Hi and welcome to another week,

Straight into it today.  As of this week Round One Fitness has been operating for SIX years.  Things have changed quite a lot in the gym in that time but what hasn’t changed is how things started.  I thought about making this weeks’ blog all about what ‘USED’ to happen in our classes, how we used to get maybe three (3) people to a 6am class (there was never even a thought of running one at 5am), how from the time those 3 people left the gym at 6:45am until 5pm (again, no 4pm class back then!) we would be lucky to see a soul walk through the doors – yep, the 7am class, 9am class (it moved to 9:15am a bit later), 12pm and 1pm class were scheduled but no-one actually came along – before being flooded by about ten (10) people at both 5pm and 6pm…times have surely changed!  As this is an anniversary though I figured it might be time to write down how the gym actually came to be…

I feel like I have told this story one million times but cannot find it written down anywhere…if I have I apologise but I feel like all of this is ‘newly written down’.  Broad strokes though, what follows here is pretty much as I recall it all happening (though Vanessa probably remembers it all better than I do).  Back in 2007 Vanessa and I were living in Melbourne  – I still had my I.T career going along and she was studying education at Murdoch via correspondence.  So we were truthfully living different lives to the ones we do now – in many ways diametrically different.  My role was a global one so – either good news or bad news depending on your perspective, most weeks I was spending time in Sydney or Canberra and was making pretty regular trips to various spots around the world ranging from Singapore to Budapest to Austin to London.  Just reading the names of those cities I am sure you can appreciate some of the work hours that were happening in my life – conference calls at all hours, interrupted sleep, bad food, too much alcohol…all of that was going on.

Things were great in that I had a pretty interesting and exciting job that was allowing me to travel and see the world.  Things were bad in that stress was super high, I was often away from my family and – even when I was home, it is not an exaggeration to say that our ‘real’ friends and family (with no disrespect intended to our surrogate family and all of our friends in Melbourne who were all incredibly welcoming!) were back in Perth…so when I was away, Vanessa was home with 3x kids (all much younger than they are now), zero support from me and no real ‘support network’.

Personally, whenever I stepped on the scales (or simply looked in the mirror) the numbers/image I saw did not make me happy.  I had always been pretty fit and strong growing up but had really done this through sport rather than ‘gym’ –  to keep fit post sport I guess I used to run occasionally but really didn’t have great habits in my life…and I used to tell myself that with the hours I worked it was ‘too hard’ to get into a routine.  Besides, I couldn’t commit to the gym after work – after all, there was a footy team that needed coaching and meetings that always seemed to run late and project deadlines that had to be hit – and after finishing work late followed by a couple of beers after dinner, training before work was just too hard (‘cos how can you be at the gym at 6am when you aren’t getting into bed till 11:30pm and then because of stress and alcohol and bad food aren’t really sleeping that well anyway?).

Anyway, it is 2007 and all of this stuff you just read about is going on and I make the decision to try and get into a little bit of shape.  And I used to box as a kid so I find the nearest boxing gym and roll up and start training a couple of sessions per week – the sessions are 30 minutes long and I am unfit and fried in 10 minutes flat but somehow I keep heading along and start to look a bit better but more importantly feel a bit better.  And as I keep going, I find that hitting something as hard as I can actually makes me a happier person (yep, not to make you ‘happier’ I can hear everyone saying!) and I because of the exercise I become a bit more effective at work and start sleeping a little bit better…start feeling better really.

So after a while I start talking to the owner of the gym a little bit about how he set it up (which for those who remember the old days is a lot like the way Round 1 used to work day 1 – exceptions being the addition of dedicated strength and bike/rowing stations) and in my down time started working on a business plan that would ‘one day’ enable me to leave the I.T Industry specifically and corporate life in general to do something ‘different’ – hopefully something a bit ‘smaller’ but something where I might get some real satisfaction from a work day spent trying to make an impact on other people.  So I am getting to the gym a few times each week and writing what would become an overly complicated business plan and all of this was helping me (a lot) in terms of my health and my stress levels.  Work still wasn’t great though and I guess I had reached that unfortunate point in my career where I felt that every day was just becoming more frustrating than the day before – less resources (both people and money) available to achieve continually more aggressive timeframes and a world where there was always time to add another level of rigour to the ‘process’ but not enough time to ensure that problems were being solved rather than just patched over in order to get some ‘green lights’ on a status report.  If that sounds familiar to anyone out there then I am really sorry you are living through what I lived through.  Regardless, all of this made me more determined to make a bit of change so the business plan kept getting refined and I kept slowly creeping forwards towards my goal of opening a gym.

Now, as it turned out, it took nearly four (4) years work to make all of that happen (and relocating from Melbourne back to Perth, and changing I.T jobs another couple of times etc) before the doors of the gym were finally opened.  Not all of it has been smooth sailing – in fact, in many ways every day, week and month feels like a new battle of sorts and there are always things we need to be doing better (and we appreciate it when we have people TELL US about those things) but all up I think those original goals that Vanessa and I had – to set up a business that helps people and allows both me and my staff to have a positive impact on the lives of our clients – has been at the heart of everything we have tried to do (even if we haven’t got everything right, every step of the way).  And if you really want you can also give a big tick to the other, less publicised goal of having a business that doubles as an enormous man cave designed to support my own personal mid-life crisis…but please don’t tell Vanessa.

That’s it – thanks to everyone who has supported Round One Fitness over the last six years and here’s to six more!

See you in the gym,

Michael.

p.s.  Last chance for April Challenge sign-ups – it closes WEDNESDAY (‘cos that is the last day you can enter and still complete the requisite 4x classes in week#1):  https://tms.ezfacility.com/OnlineRegistrations/Register.aspx?CompanyID=1214&GroupID=1535611

Gym Update #1 – SIX YEAR Special

As mentioned above, as of this week (well, late last week but let’s not quibble over details) Round One Fitness is turning six years old this week.  To celebrate we have a special on our 12-month membership that we all think is pretty cool…and we have stuck with the number ‘SIX’ for our theme.

Here it is:

12 months membership – One time payment of $666.  That is a saving of $114 on the current 12-month rate (or a touch under 15%).  That’s it – 12-months, $666 with no more to pay for unlimited classes (except for Tanks), unlimited gym use, unlimited everything really.  And yes, if you take this offer up you still get your backpack, still get your bag-mitts, still get your hand-wraps, still get your towel…everything you usually get with your 12-month membership you will STILL get!

This is a one week only special and is only available from tomorrow (Monday, April 4^th) until next Sunday (April 10^th).

Gym Update #1a – SIX YEAR Special for Direct Debit Clients

Our special is (of course!) also available to people who prefer to pay via direct debit and just to keep in with the theme of our anniversary we have decided to keep using the number SIX for these contracts as well.   12-months membership (exactly the way we described it above – all classes (except Tanks), unlimited gym use) for just $66 per month – or a saving of $66 per year.  Unfortunately we can’t keep using the number six when we get to the fortnightly payments but the special will still apply – the price for 12 months membership for $30.50/fortnight).

Again, this is a one week only special and is only available from tomorrow (Monday, April 4^th) until next Sunday (April 10^th).

Gym Update #2 – April 2016 Elevator Challenge

The next challenge is underway – the April 2016 Elevator Challenge.  Details are as follows:

4x classes per week for each week of April.

3x cardio challenges each week during April.

4x ‘extras’ (they are simple extras!) each week during April.

The number of reps in the ‘extras’ and the number of calories in the cardio increase each week during the month – for example in week 1 there are ’30 reps’ of each exercise to do, ’40 reps’ in week 2 etc etc.  This is where the ‘elevator’ comes from – every week, we go UP!  So if you want to give your training a bit of a kick-along and really re-invigorate things as we head into Autumn, this might be just the thing – the gym challenges keep everyone accountable for getting into the gym and getting their training DONE!

To participate in the challenge, click on this link and choose the option that best suits you:

Option 1:  Participate + T-shirt + Scans.  If you want to have a go at the challenge AND want a unique ‘Elevator’ t-shirt AND want to do before and after body scans (those alone are worth $50) the cost is $30!

Option 2:  Participate.  Participation only is $10.

Option 3:  Participate + one-month membership.  Following on with some feedback from the 28-Days Later challenge, we have included an option whereby people can fully participate in the challenge (including scans and t-shirt) – including access to all classes in the gym for a month – for $99.   This one is really there if you have a buddy who wants to join you in the challenge but who isn’t currently a member of the gym.

Gym Update #3 – Special offer from MOMU homes

One of our newer members – Alvin Dube – works for MOMU homes and has a pretty cool offer for all of us who get along to Round 1.  Now there are some flyers going up in the gym this week but in essence the idea is that if you are thinking about building a house or investing in property, have a chat to Alvin and if you decide to proceed he will give you a choice between a few special offers:

$500 cashback

3 nights/4 days accommodation in Bali.

6 months membership at Round 1 (I like this idea more and more!).

Contact Alvin on 0424697383 or alvin@momuwa.com.au

Link of the week

I enjoyed this:  http://jasonferruggia.com/12-reasons-youre-not-losing-fat/