Hi and welcome to another week,

Well – we had some nice weather at long last and how much easier did that make it to get into the gym?  Sessions were awesome and it just ‘seems better’ when you can look forward to a quick half bin run or even a post workout stretch out in the sunshine!  Cheers to everyone who got to the gym – last week’s sessions were AWESOME!

Some cool stuff is ahead next week.  There is a bit of an experiment going on tomorrow (will be interesting to see how it goes) in terms of setting up a bit of an assault bike/kettlebell challenge and the rest of the week is full of split jumps, abs and plyometrics.  Oh – and get this – by the end of the week it is going to be September!

I had a blog pretty much ready to go this week – it was all about stuff that is ‘NOT UP TO US’ and how to deal with it…but then this happened:

Photo you MUST SEE before reading any further!

If you did as I asked you would have seen a split screen photo featuring a smiling Aidan in the top half and 6-months of Body Scan history in the bottom half.  The body scan history will show you that since January 3^rd 2017 (yep, 8-months ago) Aidan has dropped from 119.4kgs down to 74kgs.  Or 45.4kgs.  Which is a L-O-T.  And it has required a LOT of work, commitment and dedication…and for the record, when he credits ‘US’ (as in the gym) for the outcome, don’t believe a word of it – the outcome is down to HIM.  He wasn’t happy with where he was at and he decided to do something about it.  And he did.

It is bloody hard not to be a little bit in awe of what has been achieved here but let me tell you a couple of other things.  Aidan finished uni at the end of last year and as well as committing to his weight loss journey, he has also been dealing with his first year out in the workforce in a pretty stressful occupation (teaching).  Now people do joke about the hours (or lack of hours) that teachers work…but I can assure everyone from personal experience that whilst teachers do get a LOT of holidays, during the term days are spent in the office and nights are spent either doing lesson preparation for the following day OR marking…and whilst experienced teachers can possibly utilise some of their lesson planning/preparation from previous years, 1^st year graduates don’t have that luxury…you will often see Aidan dashing into the gym at 8pm determined to get his session done after what has been a really long working day.

Anyway…when Aidan ticked off his long time goal weight of 75kgs earlier this week and arranged to come in for a body scan, I asked him this question:

‘If you had to choose just ONE THING that helped get you to this point, what would you choose?’  The answer was a little bit surprising.

Aidan referred back to a conversation he had with one of the trainers back in January where he shared his goal (getting down to a then goal weight of 80kgs) and the associated timeframe (before Christmas).  Happily, the answer came back that it was possible to achieve that goal  – but to achieve it he better be sure it was REALLY what he wanted because it was a huge challenge.  It would mean signing up for something where EVERY DAY IS A BATTLE – every SINGLE DAY.   He was also told that if he wasn’t prepared to fight every day, then maybe set a less intense, less aggressive challenge and give himself a chance to succeed.  That idea (apparently) wasn’t too appealing!

Well, I guess he thought about it and decided that losing weight really was important to him.  He didn’t just want to talk about doing it, he didn’t want to lose 10kgs or 15kgs then put it all back on again (that had happened in 2016!) but he wanted to really get ‘in shape’ and he wanted to do it ‘by Christmas’.  And because of that, he knew he had to make a commitment to do the ‘right things’ EVERY DAY.  That means that every day he would have to start afresh, reconfirm his goals, recommit to his eating plan (which was effectively a ‘no cheating’ plan), get to the gym and generally ‘behave himself’.

So what did he do?  He wrote a reminder in his classroom (for most of us, read ‘workplace’ or ‘car dashboard’ or ‘fridge door’…or all three!) that ‘Every day is a Battle’ to help get him to the gym each night.  He wrote the reminder to make sure he did the right things in terms of food choices throughout the day – regardless of the stress he was feeling.  He wrote a reminder up so that on those nights when he wanted some ice-cream or chocolate, well, every day is a battle and to be successful he had to make sure he won.

I don’t know what else to say really – as I noted before, I am a little bit in awe of what has been achieved here, by the determination that has been shown and, ultimately, by the success that has been achieved.

If you are battling along or struggling a little bit in achieving the things you are chasing, well – remember, every day IS a battle.  But if you are determined to get there, and if you are determined to fight for what you want every day, well, you can 100% get there!

See you in the gym,

Michael.

Gym Update #1 – August Challenge…All GO!

Well, we have one week to go…and my abs hurt!  They hurt every day.  I am not completely sure why exactly I decided I wanted to get stronger through the core or what purpose it was supposed to serve, but honestly, I have changed my mind! J  And last year, when I worked on cardio, well, that sucked as well.  And talking to the people doing the strength program, apparently that is no walk in the park either.  Where do I sign up for the program where amazing things happen without any tangible effort being put in by me???  Because that is the one I want to sign up for next time!

All joking aside, everyone seems to be doing pretty amazingly well on the program and I do hope the improvements you are getting are tangible.  I also hope that all of the people who keep telling me they are going to ‘stick with the program’ at the end of the 5-weeks do exactly that…hold onto those newly formed good habits just as long as you can!

One other thing – remember that if you are stuck trying to figure out an exercise, don’t forget to check our YouTube channel (HERE:  Round 1 Videos on YouTube) and/or ask one of the trainers in the gym for some help.

Gym Update #2 – October Challenge (is coming).

Every year, our biggest challenge – both in terms of participation and outcomes (meaning specifically weight-loss) is the 28-days Later challenge that runs in February.  This challenge is awesome for a few reasons, but I guess the main one is it enables everyone to get the new year ‘off and running’ after a period of holidays and misbehaviour over the Christmas holidays.

This year we want to try and duplicate that challenge – but BEFORE Christmas.  Rather than everyone be looking their leanest and best in March, we want to make sure everyone is ready for the beach when summer rolls around…not only that, the idea is that come February Challenge time, we are all ‘making progress’ rather than just ‘getting back to normal’ after a few too many beers and bbq’s through December/Jan.

So – we are busily working on the structure of the challenge and a book of new recipes and all those sort of things…and wondered if there might be some people who would like to tie in the END of this new challenge with a dinner-dance style event early in November.  I envision tickets to such an event would cost around-abouts $120 or so…if this is something you might be interested in, please let us know via email (info@round1fitness.com.au) so we can work out if it is worth organising or not!

Gym Update #3 – Running Club + Crossfit Comp

Big weekend for competing with a whole heap of people off running in the City to Surf and another group up competing in the Crossfit Affiliate Allstars at Claremont showgrounds.

Congratulations to everyone who is off ‘having a go’ at pretty much anything – you guys are all amazing!  I know I was up at the Crossfit event on Saturday and was in awe of the level of commitment shown and effort being put in…particularly by the Round 1 crew of course but more generally by everyone up there competing.

Gym Update #4 – Hoodies, Hats and Stuff

So – Hopefully everyone has seen the cool new trucker hats in the gym by now – there are only a few of these available (they are in a couple of different colours) and you can pick one up for $20.

As the crew who ordered hoodies (pre-ordered!) would be aware, in the next week or so there will be a limited number of kids hoodies going up for sale – these were either an accident or a mistake (it depends on your point of view) and once I can figure out which I will get a price set and get them up on display.

Lastly, we have a heap of quick-wraps and hand-wraps on the way – so if you need some quick wraps all sizes/colours will soon be available…just keep an eye on the shelves as they will soon be up on display.

Gym Update – Footy Tipping and Fantasy

Well, the fantasy comp is over…and a ONE POINT win has been recorded by Brian Smith.  Awesome work mate – great season and great outcome.  I am not going to mention my supreme bitterness over a missing Adelaide player and points left on my interchange bench…I promise…I mean, I wish you nothing but the best and congratulations on the result.

Over in the tipping, well, what a disaster!  All of the ‘top teams’ choked the competition away…and those in the chasing pack who did select a few winners were too far back for it to even matter.

Best result of the week (to be fair, there were a LOT of upsets) was 6-points…of the six tipsters who managed this result, only Peter Brear was close enough to ‘really’ challenge for the competition lead…but despite our 4x leaders only selecting 4-winners (yep, less than 50%!) PB could not quite catch them!

The winners therefore are:

Michael Campbell, Kentucky, Craig Burleigh and Rhino.

Each of the winners will receive a $25 Round 1 voucher…I will put these together in the next couple of days.

Link of the Week

No alcohol, no coffee for 27 months…what happened?  This happened!

http://www.vanschneider.com/no-alcohol-no-coffee-for-15-months-this-is-what-happened/