to ‘eat the same food but with different ingredients’ is a flawed strategy and one that will see you fall off the wagon.  Simplify, change your habits and stick at it.

Now is the important part:  If you want to be IN the challenge, you MUST send me a return email THIS WEEK that includes your name (yep, not everyone’s email ‘name’ = their name and whilst I should know who out of ‘jackandjill@gmail.com’ wants to be in the challenge I can’t always figure it out!) AND the email address that you want to have added to the WLC spreadsheet.  The link to the spreadsheet wont be sent out until NEXT MONDAY (September 30^th) so please don’t stress if you don’t get an immediate reply.  One other thing – the WLC is for Round 1 Fitness MEMBERS.  If your friend who isn’t a member wants to do the challenge with you – well, that’s awesome.  But please don’t ask to have their name added to the spreadsheet because the answer will be ‘NO’.

One more thing – the times for getting your pre/post challenge measurements done HAVE CHANGED!!! – Monday 30^th is a public holiday!!!  So – the new times/dates for measurements are:

Pre-Challenge:  Tuesday, October 1st between 4:30pm and 9pm.

Post Challenge:  Friday November 1^st between 4pm and 8pm.

The cost of having your measurements done is $5 per time – there is no cost to do the challenge BUT you will need to create yourself a Google ID in preparation for using the spreadsheet to keep your progress up-to-date.

Gym Update #2 – 3-Day Passes and Beginners sessions

We really appreciate everyone who encourages their friends to get down to Round 1 Fitness and give our sessions a try – it is fantastic for us to have the opportunity to win some new clients, and we try to reward those of you who bring people down by giving you a membership bonus when those people who you refer, join our gym.  Hopefully you guys also find the program a rewarding one.

BUT.

Our ‘3-day Free Passes’ come with conditions.  And one of those conditions is that the FIRST session – not every session, but the FIRST session – that someone does using a ‘Free Pass’ MUST be a Beginners session.  Now – this is not because we are trying to be difficult, or trying to make people ‘earn’ their free pass by training when they don’t want to…it is because a Beginners class is the best way to start at our gym and we want them to have the BEST EXPERIENCE possible.

If you are bringing a friend down to Round 1 and you want them to use the Free Pass – no problem.  That is why we introduced the Free Pass.  But the first time they use the pass it MUST be during a Beginners session.  And yep, we are being absolute Nazi’s about this.

Gym Update #3 – Support of the new sessions

A quick thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide feedback on the new 5am and 4pm sessions, as well as the new classes (Starting Strength and B+ Boxing).  Having the 4pm session every day seems to fit into quite a few peoples schedules – and I am quite proud to say we are the only gym around offering regular group training sessions at 4pm…and the only one offering 5am, and 7am, and 8pm…anyway, enough of the self-promotion, we just appreciate the support you guys are showing us.

Gym Update #4 – New Timetable Cards are GO.

Just on the new classes, there are new business-card sized time-table cards showing ALL of our session times available from reception.  Whilst I want everyone to be able to grab one of these, please support the gym and don’t take one for yourself and an extra for each member of your extended family – let people grab their own when they come to the gym!

Gym Update #5 – Round 1 Fitness Dream-team and Footy Tipping

One week to go, one week to go.  Congrats to all of the Dockers supporters out there – though if I have one more person tell me about ‘how long they have waited’ I think I am going to write a week of classes that revolve solely around walking lunges and tabata squats.  Enough peoples.  We get it…and to anyone who supports Freo but can’t get across to the game, well – In Your Face!  My team might suck but I am going to be there!  (Only joking!).

Regardless of that – onto the tipping contest which sees Michelle one (1) point clear of Leigh up on top of the ladder.  And with just one week to go, I guess this is what it comes down too.  Just checking through the ‘site’ totals for footytips.com, our leaders are quite respectably placed – only 9 points from the top of the tree out of more than 281000 tipsters…a great effort.

Facebook Highlights

A super week on Facebook – lots of banter about Jason’s last week and some awesome links::

53 YO does muscle ups:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3107614053&feature=iv&src_vid=zcTFcTa9Jo8&v=VrMEb7BaIDA

Cave Momma:  http://www.cavemomma.com/

Cream donuts:  http://www.catalystathletics.com/blog/blog.php?blogID=1802

Westside barbells:  http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/westside_for_skinny_bastards_ii

Cool Whole Life Challenge food site:  http://paleofamilyeats.com/

Living longer:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130916203946.htm

Tanks Warmup:  http://www.crossfitfootball.com/blog.php?id=52410

Link of the week

Great article on something we all need help with from time-to-time…how to stay motivated!

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/how_to_stay_motivated&cr=

See you in the gym!

Michael.