Hi and welcome to another week,

I am writing this from a ‘kids’ resort hotel up on the Gold Coast.  Downstairs is a mini-water park, a laser tag centre, upstairs there is an ice-skating rink…if only we had spent more than 2-seconds at the hotel for the kids to enjoy it!  It was pretty early on Sunday morning when I started writing (everyone else is still asleep) and as I am finishing off now the rest of the crew are crashed out after a second day of ‘theme parking’.  Before I start my holiday ramblings – a couple of gym notes!  I didn’t fly out until late on Thursday so I did manage to get a few sessions done before I went – it was a tough week.  I enjoyed the partners session (hadn’t done one for a couple of weeks) on Tuesday as well as the 9-minute rounds class on Monday.  It was also the first week of our new ‘set’ of Body Work classes and a few people noted ‘concerns’ about class ‘A’.  Long story short, I have re-trialled the ‘every minute on the minute’ sets and what I found was that leaving the session ‘as is’ gives approximately 10-15 seconds break each set, whereas if I change the exercises from ‘each side’ to left/right the break increases to approximately 20 seconds (these are averages – the deadlifts are slower to complete than the squats or presses).  As such, we will modify the session to ‘Left/Right’ to make things more achievable for everyone participating.

On to my holiday ‘story’, and yesterday (Saturday) was a big day for us at DreamWorld – it was a super fun day.  I am not much of a ‘rides’ person (they terrify me) but I had promised I would go on every single one over here and am both pleased and regretful to say that I kept my promise.  Some were a lot of fun, but a couple of them (the Giant Drop and the BuzzSaw) were simply horrific.  The supposedly scariest one of all – The Tower of Terror – was actually a good fun ride…the Giant Drop though – whoever invented that thing has issues!

We arrived at Dream World as it opened on a really (really, really) hot and humid day.  The temperatures were up over 37degrees and the typical Queensland humidity was in full swing – it was pretty uncomfortable.  This was probably good in a lot of ways – there was not much queuing for any of the rides and consequently we rode every single ride in the park and several of them more than once.  If all of this is starting to sound like a holiday diary I promise I am getting to the point.

One of the reasons to be keeping fit and staying healthy is so that you can really enjoy your life and ‘DO’ things.  Dream World might have been ‘quiet’ but there were still a LOT of people in the park – and a lot of them were not having a great time of it.  The same picture was painted at White Water World today – people sitting in whatever bits of shade they could find looking miserable and uncomfortable their friends/kids ran around like crazy…that’s no way to spend a day.  Being fit, strong and healthy means being able to ‘go hard’ all day – and then waking up the next day and doing it all over again!  We all train at Round 1 so that we can fit into our jeans but also so that we can enjoy our lives.  When the company social committee arranges a day at Adventure World or a social cricket game, you should be looking forward to them as chances to be active and enjoy everyone’s company.  Whatever your life throws at you (Spartan Race, helping a friend move house, City to Surf, Parent-Teacher race) you should be going into it confident that not only can you take part but you can have a real go and have some fun whilst it is happening.

The old ‘Life. Be In It’ ads were on to something.  But in order to ‘Be In It’ you really do need to be looking after yourself – you can only participate to the full in all the opportunities that will be offered to you if you are healthy/in-shape.  Train a few times each week.  Do some regular walking/stretching to recover.  Eat WELL.

See you in the gym.

Michael.

Gym Update #1  – 28-Days Later Challenge

As per my mid-week email, our latest challenge (28-Days Later) will be kicking off on Feb 1^st.  Thanks to everyone who has already expressed an interest – I am putting all of your names into an email group and will be sending out some more info towards the end of this week…

That said, there wont be ‘much’ more info to send.  The rule for this challenge are so simple you wont need to be too clever to stay involved!  The rules can be split into two – training rules and diet rules.

Training rules:  Three sessions per week PLUS three ‘challenges’ per week.  I promise that none of the ‘challenges’ will take much more than 10-minutes and you can finish them before/after a class.

Diet rules:  Three simple rules and the rest of it is up to you. No Sugar, No Bread, No Alcohol.  None, none and none.  No sugar means no maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, coconut sugar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc.  I don’t understand when people ask me ‘what about fruit’ because fruit doesn’t have any added sugar.  So you can eat fruit.  If you are cooking/making raw treats and using fruit as a sweetener though, I think you know that is quite clearly breaking the rules.  Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in ways you might not recognize.  No Bread means no bread or bread substitutes – mountain bread, cracker bread, Turkish bread, cracker biscuits etc etc etc.  If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck then it is probably a duck.  No alcohol means NONE – not even for cooking, not even if it’s your birthday.

Each participant will have a tracking sheet to fill-out.  Classes (as usual) must be signed, diet rules and extras will be ticked off by each of you as you go…the idea is to find out how much of a difference you can make in one short month if you really focus and follow the rules.

The 28-days later challenge will cost $28 and this will entitle you to a before/after Body Scan on the InBody 570 (usually $25 each time for members).  If you fail to comply on more than three of the rules though you will not be entitled to the second scan – sorry everyone but fair is fair…the second scan is not an entitlement or a ‘throw-in’ – it is something you receive for FINISHING and it is done at the end of the challenge to check your progress – not on a day later in the year that suits you.  Sorry if this seems overly harsh but we are still doing scans relating to the last life plan (finished November 30^th last year) and it is impossible to track who is ‘owed’ what.

Gym Update #2  – Australia Day Party @ C.Y. O’Connor Beach

In a couple of weeks Australia Day will be upon us and we would love it if everyone could join us for a bit of a get together / celebration down at C.Y. O’Connor beach.  Our plan is to run a bit of a workout down there from 09:30am until 10:30am, then follow that up with a bit of a celebration from 11am.

It will be pretty casual – if you want to eat, bring down some steak/sausages.  If you want a beer, bring down some of them.  If you want to play cricket, bring down a bat and ball.  There is a grassed area down there, a couple of bbq’s and lot’s of white sand/blue ocean.  Bring your sunscreen, bring your kids – whether you want to stay for the day or just stop in for a hello and a quick swim would be fine with all of us…but as usual with these kind of things, the more the merrier!

To answer the next question, Australia Day is a Monday this year and the gym will still be open until 12:30pm even with the beach-based training session happening at 9:30am and the Australia Day celebration starting at 11am.

Gym Update #3 – New Bikes are on the Way

As mentioned over the last couple of weeks, some new bikes – Assault Air Bikes – will be in the gym soon.  These will replace EIGHT (8) of the Keiser M3 Spin Bikes (we will be keeping 4 for people who want to do some spinning).  We are hoping to sell off the Keisers – if you are interested in a spin bike for home, please send me an email to info@round1fitness.com.au.

Gym Update #4 – Spartan Up – New DISCOUNT OFFER

OK.  I have been banging on about this for AGES and we now have 50 people registered in our team.  Which is AWESOME.  But I think we can do better than that.  Now we have reached the magical number of 50, the Spartan Race Team have given us a 10% off code to help attract MORE registrations…if you are keen to have a go – or have registered but have a friend who is keen to be part of our team – then please send me a note (info@round1fitness.com.au) and I will send you through the discount code.

To register, go to http://spartanrace.com.au/event/perth-sprint-18-april-2015

Our team name is ‘Round 1 Fitness’ – choose the ‘Intermediate’ category.  The team password is ‘speedball’.

Email info@round1fitness.com.au if you have registered so I can try and keep track of things!

Gym Update #5– Join PERKVILLE.  Join NOW!!!

Perkville is awesome.  It is a rewards scheme that gives you ‘credit’ in the gym for every time you pay for your membership/every time you scan your membership card at the front counter.  You can then turn that ‘credit’ into TANKS classes, InBody Scans, Personal Training, Protein, new Boxing Gloves etc – whatever you want really!

Signing up really is simple – go to www.perkville.com , enter the same email address that you have registered at the gym and everything else is done for you.

Free stuff at the gym just for turning up?  Sounds alright to me!

Link of the week

Great ‘how to throw a jab’ video this week.  Nothing new to our Beginners participants, but still a really useful tutorial.  Even if you have been coming to Round 1 for years you would benefit from a skills refresher at Beginners every couple of months or so!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X4PM0SXtaI

Michael.