Hi and welcome to another week,
Really appreciate everyone coming to the gym to support our sessions last week. It is an amazing place when there are half-a-dozen people working through Beach Bodies and another 25-odd doing a Boxing or Body Work class. The energy and effort in the gym is really infectious and it makes it just a pleasure to be at work. Some of the days I work are pretty long but it so rarely feels like a chore – just when you start feeling tired or run down someone will sprint up and down the gym with a sled or just start hammering into the heavy bag and it brings the focus back in no time. We have another great week of classes this week…AND a new ‘block’ of Body Work plans is starting.
I have blogged about the scaling options in each of the past two weeks and just wanted to make a quick comment – awesome work everyone. I am really happy with how it is going and think it is having a positive impact on our sessions. Any feedback you might have, please get it to me via ‘mpratt@round1fitness.com.au’.
This week I wanted to talk about making ‘brave’ decisions and actually taking the chance to find out exactly how far you might be able to ‘get’/’go’. I know this little opening doesn’t really make any sense, but bear with me for just a second. In my other coaching life – football – it seems like every season I have the same conversation with players and it is all about being prepared to risk looking like a ‘goose’ in order to really find out what you are capable of. Or, on the flip-side, how it is really easy to look back on your performance and say ‘Well, if I had really had a go I could have done it/beaten him’…all the time ‘safe’ in the knowledge that as long as you never really ‘lay it on the line’ you will never, ever, really know. And nor will anyone else.
In simple terms, don’t let fear be your limiting factor. The Beach Bodies crew have a pretty challenging week of programming ahead – probably the toughest week to date (and I am already hearing some nervous talk about what has been put on the schedule). It is OK to be nervous about it – but it is not OK to allow those nerves and negative feelings to limit your efforts. You should be looking at it as a real opportunity to find out exactly how far you have come. To find out exactly what you are capable of…because once you have done it, some of the other mental limitations that just might have been holding you back (in your training and in other parts of your life) will seem a little less daunting. Don’t let the little voice in your head be the thing that is holding you back. I like to think I take the same chance in Boxing classes – maybe not in every single time I train, but certainly that I take the chances during my training to say ‘I have never quite managed that before – maybe today is the day to find out if I CAN do it’ (and ‘IT’ might be do anything – from doing all your push-ups on your toes to pushing hard on a bin run or grabbing a blue kettlebell instead of a yellow one – it might be anything and it will almost certainly be something different for everyone).
Following on from those comments about not letting yourself get held back by ‘fear’, I just wanted to remind everyone that when you are training the idea should be to move your body, the barbell, the kettlebell etc as FAST as you possibly can. When you are doing a pushup or squat, try to go from the ‘bottom position’ to the top as fast as you can by pushing as HARD as you can. Really drive up with speed and power. The same thing applies to your weighted movements – when the time comes to apply force, apply it as HARD and FAST as you can. I have used this analogy before but you need to imagine yourself in a fight and when it is time to press the bar/kettle, imagine that you are shoving the other person with every ounce of energy you have. Likewise when you are squatting/rowing – as you move upwards, imagine you are trying to push/kick with your legs as hard as you can. Hard, fast, powerful is what you want to practice because hard, fast, powerful is what we are training for. So SPRINT with the sled. Drive HARD with your legs when you are rowing. Hit the bags HARD – with effort and intent. The only thing that moving slow got you was slow – and no-one wants that. Train fast, move fast and be fast.
Good luck!
See you in the gym,
Michael.
p.s. Really looking for a couple of new member profiles…in fact I am ALWAYS looking for member profiles! If you would like to share with other Round 1’ers your training story and experiences, we would love to hear about them. If you have been training with us for more than 6-months there are certainly things you will be able to share that WILL help others…email me at ‘mpratt@round1fitness.com.au’ if you are keen.
Thanks to everyone who has supported to myofascial release session the last couple of weeks. We will continue on with the 12pm Sunday time-slot in the short-term at least – or until we can come up with a better solution that fits in with the rest of the gym. Our biggest problem of course is that we have classes running every hour we are open all weekend…and the foam rolling session takes up a lot of room that means we really need an open floor…
We have been working away in the background to try and source some really high-quality gym attire for everyone – and recently progressed to sign an agreement with Hylete (www.hylete.com). This is a pretty big deal for us – Hylete are the suppliers to a wide range of sporting organisations including the National Pro-Grid League (check out the link of the week if this doesn’t mean anything to you).
Our first delivery of Hylete attire has arrived and will be up on the shelves pretty soon…we are working through some solutions re- printing before pushing forward. Aside from the t’s, we have singlets (for girls) and crop pants which look amazing.
One of our members – Melinda Nicola – is running a study at Murdoch University on exercise motivation…and would love some community participation. The study offers you a unique opportunity to contribute to a study exploring people’s motivation to exercise. The outcomes will help find ways to improve the exercise experience and contribute to the knowledge pool on exercise programming – specifically as it relates to encouraging participation.
To encourage participation, Melinda is offering anyone who completes both phase 1 (online survey) and phase 2 (20 minutes on a stationery bike followed by a simple questionnaire to be completed at Murdoch Uni) the chance to win one of two $50 Coles/Myer gift cards.
If you are interested, please contact Melinda via email on mindu@iinet.net.au or go straight to Part 1 – the online survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/B7QMFQQ.
One of our members (the amazing Mon Wright) is a great physio and her team at Life Ready are a major sponsor of the City to Surf. When she saw that we are putting together a team for the event, she put together a great physio support offer for our running team.
We have already had a couple of runners talking about sore hip flexors – and I know my ITB’s are always a problem when I up the running – so this could be just the thing we all need to get us safely to the finish line. Remember, it isn’t just about ‘doing the work’ – you need to make sure your body is fit and ready to do the work! And this is (obviously) where Monica and her team comes it. The details are as follows:
Life Ready Physio Bicton
1 Westbury Crescent, Bicton (Cnr Canning Hwy)
P: (08) 6313 4010
E: bicton@lifereadyphysio.com.au
W: www.lifereadyphysio.com.au/our-clinics/bicton
1 hour massage with a Remedial therapist $75 (usually $89)
Initial Physiotherapy consult $79 (usually $89)
Physio follow up $67 (usually $77)
Private health rebates apply to eligible policies for both Remedial massage and Physiotherapy. HICAPS claiming also available at the time of service.
We are Medibank and HCF members choice providers – members are able to claim up to 90% of the service through their fund.
Now – one of our members took Monica up on the offer this week, and poster the following comments on Facebook:
“I had a 1 hour remedial massage at life ready physio Bicton last night as per your mention of their offer for round 1 members in the blog. It was great and really worked through all my sore bits from the extra lifting in beach bodies and training for the crossfit comps. Can definitely recommend it for anyone needing a sports massage and only cost me $30 after my medibank contribution was taken off x”
Thanks to all the running club people. We have got through the first 3 weeks pretty well and are ready for our first ‘longer’ run next weekend at 8am. Don’t stress too much – it wont be much more than 5kms or so and the pace will not be high! It is not too late to join in if you are keen on doing the CTS run or just want to break up your training week with a little bit of running.
Lastly – if you wanted to register for our City to Surf team, the link is here:
Week 7 program is up and ready to go. We are approaching the end of our linear progression (it goes for 9 weeks) and this will be the most challenging week of training so far. There are back-to-back-to-back days of 15 minute assault bike efforts – and I want you to really have a go. Whilst we want to lift and be strong, we also need to be conditioned athletes and putting our head down and working HARD is the only way to achieve this. Don’t save yourself for the last minute and sprint – do your work early and then just try to hold on…you will surprise yourself.
The leg day on Thursday (deadlifts up in sets, big squat day) will be super challenging so make sure you are ready to really get it done. Plan your post session recovery as well – it is not the day to be unsure where your next meal is coming from at the end of your training.
I have been working on a Beach Bodies phase 2 program for anyone who might be interested – please let me know via email if you are keen as the programming effort is significant and I don’t want to spend a heap of time working on things that people don’t want to do! I am trying to set this second phase up as a ‘scaled’ approach which would enable people to maintain a linear progression OR move towards more supportive movements depending on where they are at with their training.
In a week with only a couple of upsets, it seems a lot of us tried to go for a few roughies…but chose the wrong ones! Ethan nailed 7 winners and was the only member in our group to even do that…not a great weekend for tipsters.
The somewhat dodgey tipping was not restricted to people like me on the bottom of the ladder – and there have been changes at the top. Shelby is now just one point clear of Sydney man Paul who is flying the flag for the boys just one-point off the top.
My DreamTeam was an absolute disaster. I am not sure why my score was so low – after all, for the first time in a month there were no byes to impact us – but it just seemed scores were down everywhere. Last week par seemed up around 2100 – this week, 2000 was a great result. Good scores in our competition came from Ash (NeverNeverLand) with a massive 2300+ points, Justin (Juddys AllStars) with a solid 2100 – though unfortunately he was playing vs Ash so that goes down as a loss! – and Trav (Yangebup Pigs) with a solid 2100.
With finals approaching in another month, if you are trying to position yourself for the run home that plan needs to be underway NOW. Remember, out last two winners went into the finals series in EIGHTH spot but had strong benches and multiple options as captain.
As mentioned up in the Hylete section, this is a quick Intro to Grid (or NGPL). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeeozxinv5I
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