The end of SPARTA#1, Rolling Thunder and Other STUFF

Hey - Happy weekend team.  And Happy Birthday to Round 1 co-owner (well, since she brings in all the money that allows me to 'work' at the gym, as well as doing everything around the house whilst I sit on my lazy butt claiming to be 'tired') Vanessa.  And whilst yet again I 'remembered' her birthday, what I failed to remember was to actually arrange anything to signify it - though on a somewhat positive note my football team played in Leederville last night (her birthday) so at least I didn't have to try too hard to organise a last minute dinner venue!  And 'Not Trying Too Hard' seems to be something I am really good at! :-)

As always, a million thanks from me to everyone who found time in their busy schedule to come and train with us last week.  I never cease to be amazed/impressed by how dedicated everyone is - freezing cold - and pouring rain - and the place keeps filling up with people working hard to get 'better'...there have been some tough sessions of late as well which have left even me asking the "Why do I have to train so hard?" question (and I write the stupid training plans)...yet still people keep turning up and getting it done!

I just wanted to have a little word about our 'Rolling Thunder' trial - our 'continuous' boxing circuit that is running from 6am until 8am then again from 5pm until 7pm each Thursday.  I am trying to keep the circuit 'SIMPLE' to minimise any confusion - and last week, we put together a video that we posted on Facebook on Wednesday + played it on one of the tv's in the stretching area throughout the day on Thursday...but the session still seems to be causing some confusion.  So here goes:

1. It is a circuit that doesn't END.  You are finished when you are finished.
2. When you get to the gym, just do your warm-up and see the trainers...if you are concerned about any of the exercises, check the video on social media or on the tv's before getting started.
3. It is a circuit that doesn't END.  You are finished when you are finished.  If I already said this it is because it is this point that seems to be confusing people the most!

I also wanted to have a quick word about our revised Body Work sessions.  We have gone away from Body Work as (effectively) a structured sports conditioning class (heavy lift + cardio + hypertrophy based finisher) and re-imagined the session as a strength endurance class featuring light to medium weights, body weight activities and short duration/high intensity cardio efforts.  In a way I guess, you could say that the Body Work classes now look an awful lot like our amazing 'SPARTAN' programming (refer to the next section) but without quite the same level of physical intensity.  For anyone out there 'scared' of Body Work because you are confused by any of the exercises, by the idea of changing weights, by anything really, I would really encourage you to 'have a go'.  In some ways, these sessions are more suitable for new people than Boxing because the 'time stress' of the bell is not there...you work through the white board at your own pace for 45-minutes...

A little bit of news this week - the first block of SPARTAN training we have ever tried came to an end - 4x weeks and 12x sessions later.  The programming - as I have mentioned - has been all about so-called "GIANT" sets (high repetitions of each exercise programmed...high like 50!), high intensity and (relatively) short duration.  Overall, I was pretty happy with the way it all went and SUPER happy with the effort everyone put in...the workouts were some of the toughest I have ever put together (doing the 'test run' for the program was not a great time in my life) but happily the results have been pretty good.

Highlights:

• We had a couple of participants record FAT loss (not weight loss, but FAT loss) of 4kg+.  Which is amazing.
• Overall, we achieved positive muscle growth across all participants.

Lowlights:

• 2x people recorded small Body Fat percentage increases during the program.

The below picture (hopefully) gives you a bit more of a summary of what was achieved:

So - when you look at the numbers the quick and easy response is that everyone has done AMAZING.  And they certainly were amazing in terms of the effort they put in...but I always battle with this element of what we do because what I want to see is EVERYONE who works hard rewarded for their efforts.  And the SPARTAN crew put in an amazing effort.  So when I see a couple of people have lost muscle and had minimal body composition change, well, it I just get disappointed for them.

I did a bit of a mini-blog on this subject a couple of weeks ago and it probably seems a bit weird that I am writing about the same thing twice in a couple of weeks.  But like I said, I just want everyone to get great results from their training and am hoping to help a couple of people out there with this post!

Remember, when you work super hard AND try to really focus on 'Healthy Eating', that can sometimes mean not eating enough...which compromises muscle...which leads to an increase in Body Fat % ('cos if you have less muscle but the same amount of fat then your body fat % has INCREASED!).  Getting it right can be TRICKY.  And sometimes by doing the 'right' thing with your food, you eat LESS because you aren't exactly prepared or, more likely, aren't exactly sure what to eat - so in actual fact your focus on healthy eating is actually compromising your progress...so what are you supposed to do?  

First off, the eating plans we give out with the challenges - and we gave one out with SPARTAN - are generally pretty great.  And sticking to them give you a pretty good shot at success.  But because we are all different - with different activity levels, different stress levels, different sleep patterns - results wont be the same.  What you have to do is really (REALLY) listen to your body.  And - to completely contradict myself, you also need to IGNORE your body.  I'll try to explain.

Most people are energised after a workout - energised and feeling good.  Endorphins are surging, you feel positive about your efforts and ready to take on the day.  I find the hour or so after training is when I think the most clearly, particularly with regards any tasks that require me to think sequentially such as project planning.  BUT.  Within a couple of hours, I really do hit a bit of a wall and I can't maintain the same level of acuity...and more than that, I can't get it back!

The only way to pro-long the period of 'enhanced productivity' that your workouts give you is to FUEL UP - and I mean straight away after your session.  If you are 'tired of feeling tired', then you need to exercise and eat well every day (wash, rinse, repeat).  As per the notes in my little mini-blog, throw a shaker with some protein into your gym bag and down it straight away...then still eat your next meal 'AS NORMAL' (whether that meal was going to be breakfast, lunch or dinner is kind of irrelevant).  Straight after your work-out, you might not exactly FEEL like it - you might say "I just can't eat after training"...but if you don't, when the crash comes (and it might be coming in a couple of hours or - more likely for morning trainers, just after lunch) there will be NOTHING you can do to turn it back around.

Anyway - since I banged on about all of this only a couple of weeks ago I am going to leave it there. 

See you all in the gym - we are going to try and use the power ropes this week for the first time in forever so hopefully everyone is looking forward to that...setting them up is going to take a fair bit of messing around (unfortunately the 'fibres' that come off the ropes mess with the treadmills!) but I am sure we can make it work!

Michael.