Beyond Clothes: Embracing the Challenge for True Fitness Growth
Living a truly fulfilling life isn't just about chasing after your kids without a strained hamstring or bending down to tie your shoes without pain. It's about being able to move with confidence, embrace new challenges, and enjoy an active lifestyle well into your golden years. Unfortunately, many fitness programs fall short of providing the foundation for such a life. They often focus on specific elements, such as only building muscle size, or only cardiovascular exercise while neglecting other crucial elements, leaving you vulnerable to injuries and limitations.
Most people judge their "fitness" by a single, outdated metric - whether or not their clothes still fit. While this may offer some indication of progress, it fails to capture the full picture. True fitness encompasses more than just aesthetics; it's about building strength, improving cardiovascular health, increasing/maintaining mobility, and enhancing overall well-being.
Two of the most powerful tools for long-lasting fitness are often overlooked: body composition and metabolic tracking. Body composition analysis provides a detailed breakdown of your fat mass, muscle mass, and water weight, allowing you to track changes beyond the scale. Sudden or rapid weight loss may allow you to fit into your favorite pair of jeans again, but at what cost? Often sudden weight loss is result of losing a combination of fat, water and muscle. Muscle has been called “the organ of longevity”, and is directly related to your metabolism. Crashing your metabolism can make it difficult to maintain weight loss, and building back muscle takes time. Metabolic tracking, on the other hand, measures your body's calorie expenditure at rest and during activity, helping you understand how efficient your metabolism is. A program that allows you to lose fat while maintaining your muscle mass and metabolism is a sustainable long term plan. Why would you not include both of these keys to success in your plan?
Taylor lost 28lbs with Coach Aaron through a high power focused training program. Her comfort zone was slow lifts with no fast or high powered movements. Coach Aaron challenged her to incorporate cleans, high pulls, sprints and other power movements into her routine. She embraced the suck and was able to reach her goal in 3 months, now fitting into clothes she has not fit into for years.
At our facility, we believe in providing our members with the tools and resources they need to achieve their fitness goals. We utilize the TrainHeroic app, a comprehensive platform that allows us to:
Track workouts and progress: Members can log their workouts, including sets, reps, weights, and notes. This data provides valuable insights into their performance and helps them identify areas for improvement. It can also help prevent injury.
Receive programming: We often hear, Monday is leg day and Tuesday is Back and Biceps. Beyond that, programming should include other modalities, which we have discussed previously, and include rep and load variations. Unfortunately, many people do not know how to effectively program for reps, loads or even rest periods.
Optimize strength and volume: Our program takes a long-term perspective, not just focusing on the week or day. We utilize data and analytics to determine when members should focus more on strength training or increase their workout volume for optimal results.
We challenge you to step outside your comfort zone and try something you have not done before. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) class, olympic lifts, or conditioning. By diversifying your workouts and pushing your limits, you'll experience:
Enhanced strength and power: Your body will become more capable of handling the demands of daily life and athletic pursuits.
Improved cardiovascular health: A strong heart and lungs will allow you to participate in activities for longer durations with greater ease.
Increased flexibility and mobility: You'll move with more grace and freedom, reducing the risk of injuries and pain resulting from everyday activities.
Boosted mental well-being: Exercise releases endorphins, improves mood, and reduces stress, leading to a happier and more fulfilling life.
Don't let old habits and outdated metrics hold you back. Embrace the challenge, track your progress using body composition and metabolic tracking, and unlock the true potential of your fitness journey. With the right tools and support, you can achieve sustainable results and experience a life filled with vitality and boundless possibilities.
Starting in January we are incorporating more high intensity functional training into our workouts, that already include the elements most people are missing, which are compound lifts, conditioning and plyometrics. We challenge you to get a body composition scan and have a professional interpret your results. Try something new. Maybe you lift dumbbells, but have never learned a power clean. Rather than 30 mins on the treadmill, try temp runs or sprints. Get out of the comfort zone and do something you have not done before to achieve something you have not achieved. January is often referred to as “sweaty January”. We all have to start somewhere, we challenge you to start with confidence and a plan. Reach out to us if you would like to join our challenge. We also have special offers during the month of December so you can start kickstart your metabolism now and enjoy the holidays feeling prepared and confident.
Remember, the journey to true fitness is a marathon, not a sprint. Embrace the challenge, try something new.