Fitness: Crap, Summer has arrived & where's my six pack?
Like clockwork, as soon as Summer waves a little hello to say ‘I’m arriving’, we instantly celebrate by getting out the BBQ, throwing on some sausages, chugging a few cold beverages and just when you’re third saus deep in white bread you realise - crap - this Summer gig means I’ve got to get ship-shape for those hot days at the beach, in my tight shorts.
My relationship with exercise has been a turbulent one - probably the classic storyline for many of you too. The journey to what seems like Everest has been filled with beautiful moments of optimism, celebration & body fat percentage drops. Then there’s been doses of struggle, frustration and blocks of Whittakers chocolate. It’s been a yo-yo for sure, but that’s just life right?!
And of course without getting too Tony Robbins on you, when you’re faced with what appears to be a monster of a wall (not as tough as this proposed Mexico wall however), like wanting to lose that spare tire around the belly, all that may be required is a motivating push to get up and over the wall and doses of consistent encouragement to stay up. This can be hard to get in a typical gym environment where you’re often left to do your own thing, unless you’re booked into group classes or hire a personal trainer. So many times I’ve heard people say they ‘just don’t know what to do’ or ‘get bored of the same workout’ at the gym.
That my friends is one of the critical ingredients of the relatively new F45 format of high intensity training. The prep work is done for you, you’ve got to simply commit, turn up and go hard. No work experience required.
For those peeps that personally know me or been following for a while you’ll have seen the odd (and now to be more frequent) early morning Insta stories of me turning up to F45 Training Newmarket. F45 - it’s not some type of super-fast aircraft from the military, but it’s not far off from being military in theme.
F45 stands for Functional 45 minute Training. To break it down simply, it’s a high-intensity-interval circuit made up of a number of stations, which each require you to perform a specific exercise for a set period of time. Sometimes you’re on for 30, 45 or even 60 seconds. While each day will have a theme, like cardio, resistance or strength, no two workout routines are ever the same. It’s keeps the body guessing so it never gets complacent, which helps drive better results.
There’s two hurdles most fear when it comes to any form of committal exercise. Firstly I hear ‘I’m not at all fit enough to do HIIT’, then in a close second is, ‘I haven’t really done a workout routine before so don’t know how to do the exercises’. Well let me tell you, F45 was designed to sweat these crap-as excuses out of you (and me!).
You don’t need to know it all and you certainly don’t need to be a Nike sponsored athlete to jump right on in. No matter your age, fitness ability or reason for being there. Not only does every single session kick off with a live demo by some class act instructors like Chris, Rhys, the two Renees, James & Mu, there’s also screens you can refer to anytime to see what’s going on at each station when you’re busy trying to catch your breath between the rotations.
Now I’m not going to give you the roses view on getting match fit. It’s tough work. It’s fairly simple math right, go hard and get hard results. Go average - get average. If you are serious about hitting your personal fitness goals, whatever the motivation; weight loss, toning up, building muscle or getting better at doing burpees, then there’s no doubt in my mind F45 is the place you’ll want to sign up to.
And there’s proof in the pudding too. Not only have I personally had exceptional results which you can read about dropping over 7% body fat from from my very first F45 Newmarket 8 Week Challenge, my friends have reaped the rewards of the F45 buzz too.
Just recently my two school mates Mark & David, dropped 10kgs of fat alone (not weight, pure fat!) in just 8 weeks and are continuing to show up and do the tough work. It was a real motivator to see these pals turn up very early and the morning and sweat it out. It actually gave me a boost when I was out of routine and needed to get my ass back into a regular rhythm at the Newmarket studio.
Classes are made up of all walks of life, ages, abilities and it’s brilliant. Some of the most impressive results have come from the more mature F45 goers and it goes to prove if you turn up with the right attitude, follow the advice of the trainers, commit to turning up and eating healthy you too can make a transformation. How much of a transformation relies on how many times you turn up, how hard you go, and how clean you eat - eating good and fuelling the body is mission critical to success.
When I first began F45 in Newmarket in early 2017 I had the luxury of being self employed. That allowed me to run my own schedule. And I must admit there wasn’t as many distractions which gave me the ability to lock down a routine - another key to success. Skip ahead to the year 2018 and I’m back full time in advertising, and like you no doubt, you’re working hard and trying to balance so many aspects of your life which often results in your health & wellbeing needs falling to the wayside.
Reality is there are always going to be reasons why you can’t or don’t feel like turning up, and the trick is setting yourself up for success and putting the right preparations in place to do so. For me things like packing my bag the night before along with the prepping the drink bottle and protein shake ready to grab from the fridge when I get up. Then there’s setting an alarm on a phone that you have to get up to turn off and while you’re at it turning on the light are simple tricks to help drag your sorry ass out of bed. And for reals once you’ve completed your 45 minute workout, you never regret it and you feel incredible. Maybe a little sore but that only means the hard work is working!
Setting your benchmark and tracking your progress is again another important step in journey to fitness success, no matter what your goal is. A fairly new addition in the studio is the Evolt 360 body scanner which is designed to get a very accurate read on your body’s composition. Evolt connects up to your app so can track your progress throughout your journey. It’ll show you some important pieces to your body’s makeup - from body weight which is broken down by segment - your arms and legs, will outline your body fat percentage (a more important measure than overall body weight as it laser focuses on fat) and your visceral fat level. Don’t worry too much about the technical jargon - Chris and the team will explain what it all means and the key metrics you’ll want to focus on during training.
Fitness is my opinion is as critical as feeding the body with food. Exercise is not only keeping your body in good working shape, it’s doing the same for your mind too. The clarity, energy levels and endorphins are addictive feelings and you’ll notice the difference within days of hitting F45 Training Newmarket.
I encourage you to come give F45 Newmarket a whirl, sign up is easy online and once you’re hooked in you simply boo your sessions to fit around your daily schedule. With multiple sessions happening a day through morning, lunch and evening (most days).
If you really want to kick off with a smashing start to the year, I’d highly recommend putting your name down for the first 2019 8 Week Challenge that kicks off 4th Feb. If you sign up now, you’ll train for free until the 4th Feb so you can get yourself in the zone for the Challenge.
Would be great to see you at F45 Newmarket and if you do sign up make sure you come and say hi!
Here’s to that six-pack (not of beer)!
jb