There’s several things goin on at Oxygen that I want you to consider and make a decision on.  This is a really important skill to develop -  to act decisively.

The first thing that springs to mind at the moment is the wet weather we’re experiencing. Plain and simple, it sucks. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good excuse NOT to train. If you’ve been around Oxygen Health & Fitness  long enough you’ll know our motto and if you’re fairly new to the scene you’ll get the message soon enough.

“In the rain, we still train.”

Make a decision to get over it, suck it up and commit to training. Here’s proof from yesterday that your Kiama Personal Trainer walks his walk.

The second thing to consider is this.

Not a day goes by that I don’t have someone ask me:

“How do I lose the muffin top/tuck-shop arms/last 5kg?”

“How can I burn body fat off my bum/thigh/stomach?”

“How can I get bla bla bla?”

The answer to 90% of people’s fitness, energy + weight loss dilemmas is………… Nutrition.

The Body Balance Challenge is a 90 Day Body Transformation program where you get access to both Group and Individual Nutrition coaching, complete done for you meal plans and grocery lists and all the information and motivation required to make DRAMATIC changes to your physique.  It starts Monday 30th April, you can get $1,300 cash for winning and for just $50 you can trial it out for the first week to see if it’s the right fit for you.

If you’re interested MAKE A DECISION and register for it.

The third thing to consider is the cooler weather ahead of us and how fashionable you want to be.  We’re taking orders now for the items below so if your’e interested MAKE A DECISION contact us to let us know which specific item you would like and what size.  Orders need to be placed and paid for by ANZAC DAY (next Wednesday).

Sleeve Striped Hoodie $50

Turtle Collared Top $50

Now is the time to…

Make a decision

We procrastinate too often;

re-considering, torturing ourselves with indecision

Governments do it by establishing boards of inquiries.

Golfers call it paralysis by analysis.

We think it’s better to think things through, then decide.

Correcting an error is less painful

than being trapped on the fence.

“One foot can’t stand on two boats”  Chinese proverb

A fairly new addition to the Oxygen Health & Fitness family, Norbert turned up to his first Oxygen session only 6 weeks ago with no idea what he was up for. Being the second day of Challenge Week it was probably best he didn’t know. He hopped off his beloved motorbike, waltzed over to us to grab some equipment and proceeded to do a Yoga session wearing camouflage motorbike pants. He stretched out muscles he didnt know he had, almost tore his bike pants right up the middle but survived and his journey with us was underway.

Over the next 5 days he turned up again and again, putting his body through more exercise and muscle soreness than he had in the last 25 years. He had a warm, friendly personalityand great sense of humour that quickly attracted other Members to him, especially his fellow Yellow Team Challengers. By the end of the week he had a new circle of fitness buddies who raved about his efforts and encouraged him to attend our Oxygen Challenge Week Presentation to relax with a drink and celebrate an enjoyable week. He brought along his wife Wendy, who was the one that rang up to register Norbert for our 5 Week Boot Camp.  I managed to have a quick chat with her and she had mentioned how much he was enjoying himself and how friendly and welcoming the group was towards him. It was easy when he was such a friendly, funny and hard working guy. During the Challenge Week Presentations, Norbert was named the Yellow Team MVP and thoroughly deserved it. For a 50 year old guy with not much exercise history to turn up, not knowing anyone and work his butt off the way he did, what an inspirational guy.

Tragically, last Tuesday 10th April Norbert was killed riding his beloved motorbike in a head on collision along Jamberoo Rd.

He died doing what he loved and his passing gives us all a reminder to do the same.

Enjoy life, be healthy, laugh, don’t sweat the small stuff. You never know when your time’s up.

R.I.P Norbert

Today’s Thursday Thought is a reminder for you that the Dave’s Birthday Sale ends tomorrow 5pm.  If you’re still weighing it up,

Now is the time to……

Seek Value

Don’t view things by price.

They often bear no relation to genuine value.

In all things, be guided by value.

Whether objects or experiences,

consider their value to you and your real needs.

With your needs clarified, select your target,

only then compare prices.

“Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing.”

G.K Chesterton (1874 – 1936)

I know you have lots of choices available to you when it comes to working out.  There’s home gym equipment, numerous gyms or even working out with a buddy or on your own. But how long will it last?  Are you following the right info?  What if your workout buddy can’t train today?  And Gyms?  Check out these stats:

“90% of people who join gyms will stop going in the first 3 months – don’t be a statistic.”

Dr Donald E Wetmore, Time Management facts & figures.

Hopefully you see the value that Oxygen Health & Fitness provides you in the way of world class exercise programming, motivation, accountability, education, nutrition tips, social support and a positive environment that fosters self improvement and personal growth to name just a few.  We have a community of staff and other members that care about your results. We appreciate your ongoing support and our aim is to develop lifelong relationships with our clients.  Because if you want to live a long and healthy life guess what? You need to work out for the rest of your life.

This week’s episode of Oxygen TV is fairly quick but a relevant topic to touch on.  It’s something we were talking about last Monday but the theme of Focus is important, especially again today.

We had a bit of a cold snap this morning that kept a few people away from Kiama Boot Camp.  Normally after the Easter weekend we’d have a pretty busy Tuesday with lots of people keen to burn off the chocolate and alcohol from the long weekend.  But numbers were down a bit and I know the weather played a part in that.

You see, when there no Focus, no specific goal driving you to get out of bed and hit training, it’s all to easy to sleep in and justify it to yourself somehow.  Add some unfavourable weather and training slips even further down the priority list.

But what happens if it’s cold again tomorrow? And the next day.  And then it rains.  And then it’s Winter and it’s even colder.  You get where I’m going with this and it all spells bad news for your training and ultimately your results.

AND EVERYBODY WANTS RESULTS!

So whatever result you’re after, Focus on it and use the SMART Goal setting strategy to turn it into reality.

Q) Which Oxygen member is the General Manager of the Sebel Harbourside Hotel on beautiful Kiama Harbour?

Learn to love intensity, not duration!

There is actually a tone of research that shows that steady-state aerobics doesen’t work for fat loss, and interval training does.  Let’s review some of it.

*  The landmark study on interval training pitted 20 weeks of endurance training against 15 weeks of interval training.  The energy cost of the endurance training equaled 28,661 calories, while the energy cost of the interval training came to 13,614 calories (less than half).  Yet the interval training group showed a nine times greater loss of fat than the endurance group.

*  In a study done in 2008, Australian researchers had 18 women perform 20 minutes of interval training three days a week: eight seconds of sprinting followed by 12 seconds of recovery.  The women lost an average of 5kg over 15 weeks, without dieting.  Similar groups performing 40 minutes of steady-state cycling three days a week actually gained a kilo of fat over the same period.

IT WORKS, BUT WHY?

One reason intervals are more effective is that they target more of your muscle.  During endurance exercise, you use a lot of slow-twitch muscle fibres and too few fast-twitch muscle fibres.  It’s those fast-twitch muscle fibres that give you firm muscles and fast-tracked results.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy heading out for a run occasionally, but I don’t do it for fat loss.  I do it because I enjoy it.  Think about this.  If you do a 30 minute walk at a steady-state, moderate pace, you’ll burn about 150 calories.  If you mix in eight 30-second sprints, you’ll burn closer to 200 calories.  But the biggest factor is that after an interval session, your metabolism can stay elevated for a full day, and you’ll end up burning two to three times the total calories you’d expect to burn through lover-intensity exercise.  That is the goal of our training programs at Oxygen.

It’s time to bury, for good, the myth that long, slow, steady-state cardio will burn fat.  No more spending hours and hours running long distances to burn fat.  Push your intensity up if you want to lose it!

Now, I know what you’re thinking – what about Saturday RUN SQUAD?  That’s longer distance steady state cardio.

Correct.

You can run because you like to run, but don’t run to accomplish your goal of losing fat.

Running is actually a very advanced exercise.  I mean it takes a pretty advanced exerciser to complete 1000 reps of a one legged  plyometric (jumping) exercise and they’d need to build up a good base level of strength.  Running for 1km is exactly that – 1000 reps of a plyometric exercise.  Running provides forces in the area of two to five times your body weight per foot contact.  So now we’re talking 1000 reps with two to five times your body weight on each rep.  Pretty advanced stuff hey?

Sixty five percent of all runners have to stop running and seek treatment due to overuse injuries.  But if someone has been working out consistently, building strength and is fit enough, then they can add some longer running sessions to their program.

“You can’t run to get fit, you need to be fit to run”  Diane Lee

Which brings me to my final point.  What is your goal?

If your goal is to complete an endurance event like City 2 Surf or Saddleback Smash, then by all means run.  Your training needs to include running, but you’d better make sure you’ve done some strength training too.  Over the next few months, we’ve got some great STRENGTH sessions for you at Oxygen that’ll get you ready for our City 2 Surf Saturday Training program.  In the meantime though, know that Interval Training is a smaller time commitment for better fat loss results and a stronger mental wellbeing.

Challenge Week starts this Sunday 7am at Hindmarsh Park.

It’s full of physical and mental challenges to test you out. Add in the fact that the weather has been all over the shop. Add in the fact that we have all four Teams hungry for the prize and this Challenge Week (now in it’s fourth Series here at Oxygen Health & Fitness) will be won by the most committed Team. The fastest way to keep up to date with the latest Challenge Week Scores/Photos/Videos is to “Like” our Facebook Page here.

Regardless of where your Team finishes though, you’ll have a ton of fun so don’t forget:

Now is the Time to…

Enjoy the Journey

The crucial thing in life is the journey,

not the destination.

Focus on the trip, not the map.

Learn from the setbacks and diversions.

Use them to make yourself stronger and wiser.

Live life moment to moment

Allow yourself to enjoy the experience.

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” Randy Pausch (1960-2008)

You’re in for a hell of an experience next week at Oxygen Health & Fitness!

This Sunday see the start of Oxygen Challenge Week – that’s right this Sunday! Meet at 7am sharp at the stage in Hindmarsh Park. From there, your destination(s) will be revealed and Challenge Week will be underway.

If you’ve done Challenge Week before you will know that ATTENDANCE IS CRUCIAL! If you haven’t done Challenge Week before, re-read that last sentence.

You can recruit people into YOUR Team by sending them to Register for our nationally recognised 5 Week Fitness Formula Boot Camp. Numbers are a HUGE advantage so don’t miss out!

Part of the Challenge of next week is turning up to as many sessions as possible to help your Team.

• 1 Point for every session you attend.
• Another Point if you’re wearing your Oxygen shirt or singlet.
• Points on offer for Team & Individual Challenges within the sessions.
• Stacks of Bonus Points on offer for big efforts, encouragement and good spirit.

As Challenge Week progresses, you WILL be fatigued, you WILL be sore, but so will everyone else. This is the week to lose the excuses!

Last Challenge Week, the YELLOW Team won by a solitary point over the REDs. When you’re talking about a Team Total in the thousands, that shows you how close it can be. Just one extra person at one session could have changed things. No-one can afford to slip up!

GREEN won Series I.

RED won Series II.

YELLOW won Series III.

Is it BLUE‘s turn or will one of the other Teams win it for a second time?

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here to catch all the Challenge Week action.

Yesterday, I was on the edge of my seat watching my good mate and former Oxygen Health & Fitness Kiama Personal Trainer Ali Day during the final of the Nutri Grain Iron man Series. Ali has led for most of the series but unfortunately fell short yesterday in his quest to capture the title. He finished the series in 2nd place,  a brilliant effort considering . Ali is only 21, he moved away from friends/family to live and train in Queensland and just weeks  out from the start of competition he was going to withdraw from the whole series with painful stress fractures in his legs.

How long can you hold a side plank? All Day, every day, Ali Day!

Today’s quote is by no means a dig at Ali. I’d have loved nothing more than to see him stand up on that podium and claim the Series. The quote is more of a reference to his competitor and series champion Caine Eckstein. Caine has lived in ths shadow of his champion brother Shannon for years and sat in 2nd place for most of this series. Like him or loathe him, his peformance yesterday topped off a great series and made him a deserving winner. Ali, as always, was humble and gracious enough to admit it.

Needing something special to jump into first place, Caine finished first in all five races yesterday against some other outstanding athletes. I know what Ali is capable of having trained him for a stint during last year’s Series and the guy is made of the right stuff. I’m sure all the other competitors are the same. There’s no secret to getting and staying in great physical condition, it’s just having the discipline and persistance to train and hard and do the little things right even when you don’t feel like it.

Doin the hard yards

“Continuous effort not strength or intelligence is the key to unlocking your potential.” Winston Churchill

That second placing was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to Ali. His work ethic, attitude and continual quest to make the most of his potential will see him dominate his sport for the next decade. Everyone here at Oxygen Health & Fitness is right behind him.

How’s your effort going?

Are you making the most of your potential?