Every February has turned out some of the best sessions effort and results wise every year of our existence. This session was no different as we had some amazing effort individually as well as a whole. New records in the deadlift, new lows in body fat and new goals reached every day.
To say it was a hard choice to choose two winners this session for Camper of the Month and Black TShirt is an understatement. I literally made the final decision two minutes before my deadline. Awesome efforts, and great leaders perfectly describe these two individuals. They have been voted by their peers each and every month and this month was their crowning moment. Congratulations Bob Jenks and Sylvie Corriveau!
Black Tshirt Winner
Sylvie Corriveau
Sylvie has had an amazing transformation to say the least. She lifts her class to a new level when she attends. Her consistency has led her to the amazing results she has achieved. Being in a small class, that is no small feat. She made a small class of 4-6 people feel like 24-26, always pushing her limits and shouting encouragement to the masses.
Her efforts are measured in time. She has had ups and downs along her journey but one thing has remained constant: she has never taken her eyes off her goal, and that one major detail has taken her to this point! Amazing job Sylvie, thank you for working so hard and inspiring your classmates to push harder while you strive full steam ahead toward your goals.
Camper of the Month
Bob Jenks
Bob has the perfect blend of smile and personality and hard work and determination. He brings a light attitude to every class and makes anyone and everyone feel comfortable. The other side of Bob is just as pleasant…well as an instructor it certainly is 
He has a determination and will that never quits. Dealing with some knee issues, Bob has been limited with some exercises and what he can do with them, but that hasn’t stopped him from being very consistent with his attendance and doing our specialty classes back to back (ABS and Warrior) for over 4 months. Bob is truly a member of our program that new members look to for inspiration and a friendly face that will joke with you and take you under his wing, but also show you what it takes to be successful.
Filed under Bootcamp Workouts by .
What’s the first thing you think about when you hear the word ‘cardio’?
What I think of is running. Not sure why but it is, even though I know there are so many other tools that can improve cardiovascular endurance other than running.
What do you think of? I bet some of you are in the same boat as me and think of running, or biking, or spinning, or a step aerobics class. Regardless of what method you think of, something else I’m sure of is that you think of sessions being long and very time consuming.
But if you are a frequent reader of my blog or newsletter, you know my position on ‘cardio’ and know that there are alternative methods of training cardiovascular endurance but may not have explained why these methods work better than traditional running or the common training methods.
First of all, training in long bouts to increase cardiovascular endurance is unnecessary (with the exception of ultra long distance sporting events). Short bouts higher in intensity with periodic breaks creates an interval effect enough to cause a reaction in the body for improvement in cardiovascular endurance. One thing to keep in mind is that when the body adapts to a stress you place upon it, most of the time, provided the stress is supportive for growth and improvement, will overcompensate to the stress. That means if you are training in an interval format, the body will adapt to take on the stress of interval training, which is much higher stress, than a cardiovascular endurance training session will provide. This effect alone opens doors to many more options in your cardiovascular training.
Secondly, and perhaps more important, is the negative stress placed on the body during long bouts of cardiovascular training. Cardio, is nothing more than very high repetition strength training, and the amount of repetitions performed during just one bout is tremendous. High repetitions performed for a very long time without much rest (multiple days) can produce overuse injuries and impact injuries much sooner than if you changed up the training stress (upper body cardio, lower repetition cardio training).
Here are some examples of cardiovascular training that can cut the reps down without compromising the results:
Kettlebell Swings (actually burns twice the amount of calories than running). All of these can be performed in interval format or for reps or time (shorter time periods).
Kettlebell Snatch
Battleropes
Burpees or other bodyweight training
Stair sprints
Movements like this instead of the ultra high repetition and wear on your joints and body will promote longevity in your training and reduced negative stress, which will reduce the likelihood of injury without compromising your results (your results will actually be enhanced). Regardless of your choice of cardiovascular training, be sure to use variety and mix things up often to avoid overuse and boredom. Also employ shorter high intensity bouts alternated with recovery bouts to enhance the results, save your body, and keep things interesting.
Filed under Bootcamp Workouts by .
Gravity and a machine run on batteries.
That’s what we have determined all of our hard work, consistency and efforts on to tell us if we are succeeding or not.
Sounds a little ridiculous when you look at it that way doesn’t it. Well that’s what many programs and even more individuals have based their whole workout and nutrition efforts based on what that machine says. And its an obsession.
And I can understand that to a point, but only to a point. The scale is the easiest form of measuring numeric progress, however it is the least accurate.
There are many ways to measure progress, and many less to measure numerically. Numbers matter to many people, there is no getting around that, and so much emphasis has been placed on bodyweight, that it’s hard to ignore the stereotype that is all over our society.
Now there are a number of ways to measure progress without numbers such as, mood, energy level and how your clothes feel. And those are the initial feelings you are going to have when making changes to your nutrition and exercise program. Then you have the numerical results such as inches, body fat percentage, pounds, clothing size, as well as cholesterol, blood pressure, and heart rate. Prioritizing these is difficult as everyone has different needs when starting an exercise program. One person may be very lean and looking to tone up more, so scale pounds aren’t important as body fat. On the other side someone who is very obese, the scale would have importance as would body fat percentage.
When training for fat loss, there are very specific things that need to be in the exercise program for it to be fully effective. Strength training is one of those things, and strength training and the scale don’t mix well. This is one of the big reasons I tell my clients who are looking to lose fat to not weigh themselves unless they are on a high level rapid fat loss program (and they weigh themselves only to monitor immediate progress to see if the meal plan is working for them- and will make quick changes if it is not). The real results happen with the circumference measurements (hips, waist, thigh, arm) and the body fat percentage. Out of those two the body fat percentage shows the best indicator of progress if you had to choose one measure to be the most important. However having all measurements will tell the best story of how you are doing, and also realizing that measurements do monitor progress but the other factors or results of making lifestyle changes should not be forgotten. Those unmeasurables often will keep you consistent and give you a positive outlook on your efforts. The scale gets way too much credit for what it tells you, especially when there are so many factors that can affect it: water intake, sodium intake, time of day, before or after workout, and the list goes on and on. The moral of the story: don’t believe everything a machine tells you, take the whole story into account
Filed under Bootcamp Workouts, Nutrition by .
What a way to start off 2012! There were so many great strides and improvements that it would take me all day to write them all in. New programs are helping campers stay accountable with their nutrition. Campers signing up for Tough Mudder, campers adding a day of class to get their extra workout in during the week, so they can achieve even more.
This month the ‘cream of the crop’ were two very well deserving campers who have been at it for a long time. Their consistency and work ethic has earned them every bit of results they have achieved. Fellow campers recognize their effort and see them as leaders (and nominated them as winners for this month).
Also our Champion of the Month from our Youth Camp has made amazing strides in improving in class. He too has made the extra effort and is paying off big time for him.
Here are your superstars from January!
Black Tshirt Award
Jenna Heinrich
Jenna is that smiling face you hope to see when you walk in our doors. She is very friendly and always is willing to lend a helping hand or, better yet, tell a funny story. Jenna started bootcamp, then found out she was pregnant and stopped bootcamp for about a year. When she came back she had baby weight to lose and set a goal to achieve that. She has achieved that and thensome. Now a member of our second Sparta Project, Jenna is taking her results to a new level, working on enhancing her results and building upon what she has reached so far. She never backs down from a challenge and is always willing to give anything a try. It’s that attitude that has gotten her to where she is today.
Congratulations Jenna for winning the Black Tshirt this month. Your fellow campers thank you and continue to be motivated by you.
Camper of the Month
Gretchen Lewis
Gretchen, much like Jenna, is that smiling face you hope to see when you walk into our facility. Bootcamp can sound intimidating and its always nice to see a smiling, friendly face when you walk in. In fact, I have never seen Gretchen NOT smile. Whether she is cranking out 20 Burpees or deadlifting 200 pounds, Gretchen always has that friendly smile on her face.
Gretchen’s always present effort is perhaps what draws people to be motivated by her. Her endurance is second to none and often is difficult to challenge. Becoming a participant in our Warrior Strength and Conditioning class has helped her become more well rounded with her efforts, adding more strength training to compliment the tremendous stamina she has. Gretchen is on the fast track to becoming a black tshirt winner in the very near future.
Congratulations Gretchen for being named Camper of the Month for January!
Youth Camp Champion of the Month
Eli Moore
Eli started off youth camp with some challenges, and for a while I wasn’t sure if I would be able to remedy them. Over time though Eli has grown tremendously, making huge strides with exercise form to compliment his always present effort from beginning to the end of class. Eli has enthusiasm in class that is contagious to other youth campers. He has had a great month working on his focus in instructions and coming out of his physical shell, by showing us what he is capable of.
I anticipate seeing much more from Eli in the future as he continues to progress and develop into a very well rounded, confident young man.
Filed under Bootcamp Workouts by .
The word no one wants to hear about, talk about, or have a conversation about is nutrition.
Let’s be honest, its that 800 pound gorilla in the room that everyone knows is either helping or hindering your performance and results but seems all too often to get ignored. And its not because we all think it isn’t important…its because we all know it is!
It’s pretty black and white when we say nutrition is 80% of your results and exercise is 20%, but that is pretty conservative in my mind. I think its more like 95% of your results and exercise is 5%. I mean, think about it, if you eat for fat loss and perform any exercise (almost) you will get results. Even if you don’t exercise at all, you will get results from eating the way the body was meant to.
I used to run nutrition classes on teaching people how to eat ‘supportively’ to promote an environment in their bodies for fat loss to occur. Now I’ve transitioned to more of a support group helping people with accountability and responsibility of answering to someone other than themselves on a regular basis. So many want to know ‘what’ to eat, but the what isn’t nearly as difficult as the ‘why’.
Why we need to eat the foods are just as important as the ‘what’ if not more important. History has told us if we know ‘why’ we need to or not to perform a task, we are always more likely to do it or not do it. It also evokes more learning and habit forming tendencies than the ‘what’ does. In terms of nutrition the ‘what’ is great and gives you instant gratification, but won’t stay with you and more often than not will eventually get boring and you will not have formed a habit. Not to mention the ‘what’ is pretty simple, I can tell you what to eat in one line:
lean meats and other proteins, vegetables, fruits, healthy and natural fats.
Eat in priority of that list with most abundant being lean meats.
If you stick to that list 90% of the time or better, you are in excellent shape. When you start asking ‘what about _____?’ , you start to veer away from this list. The list is pretty simple, ‘what abouts’ are very likely not on this list for a reason, and if you have a question about it, you are guaranteed to not be asking about something that would fit on this list
No secrets, nothing you haven’t heard before here, just discipline and understanding why before applying the what
Filed under Nutrition, Uncategorized by .
