Around the New Year, The masses start to make "New Year Resolutions" and begin to think about how they can make the next year better. One of the most common "New Year Resolutions" is to get healthy and this leads to a large surplus of people joining gyms. While these new go-getters are certainly well-intentioned, sadly for the majority, the motivation doesn’t last. Quora.com reports that 80% of resolution gym goers will stop attending by the second week of February.
There are lots of reasons, and many of them are specific to the individual, but one overarching reason is that for most people, a gym is simply a place to work out, and that isn’t enough to entice most to make it a regular part of life. People join gyms and become a number and are not provided with direction or even acceptance in some cases. If you stop showing up, no one else notices or cares; and soon, your yourself stop caring, because the space adds no value to your life. After a few weeks, once the fire of the new years resolution fizzles out and the desired results have yet to show up, it’s difficult to drag your butt out of bed at the crack of dawn (or before) to go to a place where you are alone, physically uncomfortable, and nameless to the other bodies sweating next to you.
Here are four reasons why it’s important and in your best interest to join a gym – or enroll your kids in a gym – that is more than just a gym.
1. A gym that is more than a gym helps you train to become better, not just workout…
…and yes, there is a difference, both between working out and training, and a gym and a training center. Any local gym will be a decent fit if you are the type of person that enjoys exercise in itself – the discomfort and the exertion wrapped up into one 60-minute sweat fest. Some people think exercise is fun, and this direct pay-off is sufficient to propel them to create their own discipline and accountability. But for most of us mere mortals, the individual sweat sessions are just not enticing enough. And if you are just hitting the gym with no direction or the latest Pinterest workout in hand, the sessions start to seem disconnected and purposeless, making you question if the discomfort is really worth your time.
That’s why it’s important to join a gym that is, specifically, a training center. Meaning that the institution has a mission statement that hinges on coaches who come alongside you to help you focus and adapt your sessions toward a clearly defined goal.
is the key idea here. We would all laugh if, while we were driving, we saw a man in a field throwing darts in different directions, aiming at nothing. Throwing darts only becomes meaningful and recognizable as a sane activity when there’s a target involved. This illustrates the distinction between working out and training. It’s easy to quit showing up if you’re not sure where you’re aiming. Working out is simply a task; training is a goal-oriented process, spilling over and reaping its benefits into other areas of life.
A great coach helps you identify and define that target, articulate WHY it’s important in your life, and then works with you to create a path for your journey and helps you form tactics to adjust when hardships come about. A training center operates daily with the purpose of helping its clients embrace an improved quality of life, whereas a gym simply exists to make money. In short, a training center cares about YOU, while a gym may not.
2. Such a gym can become a second home
A gym that is a second home is composed of staff and members who create community by fostering and maintaining meaningful relationships. If you join any local gym, chances are, you’ll see the same people a few days per week...You may say hi or introduce yourself....but you’ll never actually get to know them and connect. It is no more to you than space with weights and faces that have no significance.
As a coach on the floor at 5:30 every morning, I relish the opportunity to be the first positive interaction in a client’s day. As Strive coaches, we focus our efforts on staying in tune with every important aspect of our clients’ lives – family events, work changes, surgeries, and victories both inside and outside of the gym.
At most gyms, you’ll walk in and out of the door without anyone acknowledging your presence. Make sure you find a gym that can also be a second home.
3. Community creates accountability
Belonging to a gym that feels like home entices you to make training a habit. Community fosters accountability. Period. When you know you will be missed, you are more likely to go. You are far less likely to skip when you know a coach will be calling or emailing you, checking up to make sure everything is okay if you don’t show up.
Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, your coaches are just as serious about your goals and training as you are. They are consistently positive and relentlessly demanding, and they, along with the clients who have become your friends, will remind you of what you really want even when you don’t feel it. They’ll help you maintain focus when your own vision of your target gets blurred by other life stresses or periods of low motivation.
The truth is, we aren’t wired to be our best on our own. We need accountability where discipline wanes. Join a gym that fills that need.
4. Enrolling your children in such a training center provides them with positive role models
If you want your child to become a more well-rounded athlete, seek out a training center with coaches who are positive role models. Sending your kid to the gym might make them stronger and better at their sport, but being regularly under the guidance of coaches who are relentlessly positive, demanding, as well as caring, will reap a much vaster benefit. Kids adopt the habits and mannerisms of people they look up to, so placing them under the guidance of coaches who are excellent role models is a move that has the power to transform the way they think, see, and conduct themselves on and off the field.
For parents with young girls especially, it’s a great moment when your fourteen year-old daughter comes home from her training session and says, “Mom, I want to be STRONG,” instead of “Mom, how can I look like a Victoria’s Secret model?” Entrusting your female athlete to the care of coaches who emphasize the importance of feeling strong instead of being skinny – both through their coaching and their own habits – has the power to reverse the damaging societal norms associated with female body image.
If you want your child to get stronger, buy them a gym membership. If you want your athlete to become stronger, more inspired, increasingly confident, and a better teammate, entrust them to a training center with coaches who are positive role models.
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Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
With all things equal, the stronger an athlete is the better they will perform. That’s why proper strength training is so important for athletic development. When youth athletes perform strength training workouts designed to increase their overall athleticism, the result is better sports performances... no matter what sport they play.
Many youth athletes, coaches and parents make the mistake of trying to specialize for one sport and train specifically for that sport...
Instead, these youth athletes should be trained simply to be a better athlete. By doing this, there is a carry-over to any sport they play. More on this in a bit...
Youth athletes are any athletes from 6-18 years old. This is a very specific time in their lives in terms of growth, development and maturity. This is an opportunity to train them for complete athletic development. The strength training at this stage should lay a foundation of athleticism to help them improve their sports performances... for any sport!
With this in mind, here are 8 strength training tips for coaches and parents who want to improve their youth ath- lete’s sports success:
#1 Train Like An Athlete... Not a Bodybuilder
One of the biggest mistakes youth athletes make when trying to get stronger for sports is to train like a bodybuilder. Bodybuilders are trying to build bigger muscles for the sake of it. Athletes need to build lean muscle that makes them stronger and faster during sports. If youth athletes just start “lifting weights” without regard for developing complete athleticism, the result can be inflexible muscles and imbalanced muscles that actually slow them down and hurt their sports performances.
The posterior chain a group of muscles located on the back of your body. They are the low back, glutes, ham- strings and calves. They work together to help you run fast, and move quickly. So many youth athletes never maximize their sports potential because these muscles aren’t fully developed. When you build a foundation of strength in the posterior chain your athletes will have immediate sports performance results.
There’s a difference between getting strong with weight lifting and getting “functionally strong”. Functional strength exercises are those that usually involve more than one muscle group at a time. This allows the body to work towards improved athleticism.......(Please no more BICEP CURLS AND KICK BACKS coaches!!!!)
These types of exercises also require more mind/muscle connection due to the athletic requirement of functional exercises. These exercises don’t require heavy lifting but will get you strong for sports. Functional training also increases the strength of the stabilizing muscles in the hips and shoulders, resulting in a decrease of non-impact sports injuries.
Think of the core as a tube that starts under your chest and at your waist and goes around your body. This core area is crucial to long term sports development. By properly incorporating core exercises you will develop increased sports power throughout the body. The core is the link between the feet and hands. One of the most important areas of the core for complete athlete development are the Internal Oblique muscles. By developing these inner core muscles there will be a nice improvement in athletic performance.
Although many youth athletes are specializing on a particular sport, be sure they don’t get sport-specific with their training... yet. You see, building a complete youth athlete is like building a house. The first thing you do when you build a house is lay down a solid foundation. A house built on a poor foundation will crumble and fall eventually. Think of youth athlete training as performed for laying a foundation of strength, speed and overall athleticism.
The muscles of the body work together to perform various movements. No matter what sport you play or what skills are required to play it, many muscles throughout the body are working together to make these skills possible.
A youth athlete should learn how to perform each of the body’s basic movement patterns: Squat, Bend, Lunge, Push, Pull and Twist......And do them well (especially at a younger age)
When setting up a strength training program for youth athletes, I like to use strength training exercises to accom- plish multiple things. One day per week they will work on speed and power, a second training day will work on conditioning and finally a third training day to focus on strength and muscle. Three days per week of specific athlete development is perfect. Any more is counter-productive.
One big mistake that many coaches make is separating the workouts for their athletes by body parts. In other words, they are setting up the training as a bodybuilder would with separate training days for chest/back, legs, shoulders/arms. Please don’t do this with your youth athletes. Splitting the body parts up and training in this fashion will not allow youth athletes to reach full potential, and might actually hurt their performances over time. Split routine workouts also lead to muscular imbalances and nagging injuries. Full body workouts that allow training the body as a unit mimic the requirements of sports performance.
To learn more about our training seasons, click HERE
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
