One of the most challenging things I have seen in youth sports and overall health today (in terms of movement) is the over specialization of sports, meaning that a child grows up and from the age of 4 plays nothing but one sport. They play soccer year in and year out and play nothing else… no hockey or baseball, take your pick. They spend their summers going away to multiple camps, for weeks at a time to work on the same discipline. They don’t get exposed to other types of sports and at the end of the day end up, ironically, struggling in that one sport because something is lacking.

Now, we all know that the more practice that gets put into a certain sport, the more likely the person is to be proficient in it. Of course that is the case, and I am not arguing that in order to play hockey at a pro or semi pro level, you will probably have to play year round regardless. However, not being exposed to other movement patterns, and making the body have to do different things and learn different skills, can lead to dysfunction, and in some cases even injury.

Up until recently, this was not as much an issue because kids mitigated that by getting out and doing what kids have done for hundreds of years…PLAY! In today’s age though, kids are significantly less likely to have the same experience and therefore don’t get those elements and movements that they normally would have outside their one chosen sport.

Most successful athletes, especially the most athletic ones, played several sports growing up until picking one to focus entirely in their later teen years. Look at some of the most famous athletes in the world. I would bet money that they were either multisport stars in high school and/or college, or at the very least grew up playing more than one. How many football players have you heard also played college basketball? I feel like I hear it every time they talk about a player. Or how many quarterbacks have you heard got drafted by the MLB as well but ended up going with football? The point is that kids need different movements to succeed. Get them moving different ways!

-Coach Adam

Many of us who train at Get Fit have been assigned specific wrist band colors to wear during training, based on their results on the Functional Movement Screen! What I want you to know is that these are not a punishment and you should not feel poorly wearing your bands.

What we do ask is that if you have been assigned bands, that you wear them! This assessment helps both the coaches and you! This screen allows us to become educated on how you move, what is safe for you, which areas you can improve, and what movements you’re not ready for quite yet. Our overall purpose here is that we are preventing injury! Because no one came to us to get hurt, right?

Well today, I am going to talk about our yellow wrist band friends.

What is this band for?

This is a common question from our new members but I feel that we often forget the importance of this band, or don’t have all of the knowledge that we could have about it!

The yellow wrist band corresponds with the Active Straight Leg Raise, that was performed while laying on your back. This test asses:

• If you are able to disassociate the lower extremity and maintain a stable torso while doing so
• Flexibility in your hamstrings and gastroc-soleus
• Ability to maintain stability through pelvis while actively extending the opposite leg
• Hip mobility of the opposite leg, combined with lower abdominal stability

A lack of mobility of the hip flexor in the opposite hip, poor functional hamstring flexibility of leg being raised, and core stability can all be factors that lead to an issue- and there is when we add the yellow band.

What does this mean when it comes to exercise?

We want to be cautious of powerful hip dominant exercises, as the current flexibility/mobility status of the hamstrings and hip flexors, and lack of core stability, could lead to injury!

Examples of exercises not performed with a yellow band:

• Loaded deadlifts without the toes elevated
• Kettlebell swings
• Kettlebell clean
• i.e. explosive movements and exercises that are demanding too much on some of our problem areas

Here is where doing a little bit of extra credit work outside of your training time may be necessary. Listed below are stretches/corrective exercises that can be performed to help to improve hamstring/gastroc-soleus flexibility, hip flexor mobility, and help you to work on your core stability.

Bent Knee Leg Lowering

Purpose: To improve core stability and flexibility of the hamstrings

How to perform it:

• Lay on your back with your right leg straight and your left leg bent with your left foot flat on the floor
• Pull the toes of your right foot toward your shin
• Keeping the right leg straight, take 3 seconds to lift the leg as high as you can while keeping it straight without your knee bending
• Take 3 seconds to lower your leg

Repeat: 10x on each leg

Don't do it: if there is pain or popping in the hip or spine

Band Leg Lowering

Purpose: To improve core stability with hip separation, also improving flexibility of the hamstrings/gastroc-soleus of leg in band

How to perform:

• Grab a resistance band or towel and place it around the instep of your left foot
• Lay in a supine position and raise both legs as high as you can while keeping them straight
• Keeping both feet flexed, slowly lower your right leg towards the floor
• Slowly raise the right leg back up to the starting position

Repeat: 10x on each side

Don't do it: if there is pain or popping in the hip or spine

When should these be done? Daily, either at home or before/after class!

I hope this was helpful and next week I will be sharing some information on the white wristband!

Get stretching,
Coach Cari

There is not a whole lot that infuriates me, but there is one thing that seriously gets under my skin and that is false advertisement. I was picking up a salad at Live Juice a few weeks ago and on the counter they had these cookies….

But wait let me back up...Live Juice is a great restaurant choice if you are out and about. The ingredients are whole and fresh and they will customize your order and not even look at you funny which is always a selling point for me. Most people know that when you go into Live Juice you have the ability to eat a nutritious and satisfying meal…

Okay, so knowing all of this is why this next part really grinds my gears. The cookies on the counter are advertised as gluten free, dairy free, egg free and non GMO…must be a healthy cookie, right?

Wrong. Read the ingredient label and there are 4, yes 4, different types of sugar in this cookie. The serving size of this normal sized saucer cookie was ½ a cookie and with that serving size there were 18 grams of sugar. I don’t know about you, but when I eat a cookie I eat the entire cookie so think about THAT for a minute. Of course there is sugar- IT’S A COOKIE! But DO NOT advertise as if this is a healthy thing to put in your body!

• There is no such thing as a healthy cookie
• Read your labels
• If you are going to splurge and eat a cookie, don’t fool yourself thinking one cookie is healthier than the other- just eating the stinkin’ cookie and get back to making good choices!

Rant over. Now make it happen!

-Coach Meagan

This week’s student spotlight is a little different than normal. It features Lauren Sullivan who has been part of the family for a while now. In emailing her briefly over recovery week, she sent me an email back that I think everyone needs to read. I have cleared it with Lauren to share, so please take 5 minutes out of your day to read what she has to say.

Lauren is in the middle receiving her "I survived" shirt!

I saw Cherie at Sandy's the other day and we often do end up talking to each other about different things relating to and supporting one another after both losing our fathers, and this particular day I ended up talking about how Get Fit and also you, have made SUCH a difference in my life! We talked all about the fact that a lot of my reasons for continuing at Get Fit was because of your support and encouragement, as well as being inspired by you as a coach and a mentor. As you know, when I first came to Get Fit it was evident I hadn't worked out in years lol! But, that was a part of my fear, and because of you and the team, the fact that I hadn't worked out in forever never held me back from wanting to get better (which has been a factor in the past of not sticking with things I had tried)! I had 101 fears when I first started from things like not being accepted, or about being judged, feeling a lack of confidence in my ability, and even fearing I would I wouldn't stick with it based on my level of ability and hoping I wouldn't be ostracized by other members for it. As I'm sure you know, no member of Get Fit will ever have to worry about that- or any of those things for that matter! I love it at Get Fit, and so much of that is because of you and your support! I feel a part of a community, and I couldn't be more grateful for the experience I've had! I told Cherie that, and it made me think I should probably tell you, because your coaching has really impacted my journey here in a positive way! So, thank you very much! I appreciate it! This experience as a whole has made a huge difference in my life!"

It took a lot of guts to not only share this with me, but to also allow me to share it with all of you as well. Lauren deserves a big hand for doing so. I hope that Lauren's story can help you all in some way or another, I know it helps me!

-Coach Adam

March Madness Round 2 was a huge success in both Epsom and Concord!! We had a lot of hard working individuals working as a team for 4 weeks. While I am sad to say there can only be one winner for each gym location, you all did an amazing job!

For Concord, team Bow Ties took the crown this year. The team made up of Muriel Hall, Sue Pribis, Cristy Bresson, and Kara Hinck will be cutting down the nets in Concord this year. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you very much for everyone in Concord who competed in the Myzone Challenge! And the prize – a sweet custom Get Fit NH tee designed by the winning team! ​I can't wait to see it worn in the gym by these ladies.

March Madness at Get Fit NH Epsom was a battle of sled pusher against sled pusher. Each training time had a team in the challenge. Their goal was to push the sled the most laps per team member than all other training times. I was so proud of each who took the challenge. Lisa, from 9am, described pushing the sled as pushing a car out of the mud. It can feel like that although not as heavy as a stuck-in-the-mud car. While we had some veterans push the 135-pound sled, others pushed for the very first time. What a great feeling to drive that much weight down the length of the gym and back. 

Our teams pushed over 631,530 pounds throughout March Madness. While the 9am Ladies only crew had the most people pushing, and 6:15 had the highest one-person score, 6pm took home the prize. They pushed an average of 183.4 laps each in a month. The prize? Take home dinner cooked by Coach Nancy. With that number they would have pushed 315 Polar Bears (each weighing 2000 pounds) back and forth in the gym. Now that is Madness.

Congratulations to all! And enjoy your dinner 6pm!

Let me tell you something that will unequivocally always be the case…if you do not believe you can do it, you won’t. It’s that simple. You may have more talent and more ability than you yourself even realize, it is just sitting dormant waiting for you to recognize it. You need to want it, and furthermore, you need to believe you can do it.

If you think you are the world’s fastest sprinter but you never work hard in the gym or at practice and tune out everything your coach says, then most likely when its time to take off from the starting blocks you are going to find yourself chasing. Sure, everyone can survive on God given talent for a time, but only those who really work hard and practice their craft will continue to advance. For every one athlete who becomes a professional, or competes at the highest stage, there are 10 others who had the ability but never put in the time or effort to achieve it.

This does work the other way, however, every person who excels at the highest level has one major thing in common, that killer instinct. They want the ball with the game on the line and 3 seconds left on the clock. They want to guard the best player on the other team. They don’t shy away from a challenge on the floor or in life.

One of my most vivid examples of this was Jeff Green, for those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, he played for the Celtics several years ago now. I watched a game where he scored 45 points against the Miami Heat at the height of their power. It, to this day, is one of the most dominating performances I have ever seen. You would have had to watch the game to know what I mean. He wanted the ball and he put it in the basket over and over and over, not from downtown, but the hard way by going into the paint. However, even with all the talent he possessed and the type of dominant game he had the potential for, he never reached his full potential because he didn’t have that instinct.

All in all, the important thing to remember is that it takes two sides to the same coin to achieve greatness. The work and time put in (the physical ability to do it) AND the mental ability to believe that you can. Make no mistake, you cannot have one without the other

-Coach Adam

Here is another blog by request for you! The question: Why Myzone over Fitbit? How does it make a difference in my training?

Fitbit features:

• Measures steps, calories and distance
• Floors climbed
• Clock/time
• Sleep tracking
• Some have GPS capability
• PurePulse Heart Rate - Fitbit brands their heart rate tech as PurePulse—calling it “the only heart rate technology to offer automatic, continuous wrist based tracking for all-day health insights and workout intensity".
• Ability to challenge friends

Myzone features:

• Measures real life beats per minute
• Measures effort (% of maximum heart rate)
• Logs time spent in each zone
• Picture food logging
• Trend graph after each training, right down to the minute
• Emailed training synopsis after each workout with graph, average effort, peak heart rate, average heart rate and time in zones
• A fantastic app to review history and progress
• Ability to challenge friends
• Data in the gym and bluetooth compatible to see effort outside of the gym
• Measurable points to challenge yourself each month

I obviously know more about Myzone from experience than I do about Fitbit. The Fitbit features were gathered straight from their website.

I am a firm believer in Myzone, or heart rate straps in general, over watches. With wrist watches you need to wear the band correctly and tight enough for the lights to be touching your skin, and intense exercise can throw off the measurements. Fitbit also suggests wearing their trackers higher on your wrist to get more reliable readings. The heart rate straps are not measuring your pulse. They are recording your actual heartbeat.

One great thing that Fitbit does that Myzone doesn’t is measure steps. That is great way to keep you moving throughout the day. HOWEVER, for training purposes that doesn’t matter. Myzone measures the percent of your maximum heart rate. Fitbit cannot show you hard you are working. Myzone not only tells you how hard you were working, but it logs and emails you how hard you were working in each zone and for how long you were working in each zone. It also provides you a graph which shows you your training trends. The graph shows you when your heart rate started to pick up and your recovery between sets. Fitbit cannot show you that important information. Myzone gives you immediate, easy to read feedback while training whereas Fitbit is just showing you a potentially flawed heartbeat.

I realize this may sound a tad biased. I don’t think Fitbits are pointless. I think they are a fantastic tool to make sure you are moving and to measure your steps, but for training purposes I do not think they serve an effective purpose.

I hope that answers the question!
Coach Meagan

Let’s talk about menopause, ladies. This blog is coming to you by request. I know it is probably a little strange to have a 27-year-old woman write about this topic, but it is an important topic that no one else is talking about!

If you are still reading, I will assume this matter applies to you. Allow me to encourage you before I really get going. I sit down with literally hundreds of students just like you. I would go as far to say that the number 1 thing I hear when I sit down with a woman in a success session is that they hit menopause and all of a sudden life changed- FAST! Weight gain, mood swings, exhaustion, etc. All of these things make them self-conscious, depressed, stressed, anxious, mad…you name it. The cool part is that they came to us to make a change. So here is a little education and how training and nutrition play a critical role in how you cope.

Menopause is part of life, right? There is absolutely no dodging it, ladies. Whether you a pre-menopausal, in the fire or almost at the end let’s talk about what happens...

Estrogen. It is an important hormone for many reasons, but one reason you may not think about until it drops is that it helps regulate metabolism. With menopause comes an estrogen dive, which means what? If you were used to eating anything and everything and living a sedentary life with a comfortable weight, you can kiss that life goodbye. Or maybe you have the training piece in your toolbox already, but you have not fully committed to that other important part (nutrition!) – now would be the time to hop on board!

You know what else estrogen does? It helps prevent bone loss and works together with calcium, vitamin D and other hormones and minerals to build bones. Thus, after menopause, your body breaks down more bone than it rebuilds. In the years immediately after menopause, women may lose as much as 20% of their bone mass. With that being said, don’t ya think a smart training program and proper nutrition can help you? Hello- osteoporosis?

I am here for you!
Coach Meagan

In reading a book a couple days ago, the idea of sticking to what works and what you know works was highly prevalent. What the author was referring to was sticking to his program and trusting the system they had created. 

There is always going to be some new system promising “six pack abs in 3 weeks” and that you have to be dedicated to sticking with the system and not jumping from one new idea to the next to the next. That can be difficult when it comes to fitness with so many different opinions and a new book coming out every 35 seconds on Amazon. I’m not talking so much about the system as I am in trusting your instincts and what you know, unequivocally, has worked for you.

The reason I bring this up, is in reading this portion of the book I remembered back to when I used to work at GNC (gasp!). I have mentioned this before but I distinctly remember one day my manager bought a couple boxes of pizza in for us. Upon me being told this, I must have raised an eyebrow, “pizza…at gnc…really?” because I remember her saying “yeah, it’s got protein, some vegetables, it’s got what you need in there”. I remember this because I remember how quickly my mind spouted off with “oh, you’re right”. Everyone reading this knows that eating pizza is not good for you. I knew it then and I know it now. However, because my mind wanted it, when it heard that small bit of twisted logic, my brain latched onto it like a drug addict as I downed my third slice.

It all comes down to this - any one of you reading this knows: vegetables…good, protein...good (forget about source, vegan versus animal, any of that, just protein in general), sugar…bad, pizza…bad. The things you want have a way of twisting your mind until you come to a decision that it is actually good for you. As our clients, you guys have education on the subject. 95% of the time if your first instinct is “that food is bad for me” then you go with that instinct. Don’t get caught trying to convince yourself pizza is good. You can know pizza is bad and still have it every once in a while. When we start twisting the logic that bad foods are good for us, that’s all our mind needs to latch on and rationalize it over and over. So, remember - pizza and sugar = bad, vegetables and protein = good, don’t twist it.

-Coach Adam

Patty is one amazing lady. I know she doesn’t see it as much as I want her to, but she stands out in a room. She is the one with a positive attitude no matter what is on her calendar or how she feels. When I asked her to allow me to do a spotlight on her, she wasn’t thinking she had a story to tell. But Patty is just like me in so many ways. She works full time, has a wonderful family and grandchildren that she wants to play with for many years to come. She works hard in the gym just like so many do. Yet Patty is also a hero. She doesn’t give in to discouragement when the drive to training becomes an hour each way. She doesn’t stop trying to eat healthy when she is down with a cold. Life goes up and down but Patty keeps getting up and brining others up right along with her. I know many of you will relate to Patty’s spotlight because in many ways you are like her.

“I have read every spotlight Get Fit has posted, so when Nancy asked me to write something up about me, I was very surprised. I don’t see myself as any of those prior spotlight people. They are all huge success stories. Me, well, hmmmm. I like to think of myself as more of a “keep trying” kind of girl. I am more of the turtle in the race with the rabbit. I have had my successes, but I have also had my setbacks, but like the turtle, I keep on going.

The reason I started at Get Fit was all because of a friend/coworker, Michelle. She had started at Get Fit and when I started complaining that my scale must be broken because it never went down any more, she said I should go with her. Still not convinced I wanted to go, she again shared her wisdom with me by saying, “Patty, just go…what are you going to do at night anyway? You will just go home and lay on the couch” (that Michelle, she is a very smart lady). So, off I went and you know what? Yeah….I hurt like a son of a gun those first couple of weeks. I knew I was out of shape, but seriously, that was bad. It taught me that I never wanted to get that bad again, so I continued on.

I have done the detox several times, the S3 (one of my personal favorites), and several of the nutrition workshops. The nutrition part is big for me. I am not a huge fan of veggies, I know, I know…they are good for me. Nancy took that information and challenged me by telling me I had to try two new veggies the next week. Scary thought, but I did it. Who knew spaghetti squash and daikon are really good. Daikon now replaces the pasta I would have put on my soups and spaghetti squash now replaces the pasta in my spaghetti dishes. Might not be a big win for some, but for me, it is huge.

I told Patty her next vegetable to try is Jicama. I know she’ll like it, especially if she makes Jash Browns.

Keep on making it happen, Patty!

Coach Nancy