Hi and welcome to another week,
Loved the classes last week – in particular that session of 90-second rounds on Friday. It was such a great challenge and I really felt that there was pretty much ZERO rest and no-where to hide for the full 45-minutes of the class. It is funny really – we haven’t done 90-second rounds for ages because everyone was telling me that they were ‘too easy’…we have now done them twice in three weeks and both sessions have been super challenging. I’m not sure how these things work really – the last couple of 90 second rounds we have done were fairly similar to the last lot…yet once they were ‘too easy’ and now they feel like an amazing challenge. I guess that really does prove the old adage – it doesn’t matter what is in the class – the person most responsible for the benefits of the session is the person DOING the workout.
As a few people out there might know, I was without a mobile phone for just on ten days – most of last week and half of the week before. Whenever I told someone about this they seemed horrified…I am here to tell you that it really wasn’t that bad…and actually had quite a bit to recommend it.
The downside was – of course – that just staying in touch with friends and family became a bit of a challenge. I am not home a lot so just being able to call and say ‘hi’ is important – it is nice for the kids to know I am alive at least once each day. I also have been trying to use any ‘driving time’ (back and forth to footy etc) to make calls and touch base with people I might not have had the chance to speak with recently…it has been a good initiative and letting it slip was not good. Other downsides? Well – not a lot really. I do use my phone to take/post videos of all things Round 1 and I guess that’s important…but when I realised I hadn’t been doing that I grabbed one of the iPAD’s from the gym and did it that way instead! Using iMessage I still got most of the messages sent to me – but there were a couple of important ones that didn’t come through and I ended up wasting a few hours driving to a meeting/waiting for someone who simply was not coming and had tried pretty hard to let me know exactly that!
There were a few upsides though. First off, when I was sitting down to eat a meal, I spent the time either ‘thinking’ or I had a look at a paper rather than whatever social media goings on there might have been. I wasn’t distracted from work by a message (sms, facebook, whatever) and found that generally speaking I got my work ‘done’ just a little bit more efficiently. When I watched TV or played my guitar there was no ‘social media’ distractions and this really helped me use those times to ‘relax’ a little more than I feel I have been able to do so in like, forever. Like I said, I still needed to access FaceBook and InstaGram for work stuff – but since I had to do this from my laptop or iPad, it was a decision I had to make…go to the website using my browser rather than seeing a notification on my phone and automatically ‘clicking’ on it. Same result at the end of the day (I did see/manage the notifications) but I did it on my timetable rather than the one that was set for me.
In short my week or so without a mobile was a pretty good experience on so many levels – and made me realise that I have become one of those people who often check their phones for messages even when it doesn’t beep/vibrate/whatever it does. It made me realise that if I need to turn it off to focus on something (or at the very least, put it on silent and stick it in my bag/drawer for a while) that not only will the world not end, but my day will be more productive which will mean I have more time available for the non-work stuff I like to do – like getting an occasional session in the gym maybe!
Remember that – phone or no-phone – the important things in life are always happening right in front of you…that’s whether it is work, spending time with your family or that barbell that simply isn’t going to lift itself. If you have the chance to turn your phone off/put it away you might find – just like I did – that not having constant access to your phone actually makes you a happier, MORE productive person. And that can only help in every part of your life.
See you in the gym,
Michael.
p.s. If you are keen on entering our first ever in-house fitness competition, it is being held on Sunday May 1st. Please sign up at the following link (Round 1 Showdown) if you are keen – the cost for the day is $30 and all participants will receive a show-bag of goodies to mark the occasion. We will also be cooking a few sausages during the day and would love to have a few spectators along…speak to any of the trainers if you are keen for more info!
The next challenge is well underway – we are now half-way through the April 2016 Elevator Challenge and should have knocked out eight classes plus all of our sets of both 30 AND 40 when it comes to the extras. I personally found the ‘step-up’ from 30-calories to 40-calories for each of the cardio efforts a huge challenge during week two (2) – the idea of having to do 50-calories this week is not one that is exciting me (and don’t mention the 60-calorie stuff in week 4).
On a bit of a side note, our unique t-shirts for the challenge have arrived and we will be trying to hand these out over the next few days…if you are owed one then be sure to speak up!
So a bit of an update on the gear that we are all waiting on. The first part of the gloves order has been shipped and I am hoping that we will again have medium size bag mitts in the gym again towards the end of this week. Back-packs are a bit of a different story and it looks like they will be ANOTHER week away on top of that…apologies but each time we change the design (and we like to do this every 12-months or so because not everyone wants the same ‘style’ of bag) it seems to throw a bit of a spanner in the works in terms of delivery time-frames.
The Ski-Ergs are ‘sorta’ on the way. There is a bit of a back log of orders on these and it is looking like another month from now until they are in the gym and installed…I am sure once we get them I will be wishing that we never did…in the meantime, I just wish they had already arrived!
As promised last week, the weekly tipping and DreamTeam results will be back in the blog starting this week! So here goes:
This week’s tipping contest saw a clear win by Alex Gowland who selected 8 out of 9 winners (only getting the result of the Q-clash wrong). There were a heap of people on 7 correct tips (by a heap, I mean 20+) with most of them missing on the Q-Clash AND the Collingwood vs Melbourne result.
Over in the Dream Team it was a very low scoring week with no-one topping the normal ‘pass mark’ of 2000 points. High score was recorded by Daniel (Woosha’s Pharmaceuticals) who managed 1954 points. Four (4) weeks into the season, Kim D has assumed his usual spot atop the Round 1 ladder and is the only undefeated team at this early stage.
Here’s a bit of Hannibal now that we have our Monkey Bars!
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