Thanks to everyone who got along to the gym and supported us last week. I have to say that it was the quietest week we have had in the gym for a little while – between the Public Holiday and the ‘end of the challenge’ it seemed like the perfect storm of excuses for everyone to take a couple of days off! – but overall I thought the classes ran very well and I know that I (for one) really appreciated the cardio being ‘backed off’ a little throughout the week!
Our attendance numbers for February make for interesting reading. We had a little more than 6700 people attend classes during the month (not counting the Beach Day) at an average of just over 240 people per day…which is our highest ever. The next closest ‘average daily attendance’ numbers were recorded last October (Summer Slam Challenge, 226 people per day) and Feb 2018 (28-Days-Later Challenge, 225 people per Day). Worryingly from a business perspective, whilst our attendance goes from strength to strength our overall membership numbers were down again and have been lower than the ‘same time last year’ for six consecutive months. So…if anyone has any ideas how to bring some new people through the door, well, that would be awesome!
I want to talk today about some of the simple numbers that were recorded in this years 28-Days-Later challenge…and where I can, try to cast a bit of an explanation around them. I have to say I have been super happy with the results and – like I say to each new client who raises their eyes in scepticism when I tell them we have ‘at least’ 30 people at our 5am boxing class every single day – “people are very dedicated here”.
131 People ‘STARTED’ – 118 ‘FINISHED’ (or 118 had their final weigh in details correctly recorded). I am relatively comfortable with that sort of completion rate. In total we lost 334kgs of ‘FAT’ and 328kgs of ‘WEIGHT’. So that (of course) also means that as a group we lost some muscle and some water…I’ll try to get to all of that in a moment.
I have numbers flying at me everywhere but I have put together a simple table of averages:
| Average | Weight Change Average | Body Fat Change Average | Body Fat % Change Average | Muscle Change Average |
| Boys | -3.26kgs | -3.4kgs | -2.78% | -0.006kg |
| Girls | -2.32kgs | -2.25kgs | -2.15% | -0.09kgs |
| Combined | -2.78kgs | -2.83kgs | -2.48% | -0.04kg |
Our total results were pretty amazing – and to be able to maintain our averages of both weight loss AND fat loss whilst reaching a point where we all effectively maintained our muscle mass was tremendous. Certainly loss of muscle was a problem in previous challenges but I really think the restructure of the packs this year, the increased detail pertaining to portion sizes AND the way the ‘extra’ workouts were set up to be strength work SUPPLEMENTED by cardio efforts rather than the other way around was of great benefit.
Now, the averages are well and good however it is worth highlighting some of the ‘top’ performances:
| TOTAL | Weight Change MAX | Body Fat MAX | Body Fat % MAX | Muscle Change MAX |
| Boys | -8.6kgs | -8.4kgs | -8.3% | +1.3kgs |
| Girls | -5.6kgs | -6.7kgs | -6.6% | +1.6kgs |
The totals were interesting as for both boys and girls different people achieved the highest total for ‘weight change’, ‘Body Fat loss (kgs)’ and ‘Body Fat % change’. It just goes to show that not everyone gets results in the same area AND that each persons individual starting point impacts quite a bit on results. There are some other clear messages that come from the challenge output:
It is possible to gain (or at worst MAINTAIN) muscle mass whilst on the challenge as long as your food intake is sufficient. The problem that a lot of people experience (of course) is that during the challenge their ‘go to’ snacks are ‘outlawed’ – like my peanut butter and jam sandwiches for example. So rather than ‘cheat’, they eat nothing – and when you combine that with increased training volume (and for people who are training the ‘same’, I think it is fair to say increased training INTENSITY to support the challenge goals)…well, the body ends up using muscle to ‘fuel’.
Just diving into the numbers a little bit more, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to compare the results of people who STARTED the challenge <25%> body fat. It is also worth mentioning at this point that 43% of people were under 25% body fat at the commencement of the challenge – and 56% of people were under 25% at the conclusion.
| TOTAL | Weight Change Average | Body Fat Average | Body Fat % Average | Muscle Change Average |
| Start >25% | -3.47kgs | -3.35kgs | -2.74% | -0.09kgs |
| Start < 25% | -1.93kgs | -2.07kgs | -2.06% | +0.02kgs |
Looking at these numbers, I guess it is probably just showing what everyone expected – that people who had a higher starting point (with specific regards to Body Fat%) on average lost both more weight, more fat AND a higher percentage of body fat than those with a lower overall starting point. Interestingly though, people who started with a LOWER body fat % (less than 25%) were better at holding onto their muscle despite the food restrictions. This is FURTHER interesting as three of the top five ‘muscle loss’ numbers (one of which was me!) were recorded by people who started with a body fat % of LESS than 25.
What else? Well, despite my comments about serving sizes and the improved information in our challenge packs about this, I really do think this is one area where we could all still improve. Most people – myself included – followed the ‘rules’ (no bread, no pasta, no added sweeteners, no alcohol) VERY closely…but were pretty laissez-faire when it came to serving sizes. Getting on top of this – making sure you are hitting the targets defined in the challenge packs in terms of serving sizes per day – really is the 13th step when it comes to managing your weight for the long term.
That’s it. I have two more ‘attendance based’ challenges coming up in May and July – and the planning is already underway for the October ‘Summer Slam’ food and training challenge…so stay tuned for them. As I said last week, I would love to get some more member profiles on the site (I have two ready to go and hope to publish them this week so thanks very much to those guys!) so if you are keen, please reach out via email to mpratt@round1fitness.com.au.
See you in the gym,
Michael.
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