We were setting everyone up for long term success. We knew a lot of people just wanted to get in and smash it out of the park, to get after those Goals. But this Program created something sustainable so they didn’t fall off the wagon come February when that initial motivation tapers off.

Back in 2013 a brave group of Boot Campers took on my suggestion to try a 6 Week program of lifting heavy weights. We did that outside at Surf Beach in all weather conditions.

5 Years later, it’s transformed our business and with a well equipped Strength & Conditioning Gym, Fit Chicks Club is now our Signature Female Membership.

When we first opened the Gym in 2015 it was female only Sessions (Fit Chicks Club) or Male Only (Spartan Training Club).

Then we made Unisex Strength Sessions in mid 2016. Unisex Strength continued in 2018 but Fit Chicks Club Kiama, women’s only Sessions, made a comeback on the Timetable during February as a few new ladies come in for a 4 Week Intro Program.

The first 30 Minutes of the Session, FitChicks predominantly worked on their Main Lifts geared towards Strength, Fat Loss or Muscle Gain. Then, the second half hour the Coach took those girls off to work closely with them on targeted exercises for specific areas of the body those girls want to improve. It led to the introduction of some great New Members, one of which went on to become our Rookie of the Year (Kyla Reeves).

During my 18 year career in fitness, I’ve been an Independent Sub Contractor doing 80 PT Sessions a week in a Gym, a Sole Trader, a Business Partner, a Boot Camp Trainer for over 250 people at a time, a PT Course provider, a Celebrity Trainer, a Gym Employee and now a Company Director of Oxygen Health & Fitness.

Why I am telling you this is that what I know for sure, is there is so much power in having a Coach take care of this stuff for you. Look at professional athletes. They’re fitter, stronger & faster than most people you’re ever likely to meet. Yet they still have Coaches taking care of this stuff for them. I’m not saying we know it all, but we kinda know a thing or two.

The other important thing I know, and I’ve structured my business accordingly, is Group Training is one of the best ways to achieve Results. Regardless of how experienced you are, training in a group of like minded people pushes you to continually improve yourself. Sure you might have periods of time where you’re focused and motivated but no successful person in any area of life ever got to the top on their own.

Sometimes being in a group of more experienced people is a great way to improve yourself. It forces you to aim up or you can feel like you get left behind.

Other times being in a group of less experienced people is also a great way to improve. You can be more of a leader. You can teach others what you know. You can be a mentor.

Oxygen has always been a great community of friendly personalities. We encourage everyone to get to know your training buddies. Introduce yourself. Ask questions. Encourage someone and give them a yahoo. It adds value to our community and everybody wins in the long run. Conversely, if you stick to yourself, don’t get to know anyone, don’t show much enthusiasm and only worry about yourself, well, that’s doing yourself & others a disservice.

We ran a few different 21 Day Habit Challenges earlier in the Year for those wishing to improve their Nutrition. No huge commitment, and it wasn’t even mandatory, but anyone interested in fat loss or muscle gain benefited from focusing their effort for a few Months with our Kiama Nutrition Coaching.

The Challenge over the first 21 Days was to show the Protein you were eating once per Day. Breakfast one week. Lunches Week 2, and the last Week was Dinners. Those participating were asked to state what they believe was the Lean Protein in each Meal. Simple, but don’t overlook how important simple little things like this are.

Of all the people Precision Nutrition have worked with over the past 15 years (over 200,000 from all over the globe) 85% of them weren’t eating enough Protein. As the most important Macro nutrient, that’s where we started. Just the accountability to keep posting, showing us that you’re living up to your end of the deal is important for long term results.

You can’t make physique changes without changing nutrition habits and if posting a photo is too much work, then changing your body composition might be too. Congratulations to the people who committed to the process and showed great accountability.

It can seem like a waste of time, it can seem a bit tedious, it might annoy your friends, but it’s a simple task that everyone can do because we all have a camera.

It’s one thing to say “I’ve been eating healthy” – prove to me that you ate healthy.

It’s one thing to say, “I didn’t eat that much” prove to everyone what your portion sizes look like.

One of the best parts of this is just the ongoing accountability to keep proving it.

Anyone can be on their best behaviour for a couple of weeks.

“Eat Vegetables every time you eat”

Apart from all the obvious benefits like antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fibre, veggies are powerful acid-neutralizers so the Next 21 Day Habit Challenge people were asked to demonstrate what Veggies they eat.  No pressure to post ALL the time. Some people do, others don’t. We all forget here & there.

But if you want to tidy your diet up a bit, there is a certain accountability to sharing what you’re eating.

Those who got engaged, who shared what they were eating, ended up leaner than those who didn’t. Those who shared the odd thing here & there had some success too. But those who show us nothing in regards to that side of their health often didn’t progress as well as they’d like.

Off the back of our Awesome April Timetable, I made the decision to implement a few changes in May. April was all about high energy Group Training Sessions, something we’ve always been renown for at Oxygen. Just like we promoted it, April really was awesome. Lots of different events kept things interesting but the common theme was Group Training and everyone loved it. So we kept it going through May.

Earlier in the Year, our promotion was the New Year’s Revolution and the idea was to offer a Gym Membership on par with anywhere else in regards to price. Once we attracted people in, the plan was to over-deliver by actually caring about the people and their results. That meant assessing people, showing how to improve some of their weaknesses in warm ups, designing their programs, showing people what to do and then re-teaching them (nobody nails their technique straight away). We offered them the usual flexibility of a gym membership that meant you could come in at a time convenient to them.

Throughout February and March, this resulted in people coming in at all hours of the day and it dam near killed me. It’s really expensive paying Staff to man the Gym for that many hours each day, especially when you’re not sure if or when people turn up. Because of that I was literally at the Gym from 4/5/6am until 6/7/8pm and not getting much business work done. It is nothing personal against any of the people that I was with, it’s just not a smart way to operate. In a building which we’ve successfully run groups of 36 people I was helping 1 or 2 people an hour, every hour, all day some days.

Open Gym proved not to work for us or the Client. I suppose for larger Gyms with hundreds of Members at any one time it’s different. From our point of view, we can’t be that Gym that lets you figure it all out for yourself. We can’t be that Gym who doesn’t care or that watches you train with poor form but ignores it. Some gyms can, but we can’t.

If you do things with poor form, or no intensity, or too much intensity with poor form, you get no results, or worse you’ll end up injured. Then you won’t rave about the experience and you won’t refer anyone or renew your membership when it’s due. But if we do help you, we’re giving away our time for free, we’re selling ourselves short and de-valuing our regular Memberships.

Some might say, “I’m fine, I don’t need help” but every single Client we left to their own devices trained less consistently, with less intensity, with less structure to their training and guess what, less than average results.

The sweet spot is Small Group Training where we can offer a personalised service for a more affordable price to Members. You get the individual attention of Personal Training with the dynamics and energy of a Boot Camp Session. There’s also accountability to not just us, your Coaches, but your other training partners. Sessions are exciting and interactive instead of quiet and boring.

I’d like to think we’ve over-delivered tons of value in 2018 to justify these changes.

Prior to Winter Warrior kicking off, I was slightly concerned. Attendance across every Timeslot had been low. A number of people had been sick, a few Members had been away here and there with work or holidays and a number of people will admit they’d been just plain slack. Most gyms don’t care whether you attend or not and plenty of people will tell you that’s why they stop – there’s no accountability. We’re not like that.

That’s one reason we split your Year up into different Programs & Challenges. It keeps people engaged and motivated, or gets people re-engaged and motivated.

Challenge Week, Commonwealth Games, Sports, Olympics, Testing Weeks, Outdoor Sessions, Road Trips, Events to train for, as well as different types of Gym Programs and Challenges. It makes training fun, enjoyable and challenges you in different ways.

The Winter Warrior Challenge has traditionally been one of our most popular and challenging Gym Programs over the past few years. But it doesn’t matter how good our Program is if nobody shows up.

Thankfully, everyone got re-engaged, ripped in, and it was an awesome lead-in to Testing Week.

Strength was twice per week and it worked on the Barbell Lifts like Squat, Deadlift & Bench Press. These are all BIG Exercises, and to do all THREE in one Session, and do it twice per week ain’t easy. We kicked off Week 1 with 6 Rep Sets and 2 Minute Rest Breaks. Each week we knocked a Rep off (so 5 Reps the next week, then 4, 3, 2 etc) but added more Weight and a longer Rest Break.

On alternate days, we tested everyone’s Muscular Endurance and Conditioning a bit more. We practiced the Body Weight movements like Push Ups, Pull Ups and Planks. We did a few quick little Tests at either the Push Ups or Pull Ups. We also got plenty of practice at both the 500m and 1km distance on the Rower.

Practicing all these things, all the tasks we do during Testing Week, gave everyone that little bit more faith in their abilities each week.

Congratulations to our Saturday crew that regularly attacked those brutal 300 Weekend Warrior Workouts. It was was exciting to see everybody complete the 300 Reps including the Advanced crew who did 100 Goblet Squats, 100 Incline Dumbbell Presses and 100 Ring Pull Ups in only 45 Minutes. I remember this took quite a number of attempts to complete it in 2017, so to knock it off in only our second attempt this year was very rewarding.

Click here to read Part 2