Here’s what’s going on this week at the gym!
Week of July 31st – August 6th, 2022
Birthdays
August 3rd – Martha Stewart
Announcements
School starts August 24, so that means we will be back to our fall/winter/spring schedule starting on Monday, August 22. The schedule will be:
5am, 6am, 8:30am, 4:30pm, 5:30pm
If these class times don’t work with your schedule, please let us know and we can talk about different options you have.
Will O. is helping to plan the Synergy 5k on Thursday, August 18th at 7pm and it sounds like a blast! Click here to read more about it.
If you would like to get on a team for the Mountain Madness 50 Miler, reply to this email.
The teams can be:
-Team of 2, with each of you running 25 miles.
-Team of 4, with everyone running 2 legs each with each leg being anywhere from 4-8 miles.
-Team of 8, with each person running 1 leg.
Let’s all participate and represent Vernal Fitness!
Our next Gains & Games night will be August 12th. We would love to see you there! If you can bring a friend, great! If you can’t, that’s ok too! This is open to all and is a fun way to spend your Friday night. Click here if you’d like to join us!
InBody Scans
All Vernal Fitness members are eligible for a complimentary InBody scan each month. Aside from tracking our performance in Wodify, body composition scans are the best way to track progress and measure results.
PROGRAMMING OVERVIEW
This month we would like you to focus on RXing the stimulus. This means that we want to look beyond rounds, reps, weights, movements, and instead, focus on hitting the intended stimulus. The reason we are encouraging you to do this is because different workouts will have a different metabolic response, which will in turn affect your sleep, mood, recovery, and overall performance and body composition.
An example would be something like “Fran”, which is designed to be a sprint. Knowing the stimulus is a sprint, you would want to pick appropriate weights and scaling options that will allow you to perform at an all out sprint. If you have to break up the set of 21 reps into 4+ sets because the weight is heavy, you are missing the intended stimulus. If you have to do singles on your pull ups, we would encourage you to band or go to ring rows to keep yourself working at a sprint speed.
August 1 – 6
This is the final week of our “Pump Complex.” It will be the heaviest and highest volume yet. We will also continue to work through sets of Push Presses and Pause Front Squats (eliminating a second in the pause); while beginning to build weight with our Deadlift.
Our test pieces are true, sprint-style workouts; “Fran” and 18.2/18.2a.
Monday
This one will be easy until it isn’t! For those with General Fitness or performance goals the stimulus today should be a steady state of moderate intensity around 70-80% of your max HR.
Pacing and weight should allow for steady movement at a moderately conversational pace. This intensity will help develop aerobic capacity and help to delay lactate buildup!
Tuesday
A 30-minute AMRAP done at low (60-70%) or moderate (70-80%) will help to develop solid metabolic flexibility (getting better at using the right fuel source at the right intensity).
Minimal breaks will help to develop aerobic capacity and can improve your ability to buffer lactic acid as the intensity of workouts gets higher!
Wednesday
The goal of Fran is the same for everyone today – high intensity output from start to finish!
Working at higher intensities for relatively short durations can help us push lactate threshold higher and can help boost MaxVO2!
Improved MaxVO2 can lead to improved athletic performance AND can help to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease as we age!
Done right, this WOD will see you performing work close to your max heart rate!
Thursday
Today we are working on shorter bursts of higher intensity work followed by active recovery to bring the HR down.
This is a great intro to HR training for those who haven’t done it as it allows us to have an objective look at how long you can sustain a higher heart rate, and how well you can recover from your efforts.
Friday
Pick weights and pace to sustain a quick, moderate to high intensity throughout the 12 minute cap.
Working between 70-90% of max HR helps to develop aerobic capacity and can help to push lactate threshold higher, meaning faster pace for longer durations in future workouts.
Lift well and lift heavy in part 2!
Saturday
Find a partner who is well matched to your intensity focus for today!
Game plan how you will divide up reps and stick to the plan for as long as possible.
Weights and T2B variations should allow you to complete at least 3-5 reps of each exercise when fresh.
Trade off reps before movement quality and speed slows down.
Full workout descriptions and notes are available to all members of Vernal Fitness & Nutrition. For more info, email us here.
Sleep Journal
Let’s talk sleep!
How did you sleep last night?
How did you feel when you woke up this morning? Rested? Foggy? Sore? Refreshed?
The answers to these simple questions will often lead us to gathering other information about our lifestyle, stressors and barriers to good sleep!
Below are some recommendations for getting better sleep. Knowing how many you are hitting on a regular basis will provide you with great info with which we can start working on eliminating barriers to good sleep and reinforcing good sleep habits!
- Go to sleep with the moon and rise with the sun, waking naturally with no alarm
- In a cool, dark room – temperature below 68° F or 20° C with no ambient light
- On your back with your hands by your sides
- Uninterrupted, waking with a clear head, feeling rested and pain-free
- For seven to nine hours
Sleep Review
We recommend keeping a sleep journal and reviewing it every two weeks. This way we can use the data collected as a way of finding issues and trying to solve them. It’s important to remember that small habit changes can often lead to larger ones if they are reinforced! If you are making progress we want to make sure to reinforce the habit that led to success!
If you are looking to make meaningful and sustainable progress, you must factor in good sleep. It is a crucial pillar in your health and wellness.
Mobility
With deadlifts, squats, and cleans on the agenda this month, here are some mobility exercises for your hips and ankles.
