Hi and welcome to another week,

Tonnes of news this week:

December Challenge is GO:  Register HERE!

New Protein coming from TRUE Protein

Amazing membership special this week.

Some Time Table Changes (or at least a trial of some changes).

If you are keen on reading about any of that ‘STUFF’, be sure to scroll down the blog because they have there own little sections.

Before I start on the gym ‘news’ though, I wanted to write a little story about training maturity and how it can help/hinder you reaching your goals.

As many people know, I have a second life coaching footy and – with the exception of the 2016-2017 seasons, have always been involved in coaching in the 16-17-18yo age groups.  Next year (which means now) I am back coaching that age group again…on top of all that, I have just spent 6-weeks shepherding the Developing Athlete Program crew (most of whom are in that same age group) through a 6-week, 3-times per week strength and conditioning program.

So what I am trying to say is I have a lot of experience in coaching kids in that age group.  I have also had Round 1 for nearly 8 years and in that time have found that the similarities between a group of 17 year olds and a group of 37 year olds who might not have done any ‘REAL’ training throughout their lives is ‘Not Much’.  I guess before I go any further, I need to try and explain what I mean when I say ‘REAL’ training.

Real training is when people are playing the ‘LONG’ game.  When they aren’t coming to the gym/attending team practice with anything on their mind apart from adding another ‘brick to the wall’.  They know that the training session they are about to do is not going to change their lives much, they know that it wont really do much in the grand scheme of things…but they KNOW it is also super important in terms of getting where they want to go.  They KNOW if it says to do “8” in their program then that means “8” – not “9” and certainly not “7”.  They know there are going to be times when they have to “put on their big boy/girl pants” and do stuff they don’t want to and they equally know that when it says to REST that means to go for a walk and have a stretch/roll, not just lay on the couch.  They are playing the ‘long’ game and because of that they KNOW that if their weight goes up by a kilo one week it is no big deal…but if it happens 3x weeks in a row  they need to get on top of it!  They KNOW that ‘cheat’ MEALS are important and valuable…cheat DAYS not so much.  They are MATURE!

When people first get to the gym though – be they the 17year olds in the DAP program or 27/37/47 year olds who have played a bit of community footy/netball + done some running on the tready/machine weights based training in their past achieving that level of training ‘maturity’ is perhaps the biggest challenge they face.  I mean, if you go to the gym 3x per week for a month that should automatically mean you lose 5kgs and magically transform into someone who belongs in HERE! (Sports Illustrated Body issue)  And whilst that would be amazing, it simply doesn’t work that way.  But unfortunately you need training ‘MATURITY’ to understand that we are all playing a ‘LONG’ game of small, incremental improvements and whilst no single session really makes much of an impact, EVERY single session is absolutely critical to the final outcome.

It is very frustrating I know – I regularly say to people after a particularly challenging session that ‘I should be able to look in the mirror RIGHT NOW and see the benefits of what I have just done’ – but the mental strength to keep going and persist even when things just don’t seem to be ‘working’ for you is what separates people who get what they want from those who don’t.

This pic here (below) is the pyramid that I put together/stole from Ben Bergeron as part of writing up the Developing Athlete Program manual:

As you can see the very top of the pyramid is “MINDSET” (you will also see that the bedrock of the pyramid is nutrition which might be something to remember as we head into December, Christmas and the New Year!) and I guess ‘Training Maturity’ is what this is about.  The ability to persist when things get tough, a willingness to make regular, small sacrifices to get your training in/done and an understanding that whilst you are training for results, your training TODAY/THIS WEEK/THIS MONTH are just a series of small steps on the long journey that is your training ‘life’.  It can be frustrating when ‘results’ aren’t coming as quickly as you might like – but that is all part of it…and maybe just one of the challenges that you need to overcome in order to ultimately be successful.

I am really hoping the DAP crew got this message (out of EVERYTHING I have tried to teach them, I hope this bit got through).  I hope my colts boys got it this morning as they slogged through a pretty tough running/kettlebell session in 35degree heat.  And I hope all of you coming to the gym regularly understand that whilst no single session is going to get you where you want to go, if you ‘STACK’ them all together, in 6-months/12-months/24-months etc time, each of those sessions will have played a crucial role in what you have achieved.

(I have stuck a video of the link called ‘Hard Work beats Talent’ as link of the week this week…this kind of summarises some of the mental maturity stuff I am talking about here).

Let me know if any of this sounds good (or not) with an email to Michael@round1fitness.com.au

See you in the gym,

Michael.

p.s.  We are always trying to make the gym better/add some new innovation or other…hopefully this isn’t seen as us being ‘gimmicky’ but rather as a genuine effort to improve.  I mention this because starting THIS FRIDAY we will be trying something new with the daily one-percenter…I don’t want to give it away just yet but get set for “LEGS-Cember”! J

Gym Update #1 – Membership Special (New Members)

We have the most amazing membership special ever starting TOMORROW (Monday) for anyone who is new to Round 1 (or to people whose membership expired more than 6-months ago.  It is called the ‘EARLY START’ special and it works like this.

1/.  Sign up to the gym now.

2/.  Pay nothing until January 1^st.

3/.  There is no ‘3’.  That’s it.  Join now, don’t pay until January.

The only term and condition is that you MUST keep your membership active until at least April 30^th, 2018.

The idea behind the ‘name’ of the special is that it gives you an ‘Early Start’ on your 2018 New Years resolutions.  Why wait till 2018 when you can start working towards your goals NOW!  If your goal is to drop 5kgs, well – who knows?  Get to the gym 3-4 times per week and follow the simple eating rules from the Summer Slam challenge and you could very well achieve that BEFORE the new year comes along.

Tell your friends.  Awesome special ahead!

Gym Update #2 – December Challenge

It is hard to believe I know, but our ever popular ’12-days of Christmas’ challenge is only a couple of short weeks away.  Remember that the idea of the annual December challenge is NOT to ruin everyone’s social lives – it is quite the opposite really.  What we try to do in the ’12-days of Christmas’ challenge is ACKNOWLEDGE that it is a busy time for everyone – but at the same time provide people with a way to focus on maintaining their training during what is a chaotic time of the year.

Here’s what you have to do:

12- group training sessions in 21 days.
12- ‘EXTRA’ workouts.

With the ‘extras’ we have created 10x NEW workouts that range in difficulty from “Pretty darned easy” to “Who in their right mind comes up with this stuff”…but either way, YOU are in charge. Stick with the easy ones, stick with the hard ones, stick with the ones in the middle…or mix it all up however you like. All I can say is that they are both awesome and awesomely F-U-N.

Sign up link is HERE:  Register for the Challenge!

Registration for the challenge is open NOW!  Click HERE!!!

Gym Update #3 – Time Table Changes

We are messing around with some timetable changes at the moment and I do apologise if any uncertainty has been caused to this point.  Please remember though, all we have actually do to this point is TALK about doing some stuff and ADD an extra session on Saturday morning.

This week there will be a couple of other changes:

1/.  6am Saturday:  Boxing

2/.  4pm Wednesday:  Cancelled class – TANKS

3/.  4pm Wednesday:  New CLASS – DAP

4/.  8:30am Saturday:  New CLASS – DAP

So what does that really mean?  We have added a 6am Saturday (and it will remain until Saturday December 16^th at this point and an 8:30am class on Saturday for 14-18 year olds and dropped the 4pm Tanks session Wednesday in favour of a class for 14-18 year olds.

There are a few other things we ‘want’ to do but these will wait until the new year (and in all likelihood, February).

Gym Update #4 – New Products from True Protein

We have signed a supplier agreement with TRUE Protein which means (as soon as it arrives) we will be able to offer you a new protein option within Round 1.  The product looks EXCELLENT in terms of both quality and price point – I am very pleased that we will be able to retail this product for approx. $60 per 1kg bag for flavoured options (and they offer a LOT of flavours).

Now – of course the flavoured product is going to have additives in it (the premium Progenex product we already offer does for sure) but not everyone likes the unflavoured option from Boomers…if you are one of those people and want an affordable protein source, this might very well be worth giving a try.

Gym Update #5 – Developing Athlete Program

The first 2x 6-week DAP Programs are done and dusted.  The largest muscle gain we saw was 2.3kgs – pretty damned impressive though – and overall positive results were achieved by everyone.  The DAP crew have done exceptionally well and whilst the body scan outcomes were great, the best thing for me was watching the change in the way they are able to squat, deadlift, power-clean…you name it, they can do it.  And if there technique isn’t perfect (and who has ‘perfect’ form) it is certainly much improved…they all know HOW to train now – they can set up racks, they understand the difference between a hypertrophy session and a metcon, they know exactly what 5×3 means and how it is different to 3×5…they KNOW how to go to the gy and train!

So I guess we will be doing it again.  Next ‘BLOCK’ will be starting off when school kicks off again in 2018.

Link of the Week

Hard work beats talent:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMGoxlXmA0o