Stayfitanywhere’s Blog

I hope everyone had a fantastic Canada Day and are prepared to enjoy a great weekend!  I am heading out of town on a vacation and wanted to share a few things with everyone before I go.

·         This morning I trained Rob Daly  for the first time in 2010.  Rob has been training with me since I first started training clients and has been instrumental during my evolution as a trainer/coach.  To welcome Rob back to training (not that he wasn’t training while he was working in LA) I decided to test him out with one of his favourite workouts http://blog.stayfitanywhere.com/?p=578 and he crushed it!  If anyone is looking for a photographer check out Rob’s website www.robdaly.com to see some of his work.

·         A friend of Mine Cam Beals is leaving for the Calgary Stampede tomorrow and if you know the dates of the Stampede you will wonder why he is leaving so early??  Well he is riding his bike from Vancouver to Calgary to take part in the festivities of the Stampede… Good Luck Cam wish I could have taken part in the journey with you.

·         If you work in the Health Care field take a look at this website for some resources on preventing Healthcare Associated Infections www.haiwatchnews.com.

·         My lacrosse team the Ladner Pioneers is gearing up for the playoffs and as soon I return home we will be starting our first playoff series and I would love to see you in the stands email me or check www.wcsla.ca for dates and times of games.

·         The sun has come out FINALLY here in Vancouver and I have spent most of the morning on my bike zipping around the Seawall from English Bay to Kits beach and I saw tons of cyclists, rollerbladers, runners,  walkers, skateboarders taking advantage of the weather.  I also saw tons of kids playing in the playground, throwing footballs/Frisbees, kicking soccer balls and just generally having fun.  Thank you Vancouver for the reminder of why I love living in this city!

I want to leave you all with one last thing to think about… when you train hard, you need to recover hard!  With that being said I am off to enjoy a vacation but I will be back soon and ready to train and play hard!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

Monday and Thursday #FitTip at www.twitter.com/stayfitanywhere

I went to my first yoga class in a couple of years last night at Semperviva in Kitsilano.  It was a Vinyasa Power Flow class and it was definitely a challenge but I think I did pretty well.  I have to admit that I am by no means experienced in the practice of yoga, I have been shown a few things by yogis and trainers I know, taken a handful of classes including 1 Bikrams class (turn the heat down, jeez!).  So I would attribute my small success to my current fitness level (Kettlebell lifting, movement based training, sports, biking), an excellent instructor, and trying not to get shown up by Robyn, she won. 

This blog post isn’t about my triumphant return to the mat, after all I was never there in the first place, but it is about a story the instructor told before we started the class.  The instructor, Clara, began telling her story by mentioning that she had been teaching a class and noticed that one of her regular students wasn’t quite right.  To me this was the first sign that she was going to be a good instructor: attention to detail and her students.  Clara proceeded to tell the class about how she approached her student to find out how she was doing and the student said “things aren’t going very well in my life, but I need to come back to the mat to continue practicing yoga.”  When I heard this I immediately thought of the times I have heard people say I am just not well right now and need to stop exercising.  It was inspiring to hear about someone who is in a tough place in their life but continues to practice what she loves in an effort to help her overcome challenges.  Clara then recited a poem about the importance of practicing no matter what the situation is in your life, and the class began.  I spent the next 90 minutes practicing poses and doing my best to match Robyn pose for pose with some success and some failure and at the end of the class Clara recited the poem again (I tried to memorize the words of the poem but I just couldn’t keep up, sorry). 

Certain types of exercise aren’t for everyone and if you don’t like something you don’t like something; however, there are endless ways to get your body moving, the key is to find something you truly enjoy.  Go play the sport you loved as a kid, go play a new sport, go dancing, go biking, go swimming, go running, go hiking, go climbing, go lift weights.   You will eventually find something that you love to do, something that makes you happy and you will find any excuse in the world to spend more time doing it!  Whatever form of movement you chose you may just end up like Clara’s student and use that practice to transform challenging times in your life to happy ones.

Live to Move, Move to Live!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

Monday and Thursday #FitTip at www.twitter.com/stayfitanywhere

As per usual I started off the week by teaching our 6am WinterFit class at our studio and then I met up with a client for a workout at her home gym.  During the two workouts I instructed and my commute around the city I got to thinking about a few things and I would like to share them with you.

·         My group class this morning did a warmup of standing on one foot and throwing a ball back and forth.  As they woke up and got warm I began to introduce some new challenges, catching with one hand, catching and passing left handed, and finally adding more balls.  The group of 4 was able to progress to left handed throwing on one foot with 2 balls with few drops so I decided to introduce a 3^rd ball and see how they did… and the balls began to bounce all over the place.  At first there was laughter but as the balls started to drop more frequently frustration set into place and it was at that time that I had to regress the drill.  So we finished with standing on two feet one handed passing and catching with 3 balls, and SUCCESS!!  There are times when it is great to introduce a new challenge to the body and mind, however as an instructor you have to be prepared to modify the exercise/drill in order to give your participants a developmentally appropriate challenge.  We have all been asked to do something that was either physically or mentally beyond our abilities and those tasks can cause even those with the strongest will to be discouraged but if we break down a task to simple pieces we can eventually achieve what seemed to be impossible.  Oh yeah the laughter came back when the 3 balls started whipping around the circle!

·         A second thought arose when throwing balls around this morning, and it came from the statement “why am I not better at this?”  I replied to this with “when was the last time you threw a ball around like this, I bet it was the last time we did this exercise,” I saw 4 heads nod “yes.”  Quite simply put the only way to get better at something is by doing it!  Want to throw and catch a ball better?  Spend more time throwing and catching a ball.  Want to be a better lacrosse player?  Practice playing lacrosse more.  Want to be a better runner?  Run more.  Want to be better at Deadlifting?  Perform more Deadlifts.  Those are the simple answers, however to be better at something you need to do more than just doing it, you need to do it PERFECT!  Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfection.  If you were to practice Deadlifting with improper technique you are going to get really good at doing Deadlifts with improper technique, same thing with running, throwing, catching and playing sports.  That is the amazing thing about your nervous system it is incredible at remembering patterns (good and bad ones).  This is precisely why it is so important when exercising that you focus on proper technique and nothing else, once technique is in place you can begin to play with other variables!

·         Breathing during exercise is a very important skill, and I call it a skill because it needs to be practiced along with technique in order to exercise perfect.  As I have seen many times with my clients is that they forget to breathe when performing exercises, especially when they are focusing on engaging their “core.”  I like to teach my clients who do this that it is very much possible to contract a muscle and breathe at the same time; I do this by having them put their hand out and resist the pressure I put on it while they tell me a story.  At the end of the story I ask if their arm is tired and if they felt like they had to work hard during story time and the answer is always “yes.”  We then work on learning how to consciously engage the “core” while breathing (usually counting aloud from 5 to 1).  This is a great way to prepare the body for other “core” bracing techniques that are necessary for lifting.

·         Finally as I was driving around the city this morning I saw two signs that read: Thank You for Supporting the Games, Please Keep Walking.  Sadly I saw these signs while I was driving in my car.  I had spoken with many people in the past week about how the Olympics games proved how easy it is to walk around the city and that I hoped people would continue to do it.  I walked around the city before the Olympics came, I walked around the city a ton during the games, and I have increased my amount of walking  in the past week (walked to and from the movie theatres, and for a few errands I would normally drive, etc.) and plan to keep walking more.  It is great to see that the city of Vancouver is taking the initiative to promote active green forms of transportation (Dunsmuir viaduct is now a bike lane like Burrard St bridge), and it is now up the citizens of the city to participate.

Throw balls, breathe when you exercise, walk/bike around the city, and make sure you do it perfect!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

Monday and Thursday #FitTip at www.twitter.com/stayfitanywhere

Sunday night marked the close of our first StayFitAnywhere Walk Challenge and it was definitely a success, altogether we accumulated over 13 million steps in 3 weeks!  To all of you who participated in the challenge thank you for participating and congratulations on keeping your body moving.  It was my first time participating in a walk challenge, and although I didn’t win (I hate not winning) I had a great time trying to sneak in a few more steps throughout the day, from going for a walk around the block just before bed or marching on the spot while waiting in line for the ATM.   Following is my notes from the challenge (I wore my Vibram Five Fingers, www.vibramfivefingers.com, for almost every single step I took)…

It was a lot of fun reading everyones comments and seeing how they got all of their steps in over the 3 weeks, be prepared for our next walk challenge in 2010!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

www.twitter.com/stayfitanywhere

It has been an awesome busy week and I have had a great time training clients, athletes and myself!  All of the training took place at a number of different locations throughout the lower mainland and following are the locations and a little information about what happened at each spot.

·         King Ed Village – In an apartment buildings gym I took my client and her 1 year old daughter through a workout

·         Kitsilano Beach Basketball Courts – Trained Rob D in preparation for the Half Ironman Triathlon in Cancun, as well as a quick 30minute butt kicking, and a partner Kettlebell session

·         Target Fitness – Trained lots of clients 1 on 1 and partner sessions… and had a wicked pushup/pullup/skipping workout myself

·         Granville Island Apartment – Trained a couple in their Racquetball court (Agility Ladder and Medicine ball!) and the games room of their apartment building

·         Coopers Park (under Cambie St. Bridge) – Kettlebell and ballast ball workout

·         Charleson Park – Another 30minute butt kicking!

·         Newton Athletic Park – I was in Surrey running the conditioning component of Wild West Lacrosse College Prep Lacrosse Camp (www.wildwestlacrosse.com) and 25 young men got put to the test before they took part in lacrosse specific drills with Cliff Smith (Projected first rounder in this year’s NLL pro draft), Jordan Hall (Former NLL #1 draft pick, Orlando Titans) and Bart Sullivan (Coach at Bellarmine University in Kentucky).  Cliff and Jordan are also training with me after they are finished vying for the Mann Cup!

·         Douglas Park – Evolution Bootcamp on the basketball courts, fitness circuit workouts, and a Rob D cricket pitch Ironman prep workout.

·         Seawall (Science World to Kits Beach) – Another Rob D Ironman prep workout with stops at Various places along the way.

·         Balaclava Park – Awesome circuit workout with 2 Kettlebells, Ballast ball and a band.  Did my own personal workout here as well… Kettlebell Swings, Kettlebell Cleans, Kettlebell Presses, Kettlebell clean and presses, and Kettlebell Snatches… while I was at the park I was inspired to write a blog post on Where I find the Energy? Stay tuned!

·         Granville Park – Not really a workout but an attempt to teach Marley (dogsitting for a few days) how to fetch a ball, but ended up running in circles with her and a bunch of little kids, still tons of fun!

·         Delta High School – Coaching Final Practices for BC U19 Selects in preparation for the National Championships over Labour Day Long Weekend in Winnipeg.

·         Seawall (Kits to Spanish Banks) – Quick Bike Ride out to Jericho Sailing Centre and then a run to the end of Spanish Banks and back (in my Vibram Five Fingers, www.vibramfivefingers.com) and then back on my bike home

There are tons of locations for workouts, if you go by a spot that looks like a place you’d like to try a workout and aren’t sure what to do let me know and I will provide you with the solution!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

www.twitter.com/stayfitanywhere  

It has been a while since I last had a chance to catch everyone up on the events of my life, and a ton of things happened over the last 5 days.  I am once again playing lacrosse with the Ladner Pioneers and we play in the West Coast Senior Lacrosse Association (www.wcsla.ca, to check out standings and stats) and we are having a good season, we are in first place, but we aren’t having a great season yet.  We played in Burnaby this past Wednesday against a very good Burrards team.  We were leading 5-1 after the first period, but costly penalties and poor execution on offence cost us the game as we lost 11-8.  We headed out to Abbotsford to play the Valley Rebels on Friday night and we needed to bounce back and win a road game against another good team in order to maintain our first place position, we were successful in our mission and came out on top with an 11-8 victory.  The season is almost 2/3 of the way finished now and we are already getting prepared to face our rivals from Tri City in our regular season finale on July 9^th at the Ladner Leisure Centre, it is always an entertaining battle against the Bandits and I would like to invite everyone to come and watch this exciting lacrosse game!

After playing 2 tough lacrosse games in 3 nights, I woke up on Saturday morning to take part in CBC’s Play on street hockey tournament around the streets of GM Place.  The StayFitAnywhere team won both games that day, which ensured us a decent seeding in the Sunday playoff bracket.  My day wasn’t quite done after the two street hockey games I had to head off to Coquitlam to play in a ball hockey game for a friend of mine and the team did well with a 7-0 victory.  Sunday morning arrived and it was time to hop on bike and head to GM place for our first playoff game in the Play on street hockey tournament which we won by a score of 5-3 which advanced us to the quarterfinals.  In the quarterfinals we took on a very talented team and lost in a high scoring battle 11-8.  Our tournament was over, but it was a great experience it had been a long time since I played actual street hockey where all of the elements of the street were in play, the sidewalk, light posts, street signs, and even pedestrians!

It was a busy few days but I had a lot of fun and got tons of activity done, I will post some action photos of the street hockey event on our webpage as well as on our facebook fan page!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

Wednesday, June 3rd marked our first class of Cycle-Circuit.  For those who don’t know, Cycle-Circuit is a Stayfitanywhere Bicycle & workout program tailored specifically for June (Bike month in Vancouver).  I had 2 participants on that first class and we all had a great ride and a great workout!

We started the class off at the Rowing Club,  and went on to our first stop:  Hallelujah Point (near the Harry Jerome statue).  There, we did a series of exercises on the benches:  push-ups, burpees, dips, planks & side-planks.  From there, we rode our bikes to the water park where we performed a series of partner exercises and drills.  My 2 participants had a lot of fun with this one!  Next, we rode along to 3rd Beach and stopped off by a paved road with a nice incline.  We performed 6 sets of fire feet to uphill sprints/skipping for height/duck walks.  This really got the heart rate up!  Our final stop was 2nd Beach at the basketball court.  There, we did a few line drills and followed up with some abdominal work- by request of course ;) 

Overall, we all had a great time and a great workout.  The weather was amazing and really made the ride that much more excellent.  Remember: This weekly class takes place every Wednesday at noon, and will carry on for the month of June.  If all goes well, we’ll keep running it for the remainder of the summer!  This unique class will also be our ‘Active Activity’ for June. Come out on Sunday, June 14th at 9 am with your friends and experience this awesome class for free!  I guarantee you will enjoy it and feel great afterwards!  To register:  events@stayfitanywhere.com

-Andrew

June is bike month here in Vancouver and I have put together a few tips to ensure each and every one of you has a safe and enjoyable bike ride around the city.

1. Be aware of Vehicles, People, Other bikers, Dogs, etc… you need to be even more alert than if you are driving a car
2. Wear an approved bike helmet
3. If riding at night use lights and reflective gear
4. When riding your bike on the road, you are considered a motor vehicle so obey the traffic laws
5. Remember to use your hand signals, this lets other bikers and cars know what you are doing
6. Lock your bike in a visible public place
7. Stick to the bike paths… http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/cycling/documents/bikeRouteMap.pdf

Have fun on two wheels!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

I asked the evolution bootcamp crew if they had any specific quotes or sayings that really motivated them to train, work out, and live an active life in general… and I received this quote. 

“You know what’s interesting to me is that being physically paralyzed for eight years, I get pretty impatient when people are able-bodied but are somehow paralyzed for other reasons….’  Christopher Reeve

It is a pretty powerful message; I don’t think I need to say much about it.  Living an active lifestyle is an attitude; you have to choose to move!  The great thing about this choice is there are a ton of options all you have to do is explore them.  It is an amazing day outside, you can go for a walk, you can go for a run, you can go for a bike ride, you can go for a swim, you can go for a hike, you can go for a workout, you can go play, the options are never ending… but it is up to you to choose!

I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes of all time… “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference,” Winston Churchill.

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com

I spent the week checking the Weather Network’s forecast for Vancouver and was continually disappointed when I saw a cloud with rain drops coming out of it, but I was pleasantly surprised when the sun came out for the majority of the weekend.  I started Saturday off by teaching my first 90 minute Evolution Bootcamp class, it was a great morning for a workout, and the 8 participants that were brave enough to take on a workout during their long weekend did an amazing job!  I would like to think that the Scottish mile was a big hit and will now be a mainstay in the Evolution Bootcamp program.  The outdoor activities did not end there as I gathered some friends for an afternoon sports day in the park.  We brought a football, a soccer ball, a Frisbee, and some baseball gear.  We ran some routes, had a mini soccer game, threw the Frisbee, fielded some ground balls, and even played 500 up.  We played for a few hours and we definitely broke a sweat and had a ton of fun doing it.

With the sun shining again on Sunday Robyn and I hopped on our bikes and headed down to the beach to soak up some rays and read a book.  Kits beach was packed with sun seekers, tennis and volleyball players, Frisbee throwers, runners, walkers, cyclists, rollerbladers, and more.  It felt like it was the grand reopening of Kits beach for Summer 2009, even though I am often doing something active down at Kits beach throughout the year it is great to see the rest of the community outside enjoying active activities.

On Monday the weather held up just long enough for Andrew and I and the Evolution Bootcamp participants to have an excellent mid morning Victoria Day holiday workout.  Some highlights of the workout were: Andrew’s command exercises (pushups anyone?), the partner exercises, rapid responses (sorry to the Douglas Park ground maintenance crew, this group could really move their feet) and relay races.  Thanks to everyone for coming out and working hard over the holiday long weekend.

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend and had a chance to get out and enjoy the sunshine while being active!

Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1

jneumann@stayfitanywhere.com