Welcome to the Yearly Wrap! 2013 has been a year of big changes at Oxygen Health & Fitness and today’s wrap is a little recap on the year that was. Thank you for being part of this fantastic community this year and I look forward to another year of fun, fitness and friendship in 2014.
Dave Lambert
Oxygen Health & Fitness
What’s Been Happening?
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January – Wanda X-Treme 6
 Once again the highlight of our first month of 2013 was Australia’s 2nd Toughest Fun Run – the Wanda X-Treme 6. The past two years we’ve tackled the 6km soft sand run through the infamous Wanda Sand Dunes and it’s certainly a unique and challenging event. We had a good crew take on the Australia Day run and enjoy the after event breakfast festivities. |
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February – Traci officially gets Oxygenated
Traci Ca
 lverley started coming along to our sessions in January after several years experience working with Contours and Curves. I knew Traci previously and she had a good rapport with many of our members so the decision to bring her on board was easy. She’s become a huge asset to the team and thrived in her roles in charge of Boot Camp STRENGTH, 4pm FitChicks and BLUE Team Chief. She’s also introduced her kids Sheri and Jackson who’ve become valued Oxygen and BLUE Team members as well. |
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March – Our Biggest Challenge Week
Our sixth series of Challenge Week was the biggest we’ve ever had in terms of consistently high participant numbers. Several sessions broke the 80 people mark and we consistently had well over 60 for most of the main 6am and 6pm sessions. It all started with the “Hundred 100’s” and finished with the “Kiama Road Trip” from Kendalls to Black Beach. Everything in between involved blood, sweat, tears and an amazing energy amongst the four teams. RED lead all week with huge numbers but it was GREEN who hung in there with consistently strong team efforts and captured their second trophy on the last day. |
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April – Dave’s Birthday Workout
 This annual event has always proved to be a popular one with clients eager to see me get punished on my special day. At this year’s event we were introduced to a couple of lovely ladies by the names of Helen, Fran and Annie. These are all actually just names to describe three different crossfit workouts. Fran is 21/15 and 9 reps of Pull ups and Thrusters. Helen involves 21 Kettlebell Swings, 12 Pull ups and a 400m run times three rounds. Annie is 50/40/30/20/10 reps of double unders/skipping and mountain climbers. Thanks to Roz Dalley for the Extra Dry afterwards. |
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May – Relay for Life and FitBiz University
Always a regular part of our calendar, the Relay for Life was another great community event for the town. Our team raised almost $3500 and added energy and colour to the track over the entire 24hrs. We had six people complete over 100 laps with Tammy Langlios churning out a huge 132!
Oxygen is part of a coaching group of over 400 fitness businesses across Australia. Out of those around 30 VIP clients like us took part in a mastermind weekend on the Gold Coast called VIP University. I took Jill along to introduce her to the possibilities of what Oxygen can be with the right systems, tools and coaching. We came back with a clear understanding of areas to improve and strengths to leverage. The second half of the year and our plans for next year reflect this work. |
June – Winter Warriors reloaded In 2012 we created a contest called Winter Warriors to keep clients on track and motivated through the colder months. One problem that came of it was we had several clients who went above and beyond, completing so many sessions that they were exhausted by the end of Winter. We accidentally promoted the wrong message – more is not always better. This years revamped contest rewarded clients for reaching a recommended total of 6-7 sessions per week. It was still a massive number of sessions to complete but achievable and a lot more realistic to maintain. We had Susan Hawley, Claire O’Sullivan, Tammy Langlois and Deni Murray achieve 91+ sessions and Lisa Morris, Erin Allen and Linda Kleeman between 78 & 91! |
July – Busy Times in the peak of WinterWe received some incredible publicity through July with not one but two national magazines touring Kiama and getting a taste of Oxygen. Women’s Fitness mag came down for a Super Saturday workout of sleds, tyres and body weight exercises before a tour of Saddle Smash. A representative from Men’s Fitness took a practice run of the Smash and as a 30 year veteran runner, was blown away by the intensity of the event.
We had a 2 for 1 Winter Boot Camp special which attracted about 14 new clients keen to train hard inside over the Winter months. Many of these people have since signed up long term and become important members of the Oxygen community. These extra numbers saw us break a record for the biggest midweek session at Oxygen ever – a Monday night Boxing blast with Kerry that saw an overflowing sign on sheet. |
August – City 2 Surf Another mainstay on the Oxygen events calendar, City 2 Surf is the worlds largest Fun Run and an event that so many people say they’ll do “one day”. We had 18 clients participate on the day with everyone from experienced runners like Jill Files and Geoff McIntyre and debutantes like Erin Allen, Linda Kleeman, Jess Toland, Naomi Connelly, Claire O’Sullivan and Amber Turnbull. Congrats to everyone who proved to themselves what they’re capable of. |
September – Smash Squad Success Continuing on from City 2 Surf RUN SQUAD success, we had some great numbers participate in the 6 week Saddleback Smash training. Starting with the final 1km stretch including Hell Hill, we added an extra 1km every week until the week before where we completed the full 6km as a practice run. Everyone certainly got plenty of practice at Hell Hill and became confident in the task of completing Australia’s Toughest Fun Run – Saddleback Smash. |
Oxober – Best month of the yearSaddleback Smash, Challenge Week and the Member of the Year Awards are three of my favourite events in the whole year. It just so happens they take a LOT of work though, and they’re only 6 days apart!
Saddleback Smash was in it’s third year and it was a HOT day just to make it a little tougher. We had great support from local businesses who helped sponsor the event and we raised the most money we’ve ever raised despite only the same number of participants as last year. Challenge Week Series 7 kicked off with the Smash where points were heavily incentivised to be fastest up the mountain both as a Team and individually. YELLOW and GREEN fought it out for the top spot for most of the week. BLUE and RED had a bit of a role reversal with BLUE turning up in numbers while the RED army were reduced to a small battalion. The finale saw us finish right where we started, a session called “To Hell with you Dave Lambert” which involved an upper body circuit on Hell Hill. It was noticeable what a difference out semi private PT clients made to the Teams this Challenge Week with FitChicks and Spartans dominating the performances. YELLOW Team proved to be the most consistent and captured their 3rd title. Remarkably, each win has come in Oxober, not March. I personally enjoy the challenge of trying to come up with new and exciting challenges and it pleases me when long time clients who’ve been part of so many Challenge Weeks tell me “that was the best one yet.” The Member of the Year Awards is probably the best part of my job. I like to recognise the achievements everyone has made throughout the year and praise people for their efforts. A lot of people these days get little support or recognition from their boss, families, even their partners. Every session of Oxygen we allocate “Performance Points” to those clients we feel are putting in their best physical efforts, breaking personal best efforts, encouraging other members and generally contributing to a great atmosphere at training. This years top three were Deni Murray, Ali Crofts and very deservedly, Claire Osborne, or should I say Claire O’Sullivan who took out the Member of the Year Award. Well done everyone. |
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November – International Exposure and Super Saturday Series
 I was totally privileged to present a seminar at the Worlds Number 1 Event for Fitness Business Leaders, NPE Mega Training. The topic was Challenge Week and how to run a kick ass internal event that creates a buzz in your fitness business. I’d like to think we’re pretty good in this area. The feedback was very positive and we’ve since had a few Challenge Week replicas launched in fitness businesses around Australia. I learnt a lot of lessons from this weekend that will help me both personally and professionally for years to come. Post Challenge Week we decided to change our regular routine on Saturdays from 6am RUN SQUAD and 7:30 BOXING to one big SUPER SATURDAY session of Strength and Cardio combined. After doing it earlier in the year with the crew from Women’s Fitness Magazine we knew it would be popular and with no major running events to train for the switch has been hugely successful. It’s also a better way to get results than slogging it out for marathon cardio sessions of RUN SQUAD and BOXING which some clients have done in the past. Intensity up, duration down – that’s the ticket. Unless of course you’re training for a specific cardio event like City 2 Surf etc. |
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December – Big Finish
There’s been some very focused training efforts to round out the year. Kiama FitChicks and Spartan clients have set and achieved some lofty targets and the effect this has had on their physique and confidence levels is easily noticed. I encourage any Boot Campers looking to kick their results up in 2014 to consider upgrading their membership.
The silly season saw us celebrate two Xmas parties in 24 hours. Our staff Party at Jamberoo Pub ended up being a great celebratory afternoon/night and then the Blue Diamond Bar was again the location for a great member’s event. Some went later than others but it was a top night for everyone involved. The Super Saturday series has provided a great challenge to both clients and staff. Jill, Traci and Kerry each had two weeks to torture you all but I’m putting my stamp on the Finale workout this Saturday 21st December so look out! We will meet at Hindmarsh Park at 7am, and from there…. it’s a MYSTERY FINALE! |
You can’t live without it!
Dave Lambert
Oxygen Health & Fitness
02 4233 2963
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