Just a reminder with the potential storm tonight and into tomorrow...  If we decide that classes will be canceled you will be notified via our email newsletter and posted on Facebook (http://facebook.com/getfitnh) on the following schedule:

Morning training cancellation details will be sent by 4:00am

Afternoon and evening training cancellation details will be sent by 3:00pm

Of course if there is statewide power outage that is subject to modification, but we will do our best!

And absolutely use your own best judgement. We have clients from all over the state, (and I want to keep your coaches safe too!) and it may be worse conditions than where you live. We will not hassle you (too much) for missing class on days of inclement weather.

If you have any questions, please give us a call or send us an email.

Thank-you for choosing to train with us!

New Years is TOMORROW! Where did THAT year go?

Are you in "Resolution Mode"? Is this going to be "your year"?

I hope ALL your resolutions, dreams and wishes come true in 2017, and we are here to help you.

But how do you keep the focus and resolve you have on January 1st through the whole year?

 Here are some helpful tips to keep you on track. Remember most of our New Year’s Resolutions were not something we can attain quickly but over time. Lets keep on fighting for our dreams.

1. Get quality sleep

You’ve heard us say it many times but sleep is important. Getting 6-8 solid hours of sleep is essential for your body to rejuvenate, replenish, and repair itself. Your body is doing a lot while you sleep. Beyond the health benefits, think how much happier, smoother, and relaxed your day goes when you wake up ready to tackle the activities of your day.

2. Surround yourself with people that encourage you.

Most people are hard on themselves to begin with. We blast ourselves for not being perfect. Perfection in our diet, looks, actions, talk, relationships, and work will not happen. We need to be our best but don’t beat yourself up for a failure; learn from it and move on. The last thing we need to do is spend time with people that are critical toward us or people that are always bleak and downhearted. Spend time with people who see you and value you for who you are. They are the ones who make you feel like you can accomplish anything.

3. Exercise regularly

Exercise raises your serotonin levels. You know, the stuff that make you just feel good! The physical challenges you overcome in your training will boost your confidence outside of the gym as well. Exercise sends you a message that you are worth the time and effort you make for yourself.

4. Eat a clean healthy diet

Eating clean healthy food is another way of sending a message to yourself that you are worth it. You are worth the best foods, the time to plan your meals and prepare them. Avoid processed foods. Focus on foods fresh fruits and vegetables and a variety of protein. Remember a healthy diet keeps your hormones in balance, which helps activate the cycle of a happier, healthier you.

5. Finish what you Started

Something motivated you to start each and every action you do each day. A boss can motivate you to be on time each day to work, and your paycheck can be a motivation for you to show up to work at all. There are also motivations to do laundry, plan meals, and make training each time you are scheduled. Once you start something you will soon find there are often obstacles that get in our way. Laundry might be put on hold while dealing with a sibling dispute, dinner might be late on the table because an unexpected phone call interrupted your prep time. Each time you overcome an obstacle and succeed by finishing your task it adds to your sense of accomplishment. Taking the obstacles seriously will enable you to focus on it and then get back to your plan. It is a great feeling to start something and cross it off your daily list. It is even a bigger boost to cross things off your weekly or monthly to do list.

6. Eliminate “Can’t” and “But” from your vocabulary

Those obstacles that get in your way when working toward a goal will come. How we handle those obstacles define our success. When we start allowing those obstacles and life to get in our way we often start making excuses. You’ll start off by saying “ I can’t get the laundry done today because the kid were acting up.” “I didn’t eat to support my goals but I didn't eat the whole cake.” Those words are self-defeating. Turn those two little words into possibilities. You can do anything you truly set your mind to.

7. Focus on your strengths

All of us were created differently with special talents and abilities. They define us, they give us character and personality. We all have something we are really good at. Focus on those things. I’m not saying we shouldn’t stretch our selves in our weaker areas but comparing ourselves to others is unfair. You are unique. Enjoy that part of you that makes you special.

While we write our goals down on January 1st many of us will dream those dreams for a long time. The dream to be better/change is worth the fight. You have already encountered some challenges. When we look back over the first half of the year; our goals and dreams will still be blossoming and growing. Don't be in it for the sprint but for the marathon.

To Your Best Health,

Coach Nancy

Our recovery weeks are what I would call Macro-Recovery. In other words we take a planned week off every training phase in order to let the body rest up from hard training and get ready for the next phase.

But did you know you can do even better than that? We have 22 athletes in the Get Fit NH family who participate in our Bioforce HRV monitoring program, which measures your systemic stress load on a daily basis, which allows us to fine-tune the recovery process on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. You can catch up on that by clicking here

Read on why properly planned and adequate recovery is important for you!

The Recovery Curve

I saw the recovery curve for the first time during my time with Australian physical preparation coach Ian King. His principles laid the foundation for the way we program, train and especially recover here at Get Fit NH. The principles that work with professional athletes apply to us too!

The following illustrates a “good” recovery curve:

The green line represents what we are all looking for – continual, never ending progress over time. We are getting stronger, faster, thinner, better looking (ok at least that’s what I wish for).

Reality Check – ain’t gonna happen. The process of changing your body is not linear, in fact what we are looking at in an optimal training environment is more of a “One step back brings me Two steps forward”.

A closer look at the chart will help explain what I mean.

The red line represents Equilibrium. This is where your body wants to stay, no matter if your goal is losing fat, gaining lean, or both. As you have no doubt found out, forcing your body to change is hard work – really hard work. When you walk into Get Fit NH, our training is designed to elicit that change. But it’s not as simple as “working out” day after day after day. In fact as I am about to illustrate, training without proper recovery is actually hurting you, not making you better.

The blue line represents the “recovery curve”. Starting at the left hand of the chart all the lines intersect. For this illustration that point is where your first training occurred – you “worked out”.

But what’s going on?

Instead of performance going up, that line is actually heading down – this is what is called Depletion. If you think about it makes sense – you have worked hard, you are fatigued, your body is depleted of nutrients – you are spent!

Don’t worry, your body will get over it, if you treat it right! This is what we call Adaptation. Your body wants to be able to handle the increased demand that was placed on it, and starts the process of getting better.

You are in charge of if and how fast that happens. A few of the factors that influence this adaptation include Recovery Nutrition (read up!), stress levels, sleep habits, supportive nutrition, age, and training history.

The recovery curve continues with Supercompensation. Here is how Coach King describes this process:

“It is only when recovery is allowed that we see the super-compensation effect, the unique phenomenon where the bodies physical capacity is elevated in response to training, in anticipation of another exposure to the same stimulus.” – King, I, 1999/2000, Foundations of Physical Preparation

In other words your body has gotten better in response to your training, a new Equilibrium is established and this state is when we will ideally train again. Our programming at Get Fit NH is carefully designed to give this the best chance of occurring, but as I hope you are discovering, you have a lot to do with this with how you treat your recovery!

As you can see, when things are clicking, this process when repeated over and over means you are getting better and better, the blue line is headed up – pretty cool!

The flip side to all this is what happens when the recovery process isn’t working so well.

This chart represents recovery gone “bad”:

When we continue to train in a state of “Depletion”, regardless of the reason, the adaptation to supercompensation effect doesn’t occur, and instead of getting better, we find ourselves in a downward cycle. This can happen when we train the same muscle groups too soon, when we haven’t taken the steps described above to recover optimally (sleep and nutrition for instance) regardless of time between training, when we train too hard coming off an illness, etc. The last thing we want to happen is new equilibrium to be established in a downward pattern – not good.

The long and short of it is your body absolutely needs to recover from hard training. Consistently training in a fatigued state results in injury and illness. Your body is an amazing machine designed to put up with a lot, but it was also designed to need rest.

Which leads us to:

Recovery Weeks!

Face it – you can get beat up anywhere. Our responsibility at Get Fit NH is to help you get better!

That includes recovery weeks. We have found that somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks of training is just about right to take a full week off and let your body recover.

That doesn’t mean that you spend your training time on the couch eating bon-bons, but if you insist on going down to PF and hitting the weights or running 10 miles every morning, your body will suffer in the long run, and perhaps even in the short term.

If you find yourself fighting this concept, ask yourself this – Is your unwillingness to take a week off a well reasoned decision based on what you know to be true, or is it that your attachment to training is so strong emotionally that makes it so hard? You will not lose all you have gained by taking the week off, I assure you! Again to quote Coach King, “…if you don’t (take time off)…most of you are going to lose it anyway!”

So now that we have established you are ready, willing and able to embrace recovery week, what do you do?

Glad you asked!

Three Steps for Successful Recovery

1.) Physical Rest and Regeneration

– Our bodies must rest and recover to prevent over-training (or under-recovering) issues so that we can come back 100% healthy and energized for the next phase of the program

– Focus on maintaining and/or increasing flexibility and tissue health by stretching and foam rolling daily. 15-30 minutes is fantastic!

– Daily restorative walks are beneficial during this week. 30-60 minutes briskly walking (not jogging/running) will keep your body refreshed and active, without negating the purpose of this week. Don’t overdo it!

2.) Physiological and Psychological Rest and Regeneration

– We must normalize key anabolic hormones, refill muscle glycogen, increase caloric intake, and prevent any diet induced catabolism (losses of lean body mass) so that we can enjoy greater fat loss for the next phase of the program

– We have taken the road less traveled by being flexible eaters with a long-term approach to success and thus we will take a break from our aggressive fat loss nutrition plans. This is not a free for all, so stay away from your “trigger foods” (junk foods and sweets) that open the door to excessive calorie intake.

– Instead plan (key word) and enjoy 2 or 3 controlled "treasured meals" to reward yourself for all of your hard work, but do not overdo it!

3.) Celebrate the Fruits of Your Labor

– Take some time to reflect on how far you have come since you joined Get Fit NH in terms of improving your overall health, body composition, and performance

– Enjoy your results!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

We would just like to take the time to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your hard work and dedication to improving your health and fitness… keep Making It Happen!

Some of you know me, but most of you don’t! But I know ALL of you…at least by name. I’m Stephanie, the Office Manager, and I’ve been with Get Fit for a little over 2 years now (this blog might be a little overdue, huh?). I started here part time while I finished up grad school and then transitioned to full time a year ago.

A little more about me – I grew up in California and then moved to NH for college. I then moved to Hawaii for a while, and then came back to NH for grad school. People always ask me why I left California and Hawaii for NH, and I never have a good answer! I love swimming, scuba diving, skyskiiing, boating (basically anything around water), reading, and watching/going to sports games.

I love being part of the Get Fit team and am so lucky to be part of the Get Fit Family (especially the 4pm Epsom crew)!

Stephanie Soucy has a B.S. in Sports Management and an M.S. in Organizational Leadership w/ grad certificate in Human Resources from Southern New Hampshire University,

I knew at a young age that I wanted to enter the health and wellness field. Growing up with a mother as a Registered Dietitian and a father as an Athletic Trainer and health teacher was extremely influential.

As a little girl, I loved watching my mom teach about how food could make a person feel better and tagging along with my dad on his various sporting endeavors. This all translated into a serious love for food and sports; specifically fueling the body with nutritious and enjoyable foods while finding the exercise style that keeps you motivated and challenged.

Having battled with an eating disorder in high school, I know what it’s like to feel lost and confused about eating healthy and what it right for your body. However, after making a full recovery and learning as much as possible about proper nutrition, my ultimate goal is to help you build a healthy relationship with food and learn which foods make you feel your absolute best. I do not believe in diets and will never enforce them; what I do is individualize nutrition guidelines to help you achieve your goals.

I am also deeply passionate about physical activity, and know that nutrition is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to overall health. I grew up as a three-season athlete, and as I entered adulthood I became more interested in individual fitness and strength training. This drove my desire to pair my love for teaching nutrition with physical fitness coaching.

I am excited to be a part of the Get Fit NH team and to help you make it happen!

Kristen Chulada is a Registered Dietitian and licensed in the state of New Hampshire. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor’s of Science in Nutrition and completed her Dietetic Internship through the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is also a Certified Personal Trainer with the American College of Sports Medicine.