Hi Everyone,

Thanks heaps to everyone who got along to the gym to train over the past week.  There have been some more massive classes – 8:15am Sunday (today) was amazing! – and we really appreciate all of the support.  I know all of the talk recently has been about the ‘new’ gym but it is important to remember that the main reason for the expansion was to create more space/room/call it what you will for our Boxing sessions.  100% this has worked already – the move of the SPARC’s, opening up of the rubber floor area…all of that has been awesome.  It was so good to be able to use the ‘big’ pull-up bar again last week and I am looking forward to further taking advantage of that as the weeks move on.

I know I promised last week that the blog wasn’t going to be a continued ‘advertorial’ (actually, I think I said ‘infomercial’!) for the expanded facility but because we have classes starting this week – and I need to talk time-tables, I think this week might again read as one big sales pitch.  Again, that is not the intention – it is just supposed to let everyone know WHEN the classes will be running…there will be a bit of an impact on the BOXING side as we move classes like ‘No Rules’ across – and I want to make sure everyone understands what is going on.

What’s going on #1:  New Class – ‘Developing Athletes Program’ (DAP)

The new ‘Developing Athletes Program’ starts TOMORROW (Monday).  This session will run Monday/Wednesday/Thursday at 4:30pm and Saturday at 8:30am.  These classes are NOT the same as the DAP sessions we ran in 2017/18 – that was a contained, 3x per week, 18x session schedule aimed primarily at teaching…the new DAP is designed as an ongoing program (much like Boxing, or Body Work, or Tanks, or…) but targeted specifically at teenagers who are involved in some kind of field sport (football, basketball, netball, hockey, rugby) and would benefit from getting stronger and moving better.

This program is really coming from my own experiences coaching in the AFL Talent Pathway since 2003.  I have coached at South Fremantle (2004), Western Jets (2005-2007), Peel Thunder (2008-2011), WA State Academy (2011-2014), AFL National Academy (2014-2015) and Perth (2016-).  During that time I have coached a HEAP of kids who have made their way onto AFL lists (including 9 players on the current list at Fremantle and 6 on West Coast’s list)…I think I have as much experience as ANYONE in coaching 15-18year olds – in particular 15-18 year olds with aspirations to play high level sport – and this program is designed to help them achieve those goals by helping them move faster, jump higher and generally ‘get stronger’.

Access to these classes is INCLUDED in the “STRENGTH” membership for any 13-18 year olds – $90 per month.  General gym access is also included in the cost of this membership.

What’s going on #2: New Class – ‘Functional Fitness’

The new ‘Functional Fitness’ sessions start TOMORROW (Monday).  This session will (initially) run at 5:30am Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 5:30pm Monday/Wednesday/Thursday and 9:30am on Saturday.  These classes are NOT the same as TANKS (which is more strength oriented – more on that later) and not the same as Body Work (which in is supposed to be a ‘high intensity resistance’ session’)…what they are though is kind of a combination of those two classes (if that makes sense).  You can expect to do some strength work, some conditioning, some cardio, a heap of core work – basically the sessions are what 5-years ago would be called sports conditioning training but now fit into the ‘functional’ vernacular – which is defined as ‘building a body capable of performing a range of ‘real life’ activities in real life positions rather than being ‘strong’ only when supported by gym equipment.  I am waffling now and ‘Functional Fitness’ is no doubt a buzzword (funnily enough, I WANT people to these sessions so I hope it buzzes a lot!!) but when I was hunting for definitions this is the best one I found (it is from an article written by Brodie Schroeder on musclearmory.com)

 “If we’re being honest, before the modern era, functional fitness was basically the only kind of fitness there was. Ancient humans hunted stuff and gathered stuff. That’s how they survived. If they couldn’t run fast enough to catch their prey or were not strong enough to wield their weapons, they simply would not live. Ever hear of the phrase “survival of the fittest”? This is how the human race was able to evolve over millennia. Our bodies adapted to our environment and what we needed to do to survive. By training for functional fitness, you are training your body the way it was designed to be used.” – Schroeder

Anyway, I have foregone my beloved Boxing sessions for the past week to complete a daily ‘Functional Fit’ workout and I have to say it has been a bit of a nice change…for me I probably wont do them every day – but as a change up a couple of days each week, well, I reckon it will hit the mark really well…there were certainly a couple of ‘WOW, really???’ moments for me when I read the programming (I have outsourced the programming for these classes) but I gritted my teeth and got to the end and have to admit I feel pretty good for having done so!

To access the ‘Functional Fit’ classes you DO need to upgrade your membership to include the ‘STRENGTH’ option…I know I have covered this elsewhere but essentially it increases costs from $38.50/fortnight (Boxing) to $53.50/fortnight.

What’s going on #3:  Other Timetable changes

SO – the simple time-table changes will be as follows:

‘No Rules’ moves from the Boxing gym into the ‘Strength’ gym and will ONLY run on Sunday at 9:30am.  This will continue its role as a bit of a ‘fun’ conditioning class where quite literally anything goes and the programming is ‘randomised’.  I guess this is supposed to be a challenging ‘end to the week’ session where you get pushed out of your comfort zone and the programming isn’t kept to the relatively rigid format of the other sessions on the time-table.

Body Work will be moved from 4pm to 7pm on Thursday nights and we will TRIAL a ‘Rolling Thunder’ class that runs for 3-hours from 4pm.  I am not sure this is such an amazing idea but hopefully it helps get people in the gym nice and early on Thursday nights.  ‘Rolling Thunder’ will ALSO be expanded to run from 12pm until 2pm at lunch-time on Thursday.

Beginners will continue each Saturday and Sunday but rather than running at 11:15am each day it will shuffle forward to 11am.

Essentially the timetables for each gym will look like THIS:

Boxing gym:

Strength Gym:

What’s going on #4: Is that it???

I have received a little bit of blow-back so far that with the gym extension/expansion all we have done is add in 8x new classes (4x Developing Athlete and 4x Functional Fit each week). Whilst that is a bit frustrating (for me) I do kind of get it – after all, we run a LOT of classes so expectations are high.  I hate comparing us to other facilities around the place – after all, they are supporting their members and we are (trying) to support ours and never the twain shall meet (so to speak), but if you compare the offerings at our gym with the F45 down the road at Cockburn Central, tomorrow we will have run as many sessions by 10am (5) as they will run all day.  I am also quite happy to share that their gym CLOSES between classes whereas ours is still open for you to train…AND a single membership to their gym is > expensive than a FAMILY membership to ours INCLUDING the upgrade to the new strength gym.  And I know this isn’t about other gyms – it is about OUR gym – but please, just give us a little bit of leeway here as we effectively try to get another entire stream of sessions up and running without losing any focus on what we already have (a situation that remains priority #1!).

That said though, the noted timetable changes are certainly not ‘IT’.  They are just ‘IT’ for now.  The intention is to increase the TANKS programming so that it is available TWICE per week and to increase the number of ‘Functional Fit’ classes so that they are accessible twice per day, EVERY day AND potentially add a second class each evening…all of this is down to demand though.  If you guys use the facilities and we need to increase session times to cope with demand, then that is what we will do…can we PLEASE just start off slow though and measure what people really want to do though before commiting to an extended time-table – because once a session is ON the timetable it is very hard to get it OFF the time-table.

What else?

Just one more thing.  The amazing Boris (no more words needed really – who doesn’t know and love the bloke – I know that our new ‘strength’ facility would still be a pile of rubble without his assistance) is having a Christmas Bash on November 24^th (which is NEXT WEEKEND).  It is at his place (aka enormous property in Wattleup that has to be seen to be believed), kicks off at 6:30pm and features an INXS tribute band.  If you want to get along for a great night, see more than a few Round 1’ers dressed in something other than gym gear and maybe form a few relationships that go a bit beyond the ‘nod of acknowledgement’ so many of us share in the gym each day, well…get along to 356 Wattleup Rd next Saturday night.  Cost is $25 – contact Boris (0414 634 814) or the equally amazing Lisa (0414 634 815) for more info!

See you in the gym,

Michael.