Hi and welcome to another week,
Cheers to everyone who supported us by getting to the gym this week. In this busy social season it must be getting harder and harder to find time to get to the gym but we again had a really busy week…oddly enough except for Wednesday night when there was a big drop in attendance but everything went back to normal on Thursday morning. Please be sure to have a quick look at the blog below for details of our operating hours between December 19th and January 8th just to make sure that when you DO come to the gym, there will actually be sessions running (there aren’t MASSIVE changes but there are a few!).
I have had two conversations with long-term members in the last week or so about 2016 – what has happened, what they have done…and in the case of the people I have been talking too, why the results they achieved in 2016 weren’t exactly what they were hoping for when the year started. I guess lots of us experience this (I run a 90-day plan for my ‘life’ – work, family, personal) – and whenever I ‘grade’ my efforts at the end of 90-days the score is more often a ‘D’ than an ‘A’ for achieving the things I would like to have achieved!) and I guess as long as you make a realistic assessment of exactly ‘WHY’ you didn’t achieve those things you had hoped too, you WILL be able to move forward and succeed in the next ‘period’ of time.
That said, if you aren’t meeting your training/fitness/body goals, to me there are not TOO many things that could be going wrong. Now this little list I am about to throw at you probably summarises 95% of the conversations I have with people at the gym every day – but it DOESN’T include the whole ‘there is something medically/hormonally wrong and you need to get your butt to the doctors’…so if you are doing ‘EVERYTHING RIGHT’ but still not getting the outcomes you want, please remember that this list is not 100% comprehensive.
Item 1. You are training, but you aren’t sleeping. Sleep time is body rebuilding time…if you aren’t sleeping enough, well, you wont be performing well in other parts of your life, you certainly wont be performing well in the gym AND you (almost) definitely wont be losing weight if that is one of your goals. If you aren’t sleeping and need some help with putting together a pretty simple ‘sleep plan’, well, let us know and we will try to help you out.
Item 2. You just aren’t getting to the gym enough/consistently. Since time immemorial, I have been saying to people that ‘real’ progress in their training starts at 4x sessions per week. 2-3 sessions is quite honestly ‘maintenance mode’ and if you really want to push ahead, you just need to get past that 3rd session…now maybe that means 7x classes each fortnight (one session every second weekend?) but in any case, find a way to get to the gym just a little bit more will really help.
Item 3. Well, you are in the gym but aren’t exactly bringing ‘MAXIMUM EFFORT’. One thing I did laugh at in the ‘Deadpool’ movie out earlier this year was his dependence on ‘MAXIMUM EFFORT’ to defeat the bad guys…just as he was about to fight he would invoke the ‘maximum effort’ phrase to remind himself that there was to be no ‘giving up’ and if he wanted to be successful he would have to give it everything. If you are someone who is truly giving it your best shot, well, this isn’t you. But if you have decided that the bikes are too hard, or that push-ups are best done on your knees (or whatever it might be) and have been sticking with modified versions of what it says on the walls for an extended time, well, that isn’t ‘MAXIMUM EFFORT’ and you aren’t going to get the results you want.
Item 4. Your food is ‘PRETTY GOOD, but’. If you are one of those who says ‘I eat pretty well really’ and then proceeds to talk about the 3x glasses of wine with dinner or the cake with morning tea or any number of things that seem to be allowed under the ‘PRETTY GOOD’ diet description, well, you are not going to make improvements. This is not saying you shouldn’t ‘Live your Life’ (you absolutely should have a beer with your mates on the weekend) but it IS saying that if you want to make progress, you need to reign it in and be able to say ‘I eat REALLY well – it is only once every week or so that really relax and have a cheat meal’. I have said it before but there is no point eating ‘perfectly’ from Monday to Friday if every Friday night to Sunday becomes a free-for-all. You will have a lot of fun for sure – but wont see any body changes.
Item 5. Your food is ‘On POINT’, but you have discovered how to ‘cheat within the rules’. To me this is really hard – it is one for people who aren’t eating sugar or sweeteners any more, but have discovered that you can make the ‘most amazing’ and ‘healthy’ treats that involve all kinds of stuff – dates, nuts, protein powders, fruits…and they are all ‘super healthy’ because they are ‘sugar free’ or ‘paleo’ (or whatever it might be). N-O-T. Not only should you only eat these sort of ‘healthy’ treats about as often as you would eat the ‘normal, sugar filled’ versions because they are jam packed with calories, you also should understand that it is a pretty big leap from eating a snack that comprises of half a banana and maybe six (6) or so almonds and eating a brownie – in fact, it is a MASSIVE leap. But it is NOT that big a leap from eating a ‘paleo brownie’ and eating a ‘brownie’. Be careful with the ‘healthy treats’ and be careful what they are setting you up for.
Item 6. Your training is just not varied enough. This is a little bit of a tricky one for us Round 1’ers who do a ‘different session every day’, but even with that, be careful. Boxing is different but it still a variation on a theme…throw in a Body Work or Tanks session every week or so to really keep yourself guessing. If you are ’changing it up’ already by throwing in a weights session or a ‘treadmill session’ every week, well, change it up a bit more – one week do the treadmill, the next week do the weights, the rest of the time do the classes – keep mix and matching until you are getting the outcomes you are chasing.
Item 7. You are training TOO much or not eating ENOUGH. This is again, super tricky…and is one thing we can see with super dedicated people. I guess I call it the ‘Elvis problem’ (if the doc says one of these tablets is good for me, then two must be AMAZING) and it kind of works like this. “So, I did 4-5 sessions every week, stopped eating bread and pasta and cut out alcohol from Monday to Friday – it was awesome, I lost 5kgs. So then, I upped it to 8-10 sessions each week, plus I really started looking at my calories and dropped down my protein…but my weight just stayed the same. What gives?” Well, if you plateau, you do need to change something…I get that. But ‘more-more-more’ is not always the solution. If one is good, then all that means is ONE IS GOOD – it doesn’t necessarily compute that TWO IS BETTER. Doubling down on the exercise and dropping food does not always equal weight loss…it probably does always equal one tired, sore and grouchy person who is frustrated that they are doing ‘everything right’ but still not getting results….if you are ‘nailing’ steps 1-6 but still not getting the outcomes you want, well, come and chat to one of the coaches. We are here to help you guys and sure as heck don’t want you training hard but not getting outcomes.
That’s sort of it. I am planning on blogging again next week but not on either Christmas day or New Years day, so if you have any questions you want to ask or blog topics you want covered, please ping me at mpratt@round1fitness.com.au during the next week or so.
See you all in the gym.
Michael.
p.s. Please be aware that we have recently replaced all of the RX Skipping ropes out in the front of the gym. You will see that RX have changed the colours of a couple of them…please don’t blindly look for ‘YOUR’ coloured rope. Please also look after the ropes – they are VERY EXPENSIVE and when you skip with them out the front on the concrete, they are quickly damaged beyond repair.
There are a couple of signs up around the gym for some modified hours around Christmas. There are not TOO many changes – we are only closed on Christmas Day and New Years Day – but there are a couple of modifications to be aware of:
1/. Christmas and New Years weeks (from the 19th December through to the 8th January inclusive) we will be closing at 8pm from Monday to Thursday rather than the ‘usual’ 9pm.
2/. On the ‘Christmas’ time public holidays, we will be running 3x classes and 3x classes only – 7:15am Boxing, 8:15am Boxing and 9:15am Body Work – closing up at 10am.
3/. On Friday December 23rd and Friday December 30th, we will be closing the doors at 2pm. Normal classes will operate up until then.
A lot of time (too much if the truth is told) has been put into looking at the attendance history over the last 7-years to develop our plan for the 2016/2017 Christmas period. The plan has been developed so that we open on as many DAYS as possible (e.g. Classes running on Boxing Day) but for reduced hours…this is trying to maximise the number of opportunities everyone will have to get to the gym should they be keen whilst also enabling the staff at the gym to get some time off with their families.
There are a few signs up in the gym…if you are keen for more details, just take a happy snap of one with your phone next time you are in!
If you have been in the gym since Wednesday, you would have noticed we have an amazing, 6metre long rack for storing all of our balls – medicine balls, wall balls, dead balls…it is massive, it is strong and it looks amazing. If we don’t do stuff ‘like this’ then some of the equipment upgrades that are well into the ‘advanced stages’ of planning wont be able to happen simply as we will run out of room.
Now – just like our monkey bars – Boris (4pm regular and owner of Borcraft Industries) built the rack for us, installed it, did everything. It is hard to tell from his website exactly what Boris ‘DOES’ but I think the explanation of ‘if you need something built, Boris is your man’ is a good one. If you need something done, maybe have a look at the obvious quality of the stuff Boris has done at Round 1 and have a chat to him about what you need.
So – I mentioned the painting and furniture refresh that will be happening over the next couple of weeks/next month or so in last week’s blog. The painting is happening first and will be kicking off on Tuesday…I still don’t exactly what this will mean in terms of access to the upstairs weights room BUT if you are planning your week out, I would think you should plan on staying DOWNSTAIRS for your training on both TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY.
So, week 3 is about to start – hopefully everyone is 100% ‘ON TRACK’ with their classes and challenges. I know for me I have completed 11x classes so that is all good…mind you, somehow I WROTE the rule that you must do 2x classes every week up until Christmas but didn’t manage to get that rule through my thick skull. Unfortunately for me, I haven’t finished the challenge circuit even once (well, I did a run through to test it out but that was it!)…so I have some work to do there. Stay on track everyone.
If – like me – you still need some help with your circuits, don’t forget that the description video is on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ertYQBDf9DI&t=3s
As per last weeks post, here is the Beach Fit rotation for Week#4. If you are following your own rhythm, AWESOME – continue to do that. If you are looking for a little more guidance, then here goes:
If you are following a ‘1-workout per week’ rhythm, you should do WORKOUT#4 this week.
If you are following a ‘3-workout per week’ rhythm, you should do WORKOUT#10, #1 and #2 this week.
Remember, whether you are on a 1x session per week cycle OR a 3x session per week cycle, it is finding the time to get your food prep done (the beach fit menu is pretty cool, and don’t forget the ‘Food Matters’ Blog each Wednesday – see below) as well as actually DOING your Beach Blasts – as hard and heavy as you are able – that will make all the difference.
I have already mentioned a few recent changes already in the blog (new 6metre long ball rack, new skipping ropes, painting this week…not to mention all the new speedballs) but there is more on the way. We are inching closer to a new cardio solution for downstairs…as part of which we will also be introducing a stretching/rolling zone to give people some room to roll out using all our amazing BlackRoll kit and generally have some room to go through their pre-class preparation/post class cool-down process. If this is something you wish there was more room for, well, it will all be in place for you soon.
Somehow I found time to crank out another Food Matters blog last Wednesday – our 6th one! This week I (tried) to write about getting your act together and ‘pre-preparing’ your brekky to get around all the issues associated with morning food preparation and living a busy lifestyle. So far this new initiative has given the following information:
Week 1 – Water
Week 2 – Swap carbs for veggies
Week 3 – Protein
Week 4 – Cheat Smart
Week 5 – Fruit
Week 6 – Breakfast
If you didn’t get to read the blog this week (which also means you missed my amazing TAMARI Chicken recipe!), then here it is:
https://round1fitness.com.au/food-matters-tip-of-the-week-6
As mentioned last week, we are hoping to have a heap of cool Christmas presenty type stuff at the gym this year. We have just taken delivery of a new range of Black Roll foam rolling gear – this amazing stuff (which is on our Black Roll rack in the gym) is quite simply best of breed and being adapted by more and more of the elite sporting organisations in this country and around the world…
There are also going to be some new t’shirts on the racks in the next couple of weeks, and a special on 3-month memberships if you are hoping to get a friend/buddy/wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend into the gym with you over the summer months. Stay tuned to all of the social media channels for details on all of this.
Cool article this week about exercise ‘shaping you’ beyond the gym. I liked it anyway!
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/06/how-exercise-shapes-you-far-beyond-the-gym.html
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