In case you missed Part 1 of our 2019 Year in Review, click here.

Jul/Aug/Sep

Training & Testing

The July Program was a great chance to practice all the things we challenge you with in Testing Week. Some Heavy 5 Rep, then 4 Rep, 3 Rep, 2 Rep Sets.

It was all about getting some practice in to nail your technique and prepare as best as possible to perform when you needed to for Testing Week. 

Here was some of our feedback and tips for testing Week criteria:

SQUATS

1. Pull the bar down hard to activate your Lats.
2. Hit a parallel depth (or lower) every Rep.
3. Push those knees out as you stand back up.

DEADLIFTS

1. Activate your Lats to minimize a rounded back.
2. Push your lower body & pull your upper body.
3. Lock it out at the top for 2 seconds to complete.

BENCH PRESS

1. Line it up over your lower chest BEFORE lowering.
2. Gently squash bar into your chest, don’t bounce it.
3. Stay as tight as possible whilst pushing back up.

PUSH UPS

1. Move AFTER the metronome beep.
2. Lead with the CHEST, not the head.
3. Hit full depth every Rep.

PULL UPS

1. Pull from your arm pits to activate Lats.
2. Stay tight and don’t kip/bounce/have an epileptic fit.
3. Extend your arms fully every Rep.

PLANK

1. Get tight (Glutes/Quads/Lats/Guts).
2. Stay tight (Glutes/Quads/Lats/Guts).
3. Shout out when you think you’re done (you’re not).

ROWER

1. Push hard with the legs.
2. Extend back with the hips.
3. THEN pull with your upper body.

RESULTS

We 100% guarantee when you get better at all the above exercises you will transform your body.The catch is that you get better at these exercises when:

1. you do them consistently
2. you execute great technique
3. (and this is the clincher) you eat well consistently. This includes fueling your body well in the lead up so you perform better and eating a great post workout meal and consuming nutrients that help your body repair, regenerate and recover.

Winter Warrior Challenge

The Winter Warrior concept was designed waaaay back in about 2012. Winter typically being colder & darker makes it one of the toughest periods of the Year to keep people motivated. So we’ve been coming up with different ways to hold people accountable (there’s that word again) by tracking attendance, running different challenges and most of the time, pumping out some good hard workouts.

2019’s Winter Warrior Program kicked off this week and it fits the bill.

The Long Rest Breaks from our July Program have well and truly disappeared. The Heavy Weights we were using too.

Now it’s more about Moderate Weights (which still feel pretty heavy the way this Program is structured) and Incomplete Rest Breaks.

Each Minute on the Minute, bang, we’re doing something. Sometimes two things.

It’s tough, but every Program here is challenging in it’s own way. Every Program is as hard as you make it.

Some people love the Heavy stuff with Long Rest Breaks.

Others love this non stop high heart rate style Sessions more.

You can’t do either type of Program all the time. It’s called Periodisation. It means splitting your Year up into Phases of High Intensity/Lower Volume, Lower Intensity/Higher Volume etc so that you can keep forcing your body to adapt, allow your body to recover and continue making progress. It’s the sciency-shit.

Oh one last thing, if you thought the mid-week Sessions were tough, just wait for Saturday. Each week from now until the end of Winter (yes it’s not that far away) we’ll be hitting the Ladder of Death. Check out the Video below for an idea of the 300 Workout.

Oxygen HQ 4th Anniversary

We celebrated our 4th Anniversary at Oxygen HQ in August and we sent out some info in the Mail regarding a Membership Sale we were having to celebrate. We always celebrate the milestone moments because running a small business is hard work and the statistics out there on how many businesses fail and close their doors are scary.

In many ways a fitness business could be one of the most time consuming ones there is. Very early starts and late finishes are the norm and that’s just the Session times. Then you’ve got all the hours in between to actually run, manage and grow the business. It was a proud moment 4 years earlier when Kiama MP Gareth Ward officially opened our Kiama Gym.

So why were we having a Sale?

An important and sometimes uncomfortable part of running a business is the conversation around raising prices. It’s smart & common practice to commit to raising prices in small increments on a regular basis. It’s also smart to make sure you deliver a ton of value to justify the price rise. The purpose of a business is to be profitable, not charitable and sometimes this is forgotten. According to our Accountant, we needed to be more profitable to ensure we can deliver a high quality service, re-invest in our continued growth and pay our Staff accordingly. So we raised our Prices.

Some may argue that Oxygen is already more expensive than other Gyms around, why should we pay more? Don’t compare us to Gyms. With a gym you pay for access to the building. That’s it. Some might offer classes like boxing or abs/bums/thighs etc which is generic, cookie cutter for everyone. Don’t compare us to a Gym, compare us to working with a Personal Trainer. I myself did PT over 15 years ago and even back then would charge $50/hour. So by the time you’ve trained 3 times per week you’re looking at $150 per week. The way Oxygen is structured you have a Program that’s based around your Goals, you train with a Coach every day, plus a motivated group of people and you can do that as many times per week as you want for anywhere from $25-$90 per week depending on which options you go with.

Why the changes in Memberships?

Every year we review our Membership & Service offerings to see what’s working well and what needs improvement. All Members get Unlimited Access to the Gym, but some Members are more experienced than others and so different levels of Membership are available to reflect that. Clients can earn discounts for improving their performance by way of a Challenge. But this also involves a Penalty if they can’t live up to the expectations.

Some Members require more help with other areas of their health whilst some don’t need it as much. Some of us have lots to learn, others know what they need to do but require more discipline or accountability to actually apply what they know. So different Memberships offerings are necessary.

Oct/Nov/Dec

Oxygen Challenge Week Series 19

Series 19 was not only the biggest we’ve ever run, it was also one of the best.

We had a couple of Members who’ve been around the block and done a few Challenge Weeks, and also a few Oxygen Veterans that have done over 14 Challenge Weeks and commented how much they enjoyed this latest Series. Well, enjoyed might not be the word but you know what I mean.

On top of the enjoyment factor, attendance numbers were at an all time high. Prior to last week, the biggest Session we had ever run here at Oxygen HQ was 36 people for a Winter Warrior Session. Last week we had 38, 39, 40, 41 and a record 43 people at one particular session. We had a Warm Up routine that was used all week which was 8 Stations of 4 people, or 32 people total. One Session early in the week I looked at the number of people in the room and figured we’d have to make it 5 people per station. That still wasn’t enough so it became 6 people per station and eventually we were able to fit everyone in because that particular set-up would fit 48!

The attendance numbers seemed to be fairly evenly spread through the week too which made for a great contest between the 4 Teams and an awesome vibe as everyone battled it out across the 10 Sessions.

Green broke out to the early lead, then Yellow made a statement that night winning everything on offer at Session 2. Blue won Session 3, then Yellow the 4th, Green the 5th, Red the 6th, Green the 7th, Yellow the 8th, then Blue won the 9th mid week Session on Friday morning to be tied with Yellow going into the Finale.

Yellow then simply dominated the Finale & surged to a big lead to win Challenge Week Series 19.

Yellow veterans Kat Hayward, Leanne, Jamie & Jess Williams were there a lot, Dean & Jess Alaban attended heaps too and Dean managed to refer one of his employees a new guy Matt Le who was more than helpful. That sort of horsepower together with the Smith boys Ryan & Tyler and Ben Hayward made for a strong Team. Steph Reid fitted in a few Sessions before her Wedding preparations on the Saturday. Then you throw in a returning Yellow Lynley Coles who did Oxygen many years back and knows what Challenge Week is all about. But it was a new kid on the block, Michelle East, who many refer to as Mighty Mouse, who ultimately took out the honours for Yellow MVP after really embracing the concept of Challenge Week, turning up morning & night and showing her worth to the Team.

Other notable mentions must go out to Blue MVP Kylie Strong who only got out of a boot from a broken leg on Monday and turned up to heaps of Sessions and fought hard. Green’s MVP was Melissa Stewart who smashed it out for 9/10 Sessions despite juggling 2 kids and a husband with a busy work schedule. Red’s MVP was the hard-working Faye Worner who I believe did every session despite some recent injury troubles abut it’s unsure whether she has a job to go back to this week as the CEO of the busy Waminda Women’s Health Corporation.

Congrats to Yellow, all our MVP’s and everyone who participated in another very challenging week.

Member of the Year Awards

Over a delicious 3 Course Menu at Olive & Vine Restaurant, we held the 2019 Oxygen Member of the Year Awards on Saturday Night. It started with the Challenge Week Presentation and soon after we moved on to the first of our Awards.

The Rookie of the Year is someone who has only joined in the past 12 months since the last Awards Night and who shows a lot of promise. They’ve got to show potential with a Barbell, pump out some solid reps with their Body Weight, have a bit of ticker and just generally be a nice friendly person. Kylie Falconer certainly fits that bill and we’re stoked to have her around.

The Mums Gone Strong Award recognises a special Woman who has juggled the tasks of motherhood with an equally strong commitment to training to be at their best for their family. With a busy full time job, a 3 year old daughter and a hubby who worked in Sydney, Katherine Faulkner was driving down daily from Bellambi earlier in the year. She’d not been getting the results she liked from her Anytime Fitness membership and upon seeing her mate Nic Smith’s progress, decided to join. Since then she’s “found her tribe” in her own words, referred her Husband Tim and trained through her second Pregnancy to deliver a healthy baby boy Axel.

The FitChick & Spartan of the Year again have to be strong with a Barbell, good with their Body Weight and just an asset to have at training. They’ve sometimes been at it for not only 12 months but a couple of years before they make some solid progress. This year’s recipients were exactly that, with Jess Alaban and Liam Sheridan showing some great consistency over the past few years at Oxygen before they made some real breakthroughs in 2019.

Our Kings & Queens of Conditioning went to Nardia Guillaumier and Ryan Smith because simply, it doesn’t matter what task you give them, they’re gunna be hard to beat. They have awesome aerobic capacity and although it sounds like the same thing, they have ticker. What that means they keep going, and show perseverance when the going gets tough.

Our ultimate gong, the Member of the Year, went to Kyla Reeves. Kyla started Oxygen in February 2018. She had little gym experience and came to us looking to regain her health after the birth of her little girl Bowie. She became a popular Member and a great ambassador for our Mums Gone Strong movement in 2018. Earlier this year she discovered she was pregnant with Twins and committed to being as strong and healthy as she could be to deliver two healthy babies into the world. And that she did, becoming one of our most consistent members training up to 35 weeks pregnant and delivering 2 beautiful babies Kyuss and Elke.

She recently completed her comeback from Twin pregnancy by attending our Challenge week Finale as her return to training. An inspirational training partner and beautiful person inside and out.

Well done Kyla and congratulations to all our Award Winners from 2019!

Oxygen’s 10th Birthday!

Oxygen Health & Fitness first started today 10 years on October 11th 2009. Thank you to everyone who has played a part in getting us to where we are today, none more so than Jade, Jan & Mal Lambert. Here‘s a selection of highlights from 10 Years as Kiama’s Best Fitness Business.

Programming is what we do best

 I hate it when fitness “gurus” on Instagram etc use that word – Program – when they constantly show ever changing workouts with exercise variations different to yesterday, exercises they just plain made up and workouts that just make no sense whatsoever. Ahh that’s not a Program love, that’s rubbish. See examples like Alexia Clark, KaisaFit etc.

A Program is something a Coach designs to provide a new stimulus to the body, then a period to adapt & compensate and then some time to allow improvement. if you constantly change the workouts & exercises you’ll never know if you’re improving and there’s a fair chance you’ll perform an exercise one day that you’re not accustomed to and perhaps with less than optimum technique you might even injure yourself.

A lot of people think they need to “change it up” to “keep the body guessing“. Some people do it because their attention span is waaaaay too short and they often don’t have very clear goals so it never really matters too much. Think about it, let’s say your child takes guitar lessons and they’re getting a bit bored. When questioned they respond that they still really like guitar and they want to be in a famous rock band one day. Would you say that it’s ok because they’re bored this week that they can switch over and do piano lessons? Of course not. It might keep them interested this week but what purpose does it serve?

A lot of fitness professionals use variety too often because they fear their clients will get bored and lose interest. I myself did this a lot in the beginning of my career in the early 2000’s and used to pride myself on the fact that one client I trained never did the same workout twice in a row for over 2 years. He enjoyed it and he was a client for many years but during this time it was really hard to gauge whether he had really improved much.

Since then I’ve looked at what the best Coaches across the industry do and they create Programs usually based around 5 or 6 Main movement patterns and they get better at them over time. There is variety but not as much as most people think. Programs can be anywhere from 4-16 Weeks depending on a number of factors but for us, in this Group environment, we’ve found 4 Weeks allows a long enough period of time for some small improvements but a short enough timeframe so that people don’t get bored. You need some continuity to make the technical improvements required to then be both competent and confident with more weight or reps.

This Kiama Fitness Business already has the entire Year of Programming mapped out for 2020 with a number of 4 Week Programs, Testing Weeks, Challenge Weeks, Target Weeks, Boot Camps, the Oxygen Olympics and the first of what we hope will be some successful In-House Competitions. There’s plenty to look forward to next year so if you’re keen to be part of it or know someone who should, send here to the New Year’s Revolution Challenge.

Happy New Year!