Hi and welcome to another week,
Great classes last week and I am really loving my training at the moment. That 6-minute round class last Thursday was an absolute all-timer (and Saturday looked cool as well but I just couldn’t squeeze that in between work, family and sport commitments). Over the past couple of weeks I have really become aware of the benefit of us purchasing the ski-ergs – they are a great combination of cardio and strength and just having them in the gym has really pushed me along a in terms of my conditioning…
Somehow it has reached July already – 2016 is half-way done – despite the fact that just last week it was New Years Eve (or so it seems). It has been a massive week for us with all of the usual ‘small business end of financial year’ commitments PLUS dealing with all of the system changes associated with last weeks price changes AND getting everything ready for the next step in our reception area refurbishment (which all starts tomorrow morning – Monday). And of course it was the last week of our ‘The One’ Challenge…it feels like every day has been a combination of mania and chaos. In todays blog my planner said I was supposed to be writing a ‘half year review’ but because I really aren’t sure what that really means I was supposed to write about, I am going a different way…today it is about why we train the ‘way’ we train at Round 1.
I paid a visit to one of the local ‘big chain’ gyms in the area last week. I guess I do this fairly regularly – cruise around to another gym and see what they are doing, how people are training, what things we should be learning from them and ‘doing better’. Every time I do this I write a whole heap of notes down (a lot of them are process oriented so I wont bore you with them) but what I will try to talk about is what I observed in the gym and what I gathered from talking to people about their TRAINING.
First off – there was a massive array of cardio machines. 18x treadmills and each of them had integrated tv monitors (which are pretty cool I have to admit – though I am not sure what show I could watch whilst doing my interval sprints on the treddy in any case!). There were 3x different types of ‘cross trainers’ (but not a Versa Climber in sight L ) for a total of 12x machines. There were also 12x programmable bikes – 8x ‘upright’ and 4x seated ones…no assault bikes though. There were some spin bikes off in a separate area which I am sure would be used in spin classes. There were 3x power racks and a good range of dumbbells (up to 50kgs just like we have upstairs) and an absolutely massive range of pin-loaded strength machines – some of which I could pretty happily identify and others that I would definitely need to get some instruction on. It was peak time so the gym was pretty busy – there were people wandering about everywhere, the cardio equipment was heavily used mostly by girls jogging and wearing headphones or boys walking on an incline side-by-side with one another and having a bit of a chat. The weights area was a bit of a confused mess with 4x different people going through individual sessions with their personal trainer and others kind of wandering around having a go at whatever machine they saw was free. This might be an exaggeration but the people I talked to said they liked to do ’30 minutes or so of cardio then ‘whatever’ weights they could for another half hour or so. Obviously I am compressing 6 or 7 conversations into one ‘big’ statement here but I am sure you get the idea.
You have to remember that my sporting/training background is all ‘club’ based. Football mostly – but also athletics and swimming – and the idea of going to ‘train’ and just doing ‘whatever’ is completely foreign to me. All my life, I have gone ‘training’ and when I arrived, gone through a set warm-up (with my team-mates) and then gone through a training session. I like to think all of the training sessions I have done in my life were carefully planned out by whoever my coach was at the time, but the reality is (given I am very old) in a lot of cases the sessions I ended up doing were planned by the coach on the dashboard of his car in the carpark out in the front of the venue. Regardless, I went along to training and followed the set plan with ‘confidence’ that the plan would help me and all of my team-mates get better.
The idea of doing what so many people I observed and spoke to – a little bit of everything and with no specific over-arching plan – just seems weird to me. You will notice at Round 1 we even write up new plans each week for people who ARE training outside of the scope of the classes – a strength plan, a cardio plan, a full-body workout – and we run each of these on a 13-week (3x month) cycle with the intention that it gives anyone who is doing ‘their own thing’ a direction that will help them get fitter and stronger. Ideally we would like to personalise all of that but I guess that is where the personal training stuff comes in…
Back to what happens at Round 1 – I like to think of it really simply as a ‘training focussed’ gym environment whereas I think of what I see at so many other facilities as an ‘equipment focussed’ training environment. All of the trainers at Round 1 – but I guess myself in particular – spends an inordinate amount of time carefully planning out each of the sessions we run and when you get to the gym your activity is about the ‘training’ not about the equipment. I guess I talked about the ski-ergs before so we obviously have ‘equipment’ but the plans we put together aren’t about ‘gear’ – they are about work and progressing.
Boxing, Body Work and Tanks all run on heavily planned escalations – Boxing runs on a 7-week schedule, Body Work on a 5-week schedule and Tanks on a 13-week schedule. This all got a little more complicated about 15+ months ago when we introduced scaling to the Boxing sessions (Fitness vs Performance) but the 7-week schedule still runs. We try (as much as is possible) to hold to the plan and provide our members with sessions that will give them both an effective ‘one time’ workout (more about this in a second) and a method for gradually increasing their strength, fitness and body composition over the long term.
What do I mean by one-time workouts? Well, the programming also has to acknowledge that not everyone will get in 3x sessions per week (the basis of the 7x week plan) so each individual session is planned out to incorporate a combination of strength, skill and core so that if you are a 1x or 2x per week attendee, you can still make some ‘fundamental’ improvements’ in terms of strength and fitness even if you are restricted in the number of sessions you are able to get through. Of course, it is hard to coach ‘effort’ (more on this in a second) but all of this talk about progression despite limited training opportunities assumed that when you are in the gym you busted your butt!
The last point I wanted to cover is our focus on group sessions. Like I said my background is football, athletics and swimming. Group sessions (obviously) make sense from a football perspective because it is a team game – but why is group training so important in individual sports? Swimmers and runners (and cyclists, and mma fighters, and triathletes and participants in every other sport you can think of) don’t train by themselves – they train in a SQUAD led by a COACH. Why? Well, it is pretty simple. The coach sets the plan in place and is there to control standards in terms of technique. The SQUAD is there to control standards with regards to EFFORT. This is why group training is so important to elite athletes (and weekend athletes!) around the world no matter what sport they are participating in – it is their PEERS (others in the squad) who maintain the culture with regards to effort, who insist (not verbally, just by working hard) that you also finish your calories on the bike, get your reps done with the kettlebells, push heavier weights than you did last week (Body work and Tanks primarily!) and hit the bags HARD. It is the group that keeps you honest and ensures you get the most/best out of every session you do…it is the group that multiplies the value of every session you do.
See you all in the gym,
Michael.
p.s. Congrats to everyone who has finished ‘The One’ challenge…it has been one hell of a month trying to get it all done!
So – all of the new prices are now in place and active in the system. As noted last week, this will not (in the foreseeable future anyway) impact on our existing clients and when you renew your membership you will be able to do so at your current contract rate. The one difference will be in the contract ‘details’ with regards to things such as no longer receiving a new bag/pair of gloves each year etc as this program has effectively been superseded by our Perkville rewards program.
Happy to take questions etc on any details of the pricing of our memberships, inclusions/exclusions/whatevers – just hit me up at info@round1fitness.com.au.
Well – we are done. As I said last week, possibly the toughest challenge we have ever run (and I have done every one of them since the gym opened) ever. Maybe 12-days of Christmas 2012 was worse (12x Sledgehammer Bin Runs anyone??) but this has been a very big effort to just get to the end.
And what did all my efforts get me? According to the scanner, 0.1kg in muscle growth, 0.2% drop in body fat…so not too much. But I increased my 30 minute bike calorie result from 308 calories in week 1 to 376 calories in week 5 – and since my goal was conditioning I am pretty happy with that!
All of the next phase of the Reception area changes start tomorrow (Monday)…there will bit a bit of an impact for a few days as we get everything re-arranged/re-packed/re-whatevered when the new cabinetry has been installed. There will still be a few steps to go when this is done but I am hoping that this gives us a really good base position to get all of our new products on display to make everyone’s fitness journey a little bit more comfortable.
The new MMA gloves and Small bag mitts we have been promising will both be in stock by the end of the week. Really pleased to have these products back on the shelves and be sure to let us know if you need some new mitts to support your training. Pricing (as always) is amazing and I really do welcome any price/quality comparisons that you want to do.
In preparing for the new changes in the reception area, we have stumbled upon a whole heap of ‘old’ t-shirts and singlets which we are selling at below cost price. There is a range of gear there – all available for less than $15 (some as cheap as $5) so if you need some new kit to train in, check the racks in the gym.
OK – another bye in Dream Team this week but we are back and playing again next week – make sure you get your teams up-to-date as points will again be rewarded and the final 8 is far from set (at least I HOPE the final 8 is far from set).
Over in the tipping contest, only one person managed to nail all 6 winners this week (though it seems like every single other tipster got 5/6!). Lloyd was the ‘lucky’ tipster and nailing the Bulldogs vs Swans result was the key to achieving a perfect result (and a bonus point). Things remain largely unchanged on top of the ladder with Kristy and Justin leading from Michelle (who unfortunately fell back a point this week). Good luck next round everyone.
Well, the Warriors might not have won the NBA title but this is a cool article/video about Steph:
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