Special Guest Coming to Epsom!

Do any of these apply to you?

• You have questions or concerns about back pain or spine health
• You have experienced back pain in the past
• You want to know how to maintain your healthy spine

If you answered yes then we have great news for you! We have invited Epsom’s own, Dr. Chelsea Doughty from Archeus Chiropractic and Wellness, to come answer your questions! Dr. Chelsea will be talking to you about how to keep your spine healthy. She is excited about leaving plenty of time to answer your questions and concerns.  In fact she is highly encouraging anyone and everyone to come out and throw some questions her way.

We hope to see you in there!

When: Wednesday February 11, 2015

Where: Get Fit NH Epsom

Time: 6:00 pm sharp

Let’s Make It Happen!

Coach Meagan

Another Motivating Student Spotlight

The success stories are rushing in and we can’t help, but share them all with you. This week’s Student Spotlight  is going to Heidi Coen. Heidi has been training with Get Fit NH for almost 4 years! The success you are about to read was earned and well deserved. Heidi is always pushing herself, she never quits and she is always looking for ways to get better and get stronger. It is a pleasure to coach Heidi. I am so proud of her success. I want to encourage ALL of you to take advantage of the body composition we offer. We often refer to it as the truth-detector and it truly is a fantastic way to measure. If you are not having your body composition read regularly you can afford to step it up (I say that with love as always!)

Here is what Heidi has to say about her success:

“Real Results…

I have pretty much exercised in some way for the majority of my adult life (walking, body building (free weights), aerobics, kick boxing, ellipticals/treadmills, cable machines…). But, I never found a workout regime that I got the results I was looking for.

Then in May 2011 – I had heard about Get Fit NH training and signed up for the free two weeks at the Concord Get Fit, attended my first 5:00am class — and have been hooked ever since!

What I have learned is that with all my previous exercising attempts the workouts were all the same routine and none included anything about nutrition. At Get Fit this is not the case! After participating in the first detox – I discovered that I have a sensitivity to gluten. I had taken Prevacid for years because of acid reflux and Excedrin for headaches every day for years. With my changes to my diet (majority of which is now vegetables and protein), my acid reflux completely resolved and I rarely have headaches. In regards to the training, I really like the varied workouts.

But – how do I really know that what I have learned about nutrition and that the training really works? When I had my very first body composition test done in 2012 my body fat was 29.7%. Two weeks ago, I had another body composition test – and my body fat  is down to 20.5%. I have lost almost 10% in body fat! This is results! This is success!

Today – at age 51 – I am in the best shape of my life!!! I feel GREAT – inside and outside!

It’s not just the training that makes Get Fit so great – it’s also the people! The coaches are awesome and I have made the most special friendships!  I love the 5am group!!!

So Meagan and Dean to answer your questions after every class – Do I have fun? Yes! Do I challenge myself? Yes! Do I learn something? Yes! And, I plan on continuing to do so for many years to come!

Heidi”

We loving hearing about your success! The day you realize that nutrition and training go hand in hand is the day you will change your life. Heidi is a perfect example of someone who learned how to fuel her body and train to succeed. I must add that we are super proud of Heidi, who attacked the chin bar and cranked out some jumping chins for her first time this morning. We couldn’t be more proud of her!

Thank You for choosing to train with us, Heidi!

Make it happen,

Coach Meagan

Get Fit Games are back!

We are LONG overdue for our famous Get Fit Games! For those of you who have never even heard of it, prepare to mark your calendars and for those of you who have participated, get ready to beat your score!

On Saturday February 7, 2015 we will host a series of competitive events at our Concord location. There are 7 different parts to this event and they include:

1.) 3 repetition maximum Deadlift

2.) Front Plank for time

3.) 4 minute Push Up challenge (from the floor or incline)

4.) Vertical Jump

5.) Long Jump

6.) Chin ups/inverted row

7.) 1000 M Ski Erg Sprint

If there is a piece of this puzzle that you are currently unable to participate in due to an injury then we would encourage you to STILL participate, but skip that part. This is a FANTASTIC event to measure progress. We promise to hold these quarterly from here on out so that you can see where you are getting better. Everyone has a little competitiveness in their heart so come on out and show us what you’ve got!

When: Saturday Feb 7, 2015

Where:  Get Fit NH Concord

When: 8 AM

Make it happen!!!

Coach Meagan

Introducing Training for Warriors Small Group

Get Fit NH has been the leader in Group Personal Training for almost 7 years now, from our humble beginnings as a backyard “bootcamp” to now having a world class training team serving clients all over Southern New Hampshire, and even being the official gym of New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

We are working hard every day to help you be the best you can be, and I am pleased to share our latest training offering – Training for Warriors (TFW) Small Group Personal Training

Our large group (Smart Group Training) is as popular as ever, and is arguably the best program of it’s type that can be found anywhere. We continue to work hard to bring you the most effective fat-loss training through this format, and are looking forward to continuing to do so for a long time to come. And while Smart Group helps you lose fat, get lean, and look and feel great, we can only load you up so far.

One of the great benefits of TFW Small Group is the ability to get under the bar and up your horsepower. Some of y’all really enjoy the barbell courses we offer, and this will allow you to do that more often. Foundational in this training will be the deadlift, squat, and bench press.

Another advantage of Small Group is that it is, well, small. Five students at a time will be the limit. This will allow more personal attention from your coach and a laser focused environment. Some of us quiet type of people 🙂 just like that better!

So here is how it is going to work.

We are going to do a small scale roll out of TFW Small Group starting Monday, February 2, 2014.

TFW Small Group will meet at Get Fit NH Concord on Monday and Thursdays at 4:15pm and 5:30pm, mirroring the times of our Smart Group Training. For training Tuesdays and Fridays you get to join back in with Smart Group – giving you the best of both worlds!

We also are keeping the price very low for this intro. For current students the investments is only +$60 over your current contract.

As mentioned before, spaces are very limited. We are taking a maximum of 10 students into TFW Small Group at this time, so please don’t be disappointed, and reserve your spot today. Please fill out the form below, and we will get back to you ASAP. If you have any questions, let us know!

Who is in the Spotlight?

This month’s student spotlight is going to Garrett Lovell. Garrett has an inspiring story and a dedicated heart to push on. I am so proud of how far he has come. Over the last three months I have had the honor to coach him and watch him change both physically and even mentally. His movement patterns have improved drastically and because of that his form has seriously improved. And because of his solid form he is now able to load a whole lot more. His results were earned, because he is dedicated to himself and committed to making a change. His wife, (almost) 5 year Get Fit veteran (Becky Lovell) keeps him on his toes and challenges him to lift something heavier each training session. This is what Garrett has to say:

“My wife, Becky, has been a member at Get Fit for over four years.  Knowing that I have struggled to find something I could stick to in order to maintain my “health” (ranging from Weight Watchers to that somewhat questionably “judgment-free zone” we all hear advertised), she had suggested and encouraged me to try Get Fit on multiple occasions.  I would regularly tell her that what I was doing was working ok for me (it wasn’t).  Sometimes I would say that I didn’t have the time or we didn’t have the extra money (I/we did).  Finally one morning I woke up and realized that I am 35 years old, I work for Under Armour, a company whose mission is to make athletes better, and here I was gaining weight, making poor eating choices, and probably in the worst shape I’ve ever been in.  By now I think Becky had given up on me ever considering trying Get Fit (which was largely validated by her reaction when I told her I wanted to try it), but I knew that she enjoyed the classes and had certainly achieved some great results and what I had been doing, or not doing, certainly wasn’t working.

It didn’t take long for me to realize how truly unhealthy I had let myself become.  My initial functional movement screening must have been somewhere between comical and soul-crushing for Coach Meagan to administer.  I quickly dubbed myself “Rainbow Bright” with the colorful collection of four limitation bands I had earned for myself.  That first week of classes was a real ego-bruiser, too.  Exercises that I had been able to do fairly easily a number of years back now seemed a lot like what I imagined were advanced CIA interrogation techniques.  When I filled out my questionnaire before starting my two week trial, I had rated my fitness level as a 2 out of 10 which in hind sight felt like I may have been giving myself a little too much credit.

Monday will mark my third month at Get Fit.  While I’m still not satisfied (and I admit that I’m one of those people that rarely is), I am pleased with the results I’ve been able to achieve with the support of my coaches, classmates, family, and friends.  I’m lifting heavier loads, have increased my flexibility, and have quite a few sweatshirts that are a lot looser fitting than I remembered them being last winter when I wore them last.

The coaching staff at Get Fit and the people in my most regularly attended 7:25am class time have been fantastic and frankly the sole reason I kept coming back at first.  They’ve been patient, supportive, and certainly not judgmental.  Now that I’ve started to see some progress and results (and friends, family, and co-workers have too), I have a whole new source of motivation.  I have a red band that I still have to test out of and I’m not fit enough to take up the mantle of Captain America yet (yes, you read that right, I’m 35 and I still want to be Captain America when I grow up), but I’m working on getting stronger and healthier and figure that I can make at least one of those two things happen in the near future.”

We look forward to the transformation. Whether that be to Get Fit NH’s very own Captain America or Garrett’s best version of himself- we’ll take either one with open arms 🙂

You too can make it happen!

Coach Meagan

Can you believe 2014 is coming to an end?

It is hard to believe another year has come and gone.

Have you sat and reflected on your year?

• What goals did you meet?
• What were some of your accomplishments?
• What goals didn’t you meet? And is it still a priority?

I am not a big fan of “New Year’s Resolutions,” but I am a big fan of creating goal to stay accountable. Each year I come up with 3-5 goals that I want to accomplish that year. Here were some of mine for 2014:

• Find a school to begin my small business management degree
• Get my shoulder surgery and recover
• Broaden my horizons in the kitchen

I spent some time reflecting this weekend and realized I kind of let my goals slip. I let life get in the way of some of the things that are important to being the best me I can be. Yes I got my shoulder surgery, yes I am on the mend, and thanks to this detox I have experimented much more in the kitchen than ever before. This week, after reflecting and realizing I let one of the most important goals slip, I applied to SNHU and start in January. So yes, I would say I met most of my goals, but I did procrastinate and here is why…

I had no plan. I knew that those were the three things I wanted to get done in 2014, but that was it. And now here I am half way through November and I am just “getting to my goals.” Which means for 11 months I put what I wanted for myself on that back burner…

So why am I sharing this with you? To remind you that you are in control. No one was going to apply to school for me, I needed to make that happen. Your coaches can email, call, text you until the cows come home, but if you don’t get in your car and drive here then we can’t help you take control of your goals. Stop putting your goals on the back burner. If you’re human, you have done that for long enough and it’s time to buckle down. No more excuses. Set goals, make a plan, and make moves

Make It Happen!

Coach Meagan

Student Spotlight: 5AM Laura!

It is my pleasure to announce this weeks edition of our Student Spotlight. I have had the opportunity to watch this woman transform herself over the past six months. Laura has changed her life style and for that I am so proud of her. She gets in here and she trains hard then she goes home and she takes care of “The Other 165”. She understands that nutrition plays a major role in results and she has proved that she is making it happen!

Here is what Laura has to say:

“Alienated. That is how I felt six months ago before I started coming to Get Fit. My body just did not respond. I had aches and pains here and there. My heels hurt and I wondered, is it plantar fasciitis? My back was in pain, did I hurt it?  I had constant headaches, is my cancer back, but now in my brain? That is how I felt before I started Get Fit NH. I did not know where to start. I timidly decided to try the two weeks, keeping it a secret. I did not even tell the closest people in my life. I feared their support would feel like pressure. In those first few days it felt like I couldn’t do anything! But everyone was supportive and I started feeling better right away. I started to have more energy and my mood improved, I wasn’t chasing the evil illness behind every sore muscle!

Train vs. Pain: How Do I Tell?

Did you ever wonder what that sensation you are feeling in your muscles (my hamstrings hurt!) or joint (my knee hurts!) is, and whether you should “train through the pain”?

I was meeting with Dr. Coapland over at Performance Health last week about this very thing, and he shared with me how his team communicates with their clients when someone reports “pain”. Based on our discussion our team at Get Fit NH developed an infographic that helps us communicate more clearly on what you are feeling and what the appropriate training is for you that day.

Right from the beginning when we perform your movement assessment (FMS) we are making training decisions. There are three basic choices we have when faced with a movement challenge:

1) Train It

2) Avoid It/Provide an alternative

3) Correct It

#1 is not going to happen.

#2 Could happen under some circumstances. For instance if a client has a knee challenge we are not going to hammer the knees, but perhaps offer a hip dominant exercise where indicated instead. There could be times when this is not appropriate, and it that case we would do stick with our correctives.

#3 is the option of choice. Work on clearing the movement restriction so you can get back to full strength. This usually goes hand in hand with option #2. Work on our correctives through the warmup/mobility part of training, and then give an alternative during strength training.

 But what about Pain?

First of all if there is pain during any of the screens or clearing tests we will refer you out for a clinical diagnosis. We then can work in collaboration with your medical team to support in the gym what they are doing outside the gym.

The big question beyond that seems to be “How do I know if should train (a particular movement pattern)?” Let’s say you feel “something” in your shoulder. Should you do shoulder work that day? The answer is “It depends”, and that is where you can give feedback to your coach so he or she can help you make the right training decision. If you can’t life your arm over your head, well I think we can figure that one out pretty easily. But if you are just not sure what you are feeling, stop and think for a minute. On a scale of 0-10, with “0” indicating “all systems go” and “10” meaning “I need a doctor” – how do I feel?

The infographic gives you and your coach a guide on what’s appropriate for you, but here is the bottom line:

NEVER Train Pain!

Be smart, be safe, and train hard – when and where you can.

Make It Happen!

Coach Dean

Do You Have A Scale Obsession?

Stop it.

If you weigh yourself daily- you have a scale obsession. I hope that wasn’t offensive, but it’s true and it really is not a healthy habit. I am going to share with you a little story about the Coach Meagan you know now and Meagan before Get Fit NH.

Pre- Get Fit NH Meagan was OBSESSED with the scale. I would weigh myself multiple times a day and OBSESS over the number that appeared. If it wasn’t under a certain number it would ruin my day or ruin my mood. I had completely convinced myself that this mysterious number pulled from who knows where was my “fit” weight. Now let’s fast forward a couple of years to Coach Meagan (and more educated Meagan) – she is here to tell you that that is just bologna. I have been coaching and training with Get Fit NH for the past 2 years and since then I have gained somewhere between 15-20 pounds depending on the day. There was not a day in the Marine Corps where I felt more fit than I feel now and I truly mean that. I am significantly stronger now and I actually eat protein now! My Marine Corps days is when I was really obsessed the scale and I lived off of rice, beans and steamed veggies. I won’t get into great detail, because it’s a distant memory now.

I just want you to remember that it isn’t healthy to obsess over the scale and like I said if you weigh yourself everyday then you’re obsessed. Your weight is going to fluctuate and you are going to drive yourself batty.  The scale doesn’t measure your lean weight versus fat weight, but I know how to find that out. You want to know the answer? Schedule a body fat with this girl or one of your other coaches. Don’t let the scale control you. You are in control of your results!

Something HUGE is coming…

It’s true, and you will want to be there!

Mark your calendars:

When: Saturday November 1, 2014
Time: 8 AM – 1PM
Where: Get Fit NH Concord
Who: You, your family, your friends, and some of Concord finest businesses
What: November Family Yard Sale & Fundraiser

This will be our first annual yard sale and vendor fair. We want this event to go down in history so we need your help! Here is what’s in it for you:

Get Fit NH students: Forget spring cleaning! Let’s spare ourselves some time this spring and do some pre-winter cleaning. We are inviting all of you to gather up any items that you would typically sell at a yard sale (ie: clothes, dishes, books, etc) and bring them to Get Fit NH on November 1st and sell away.

We are inviting the entire community to come shop around so if you have things you want taken off your hands we can help! And here is the bonus- You get to KEEP your profit. That’s right- keep it. All we ask is that you invite your friends and family to come check out the big huge yard sale at 287 South Main Street in Concord.

You do however have three choices if you wish to participate in the donation part of this event:

• You can choose to donate 10% of your yard sale profit to Operation Hat Trick. Operation Hat Trick is a NH based organization dedicated to the support of our wounded warriors. (Read more here: www.operationhattrick.com)
• If you so choose- any items that are not sold will be donated to our local homeless shelter, Open Hands Resource Center.
• Or you can keep your profit and bring any unsold items home with you 🙂

All we ask is for you to invite and share the good word.

So what else is in it for you, you ask? GREAT QUESTION!

We have invited some really great local businesses to come hang out with us as this will also be a vendor fair! We invited Amy Troy from Chichester Massage & Bodywork Center, Evolution Rock and Fitness, Runner’s Alley, and several other businesses to come out and talk to you all, so come join us in supporting these local businesses!

If you are planning on participating in the yard sale please contact Coach Meagan by October 25th.  If you are interested in donating to Open Hands Resource Center please bring your items to the gym by 1 PM on November 1st. We will be happy to donate them for you 🙂

Open Hands Resource Center mentioned they mostly need clothes, linens, food, and hygiene products. You never seize to amaze us with your generosity.

Thank you for reading and again please help us make this event HUGE!

Coach Meagan