Training Quality Counts!

At Get Fit NH we as your coaches are always looking to do one thing – get better.

Why?

Because when we get better at what we do, it helps us help you reach your goals, and that is what we are all about.

You see it’s not all about you getting trashed every time you walk into the gym (believe it or not). I mean we all love to feel like we have worked hard, but crawling out to our car every day would be counterproductive. Those training sessions when we have left it all on the floor and feel great are an expression of all the hard work (sometimes backing off being the hard part) that we have done to get to that point. Our training is cyclical for a reason – because it works, and it works better.

To that end I am excited to tell you about one more way Get Fit NH is helping you get better. We are in the process of integrating the Functional Movement Screen into all our program design and coaching.

Over the past couple of months Coach Erin has been  laying the groundwork and doing a practical test of the system by taking a selected few of you through the Functional Movement Screen, and you will see this expand into Epsom as well as both Nancy and I have completed our course work and passed the FMS examination.

Our beliefs and methodologies have been based around these training systems for quite some time, but we had no baseline screening system for classifying if someone is able to safely enter our program to get the results they are looking for.

Our team at Get Fit NH really believes that this form of screening and standardizing movement is essential for safe, timely, effective results.

In order to better understand the premise of where these beliefs stem from, let’s take a look at some of the rules that Functional Movement Systems are based around.

• Pain should not be present while performing basic bodyweight movement patterns.  If there is pain associated with these basic movement patterns, movement patterns will be compromised and substantially increase the likelihood for developing further injury to the site of pain.  Also, this could lead to a secondary injury from the body compensating to avoid the pain or restricted movement.
• Having multiple limitations within several basic movement patterns, even if they’re pain free, can create compensations and general weaknesses that may lead to a greater likelihood of injury.
• Basic unilateral movement patterns should be symmetrical on both right and left sides of the body.
• Fundamental and basic movement patterning should precede performance related activities.
• Basic before Complex, Stable before Unstable

Foundational movement patterns need to be assessed before we can create a program designed to fit each individuals needs.  Our goal at Get Fit NH is to provide the best personal training services available – bar none.

Using the Functional Movement Screening Systems, we were able to establish a solid baseline screening system to better help manage and prevent injury to the musculoskeletal system.  Also by establishing a baseline scoring criteria, we will be able to monitor and track progress to ensure that the right program is being implemented.

All of this screening, assessing, and implementing the right mix of corrective exercises into the programs are going to help keep our clientele safer and healthier for long periods of time.  We realize that injuries can happen.  However, it’s our job to reduce the likelihood of injury.

Exercise should be enjoyable…Exercise should be well thought out and serve a purpose…Exercise should help you meet and exceed your goals…Exercise should help improve movement patterns and make daily activities more enjoyable.

This training philosophy is the foundation of our group personal training program design at Get Fit NH.  It’s our job to get results and keep you injury free.  It’s all about the quality of the movement, not the quantity.

So don’t be surprised when you get a tap on the shoulder to set up an appointment for the screen. No matter how good we move, we can always get better!

Keep Making It Happen!

Coach Dean

A Show You Do Not Want To Miss

A new movie is about to have a run at the Red River Theatres in Concord. American Meat is about a pro-farmer look at chicken, cattle, and hog production. The movie is a documentary including the history of the industrial system, the feed lots and the confinement operations being used today, viewed through the eye of the farmers who live and work there.

The story then shifts to the Salatin family of Polyface Farm who have developed and alternative agricultural model. But could this model feed all of us?

This movie is brought to the Red River by Miles Smith Farm.

I know a few of you who have already bought your tickets, so if you would like to join them I listed the showtimes below.

Friday, January 11th at 7pm
Saturday, January 12th at 7pm
Sunday, January 13th at 7pm
Monday, January 14th at 7pm

Enjoy the show!
Coach Nancy

“Eating Your Way ‘RIGHT’ Through the Holidays” – Success!

Eating your way RIGHT through the holidays was about not about easy or being average.

It wasn’t about settling for the typical but rather going against the grain (no pun intended).

It was about you taking control of your life and your choices, not let others control you.

And you did amazing!

Eating your way RIGHT through the holidays lasted 12 weeks and saw over 46 Get Fit NH clients participating. 31 magnificent clients lost weight from Halloween to New Years and 6 more kept their weight even.  They should all be congratulated. If you know one, please let them know how great they are.

A special shout out goes to the top 5. Between them they lost 76 pounds! Five people during the most difficult time of the year, lost weight, and lots of it.

Without making you wait any longer here is your top 5, with percentage of weight lost:

1. Debbie Berwick – 13.41%

2. Lynne Marston – 8.13%

3. Beth Garcia – 7.78%

4. Kim LeBrun – 7.15%

5. Judy Odom – 5.89%

How great is that!

Our Partners for Success have opened up their hands and helped us congratulate these ladies (yes, all ladies this time round) by providing these wonderful prizes for our winners. Thank-you all so much! Please visit the websites below and check out these great services.

Debbie will receive a gift certificate to D’Tangles Salon & Spa in Epsom as well as our friends at Chichester Massage.

Our other winners will enjoy gift certificates from D’Tangles, Sally’s Hair’em in Concord, or Peace & Balance Body Therapies in Concord. A wonderful way to reward their hard work.

The holidays are over, but it doesn’t mean we have to stop Eating RIGHT, so keep up the great work!

Coach Nancy

New Client Portal Now Accessible

Hey guys, trust you are all having a great day! In our ongoing efforts to provide you excellent customer service, we are excited to announce the launch of our new online system. This will allow you to book appointments with your coach for the Functional Movement Screen and bodyfat testing, and soon you will be able to make purchases from our online store as well as book for other services.

We have already created your client profile. All you need to do is retrieve your password here https://getfitnhbc.myvolo.ca/club/restpassword.jsp by entering your name and email.  Volo will  then immediately send you an email with a link to the site as well as your user name and password. Click on the link and log in to get started.

If you have any questions about our programs or your account, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Have a great day and we hope that you will enjoy our new system as much as we do!

Coach Dean

Oh, By The Way

The fabulous Jenn Mapes and I were chatting today and at the end of the conversation she through in one of those “Oh and by the way” bombs in there.

Here it is:

“I also wanted to say that I don’t step on the scale ever, but I went to the Drs. And I’m down 31 pounds since I started training and changing my food intake.”

Oh, is that all Jenn? 🙂

It’s amazing what happens with some consistency and persistence. Pretty soon all those “little things” really start adding up.

Congratulations and keep up the great work Jenn!

Get Fit NH Team Additions and Updates

Getting Better. Every Day.

You have heard it before and I am sure you will hear it again.

It can apply to every facet of our lives. If you are standing still you are going backwards. Kaizen – constant and never ending improvement.

At Get Fit NH this concept is ingrained deep in our culture. We want to improve so we can help you improve.

Over the past couple of years we have grown a lot, and we are grateful for the opportunity to work with so many fantastic clients who truly want to live and be healthy.

It is Nancy and my burden as we have grown to never lose the closeness of relationships and family atmosphere that means so much to us. Admittedly it is more of a challenge as we have grown, but it is made much easier because of the great team that we have in place, and the huge part that Coach Erin and CJ have played as growth has occurred.

So don’t be surprised when you get a phone call from one of your coaches. Erin in particular has taken a lead role in keeping the lines of communication open with you, and we covet the feedback that we receive from you. As your coaches we want you to know that our doors are always open, and that we want to hear from you. The work that Erin does in that regard allows Nancy and me to be more available to you one on one, so take advantage of it.

With that in mind I am excited to announce some enhancements to our business that I am confident are going to have a big impact on us continuing to serve you with excellence.

New Additions to the Get Fit NH Team

Meagan Sbat

Many of you in Concord have already had the opportunity to work with Coach Meagan, as she has been a fantastic addition to our afternoon training times. Starting January 21st Meagan will be taking an expanded role with us in a couple different areas.

First of all Meagan will take an expanded coaching role. On Monday and Fridays she will be coaching with CJ and me in Concord at 5:00am and 6:20am, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays she will be coaching with Nancy in Epsom at 5:00am and 6:15am.

Secondly Meagan will be serving as our Event Coordinator. In that role she will be helping us put together and promote our in house events such as our nutrition and skill seminars, as well as coordinating special speakers. She will also be helping us put together events outside of the gym. On more than one occasion y’all have expressed the desire to get together and be active on weekends, and up to this point we have had a challenge putting these things together from a sheer man (or woman) power standpoint. Meagan will be coordinating these efforts as well, and we are excited about it!

Esther Phillips joined the team the later part of 2012 as our office administrator. Esther has already done amazing work helping Nancy and I organize and coordinate the tons of paper that seems to fly around here. One of the many things Esther will be doing is handling the contract and billing side of the business. As we transition to her management, your questions regarding those issues will be directed to Esther. I assure that you will be treated with respect and courtesy, as always.

Additional Training Options Coming

Part of the reason we have Meagan working in both Epsom and Concord is so she can do the most important thing that we do – get to know you! This is going to be crucial as we start rolling out some more training offerings, and she has the opportunity to take leadership in those training times.

As many of you know I tend to be very deliberate when it comes to expanding our training offerings, and now is no exception. My primary concern is that our training standards be maintained at the highest level of excellence and that you truly get what you need.

In the near future we are going to be adding two new training options to our schedule, Enhanced Energy Systems Training, and the Strength Club. These are a couple differences in these offerings as opposed to our Group Personal Training (formerly known as bootcamp).

1) These are designed to integrate with GPT, not be standalone.

2) You must be injury free and pass the FMS to be eligible.

3) There will be more responsibility in personal record keeping and accountability.

4) The groups will necessarily be smaller than some of our GPT times.

And I am sure there are a few more things to scare you away.  🙂

Seriously though our concern is that your training be right for you, and that doesn’t always mean adding more days and beating yourself up. The concept of “minimum effective dose” is important, although for many of you that concept is really foreign. 5 or 6 days of training is unnecessary and counterproductive in many cases.

So why do it at all?

Because I am a control freak, what else? 🙂

The reality is that some of you already go ‘somewhere else’ for your specific cardio fix in particular. What could be better than to coordinate that with your existing group personal training? Without a plan in place for all areas of your fitness endeavors, over training and/or injury can occur. Plus this is going to give me the opportunity to play with some really cool new toys we are bringing in that will help you (what else?) get better.

Looking forward to getting you more details soon, but for now you can always fire me an email and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

Have a great day!

Coach Dean

For 2013 It’s Not An Option

I was reminded by birthday girl Muriel Hall (60 is the new 40 – woohoo!) of something that was in the book “Younger Next Year” that we reviewed a few weeks ago.

Training is your new job. (You need to read the book to get the total context, so get a copy, it’s well worth it.)

Now I know the word “job” doesn’t always bring up the most pleasant images to all of our minds, but in this case it is completely apropos.

Because you need to take your training every bit as seriously as you take your vocation, if not more so.

Most of us hold more than one job in our lifetime. Some of us work for different companies or even change our profession once or more over the course of our careers.

But while you can do many things in and with your life, you only get one life to do them in.

And your quality of life is almost totally dependent on how you choose to live it.

You see most people do not die of old age. They die of disease, and in most cases largely preventable disease.

Heart disease, diabetes, many cancers – in the vast majority of people these are entirely preventable. There are reams of evidence that support this in this book and hundreds of other sources.

And it doesn’t take a 40 or 50 hour work week to gain the tremendous health benefits that exercise offers.

A 4-hour workweek (thanks Tim Ferris) will go a long way to keeping disease at bay and your quality of life high.

But you can’t expect payback if you don’t do the work.

I mean you can’t saunter in the office 2 out of 5 days a week, go through the motions without getting any real work done, and then expect a full paycheck.

Most of us spend much time, effort and money to get good at our jobs. We invest in an education so we can be good at what we do. We invest time to study, we give up sleep so we can make the grade.

And there is nothing wrong with that, it is an honorable thing to work hard and derive satisfaction from your work.

If you want to live a healthy life, you have to work just as hard.

A new year is upon us.

And while I am not a big fan of resolutions, I am a fan of getting honest.

What do you really want for yourself in 2013?

I have thought long and hard about this over the last week or so, and I need to make some changes in my own life.

Because I don’t always live my life in congruity with what I say I want.

My priorities are not always where they should be, and that’s not who I want to be.

So I’ll work on getting better.

I’ll work on making what I say my priorities are and my actions be one and the same.

What about you?

What does 2013 have in store for you?

If 2012 was not all you wanted it to be, do something about it.

If you want change, you have to be the change.

It’s not enough to say it.

You have to live it.

Think about it – Life IS your full-time job.

Be the best at it that you possibly can.

In 2013 Don’t Make Excuses, Make It Happen!

Get Fit NH 2012 – Video Style!

Your coaches are proud of all you accomplished in 2012!

It was really cool putting this video together and getting  to relive so many of the cool things y’all did.

Let’s Make 2013 Your Best Year Ever!

Reach The Beach? Are you Crazy?

Get Fit NH has some crazy clients. Crazy like, pulling firetrucks down Main St. Crazy like, sliding down huge slip and slides. Crazy like, loving to ride bikes for miles and miles. Crazy like, enjoying races involving mud, obstacles, and fire. Crazy like SkiErg till you drop. Crazy like doing 5050 pushups over 100 days. But there are a few that are crazy and like to run.

Yes, run – now THAT is crazy! 🙂

Mae Lynn approached me awhile back about the possibility of putting a team together for the annual “Reach the Beach Relay”, which is run to support many worthy causes, including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Here is how the RTB website describes the race:

Reach the Beach Relays combine fun, fitness, adventure and team building like no other running event.  The Reach the Beach (RTB) Running Relay Race is one of the longest distance running relay races in the United States. The RTB Relay will take place in picturesque New Hampshire during the start of the New England foliage season. The relay will consist of (a maximum of) 12 person teams that will rotate through 36 transition areas as they cover the approximate 200 mile distance of the race. This means that each relay team member will run 3 legs of varying lengths and difficulty and will cover an average total distance of ~16.6 miles.

Sound Crazy? Sound like something you would like to do?

If we are going to be crazy in 2013 like we were in 2012, we need to know who would like to do this race. The dates of the race are September 13-14. To stick with the craziness of it all, the race is run overnight from Cannon Mt. to Hampton Beach. There is a cost of $120 per person with a team of 12. While we are not asking for the fee yet, we do need to know if we can get 12 crazy people to do this.

Once we have your name on our team, we’ll get registered and the race will be crazier with Get Fit NH there.

If you are serious about being on the team, please visit the RTB website, thoroughly study what you are getting yourself into, then fill out the form below to indicate your interest.

Eat Your Way Right Recovery Week Edition

Merry Christmas Eve! Hope y’all are having a great day and are enjoying the important things in life!

Just a reminder that our final weigh-in will occur the week of Dec 31st, with the last day to weigh in for the challenge being Friday January 4th.

We have some really cool prizes courtesy of our generous partners, so take this opportunity to get your name in the running by being moderate in your enjoyment of food and drink, and know that your short term effort turn into long term results.

We are looking forward to seeing you soon.

Merry Christmas!

Dean, Nancy, Erin, CJ and Meagan