6 Week team challenge (November 12 – December 21)

As we all know, the holidays can be a challenging time to stay on a healthy course. The opportunities to miss training and eat poorly seem to keep coming, but fear not. Enter the Holiday Fitness Challenge – our answer to this time of year.

Here’s how it works. You’ll be assigned to a team, captained by one of our fine staff here at Driven. Every day, you’ll record the exercise you did and the “food fouls” you committed and email it in. Exercise points will add to your teams total and food fouls will subtract from it. All submissions are anonymous – points will not be attributable to any individual, only the team. The winning team wins bragging rights.

We’ll be randomly selecting the teams, so be sure to get registered by Wednesday, November 7^th. To sign up, just send me an email and let me know you want in.

REPORTING GUIDELINES

Since we are not big fans of paperwork, we’re going to simplify the process. For any exercise you do, add up the points from the list below. You’ll then e-mail that number to your team captain.

EXERCISE POINT VALUES

Walking/running – 100 per mile

Cycling – 30 per mile

Driven class (non-lifting) – 400

Driven lifting class – 400

Standard Driven workout – 400

Versaclimber – 15 per 100 feet

SkiErg – 10 per 100 meters

Rower – 12 per 100 meters

Yardwork (involving sweat) – 150 per hour.

Golf (riding) – 200 per round.

Elliptical – 100 per mile

Yoga/pilates – 200 per hour

Home workout – 300 per hour

FOOD FOUL GUIDELINES

The baseline is your normal diet minus any things that you already know are bad. Since the goal for this contest is to avoid letting your diet tank during the holidays, we are only concerned that you keep your diet from getting worse. While we want you to eat more vegetables, we aren’t asking you to consider “not enough vegetables” a foul.

PERFECT DAY (+100) – No food fouls. You’ve had a normal diet and abstained from any food fouls. Congratulations, aren’t you special?

LEVEL 1 (-100) – A minor violation. This would be a normal day for most people. Maybe you had a beer or glass of wine when you got home. Or you had a bit of ice cream after dinner. Single, small violations fit this category. But if you had a beer and a little dessert, you’ve moved to:

LEVEL 2 (-500) – Multiple minor violations. You haven’t been perfect, but you haven’t totally blown it, either.

LEVEL 3 (-1000) – An egregious violation, or just a really bad day. This happens when you’ve totally blown it. It may just be an epically bad meal, or it could be a mass of minor violations.  If you’ve committed more violations than you can count easily, you’re in this category.  If you have one of these days, you might as well enjoy it. -1000 is your score for this day, regardless of how bad it gets. This is probably Thanksgiving day plus a few others for most of us.

So that’s the deal. You’ll notice it will be a challenge to stay in positive territory, and on many days, you’ll lose ground. That’s where the team concept comes in. Pick up your teammates and when you’re struggling they’ll do the same!

Be sure and report your previous day’s stats by 9am the following morning – You can submit your Weekend stats by 9am Monday. Updates will be posted on the wall at Driven and periodically on our Facebook page.

At Driven, we do this with our clients every day, and one of the things that constantly amazes us is the variety of ways in which our clients can accomplish the task. Often we’ll expect a stretch to be felt in a certain place only to find that it shows up somewhere else.

Below you’ll see an example of this with our cage crossover hip stretch (A). Comparing Subjects B and C you’ll notice significantly more left lateral flexion in B than in C. Given the same starting position of the hands and feet, these two subjects accomplish the task in very different ways, with B getting more lumbar spine motion and C getting more hip motion.

A                                          B                                    C

What this demonstrates is the body’s amazing ability to adapt and compensate, but it illustrates to us as movement specialists the importance of taking all of the information into account rather than just picking stretches that “should work.”  For example, if we were working with someone with a lumbar disc issue, would we be more concerned with the execution seen in B than in C? For person B, the significant amount of lateral flexion here may exacerbate the symptoms, while for person C it may alleviate the symptoms. It’s a fine line to walk, and without close supervision this stretch may very well be deemed to dangerous to do.  That said, with close supervision it could be a powerful and effective technique.

For movement specialists, this is an opportunity to do a better job with our clients, prescribing the most effective stretching techniques we can for each person. For the athlete or client, it’s a reminder to use the same critical lens when evaluating a stretch you’re given as homework or see in a magazine. If it doesn’t feel right or doesn’t stretch what it is supposed to stretch, chances are it’s not a great stretch for your body, and you’ll either need to modify the stretch somehow or use a different stretch altogether.

Every day you send an e-mail to andy@drivenperformance.net detailing what you did for exercise that day. The only information we need is:

-Date

-Exercise type

-Exercise duration

*-Estimate of calories burned

Here’s the kicker. You have to e-mail your workout data by 9am the day after you worked out in order for it to count. No sending 6 workouts at the end of the week. We’ll post the numbers daily so that you can see where you’re at.

From July 1^st through August 31^st, our goal for you is to get 45 workouts and burn 20,000 calories.

In order for the activity to qualify as exercise, it must:

-Cause you to put on workout attire and sweat in it.

-Burn at least 100 calories (equivalent to running a mile)

For those of you who like a little external competition, we’ll also be tracking the following:

-Longest streak

-Biggest day (calories burned)

-Biggest week (calories burned)

-Total # of workouts

-Total calorie burn

* Calories can be estimated in a variety of ways.

• Using a Heart Rate monitor that has a caloric expenditure function
• Using the estimate provided by your treadmill, bike, etc.
• Use an online calculator http://www.fitwatch.com/qkcalc/activitycalc.html or http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc are options.

You can join in at any time, but we’d suggest that you do so before July 1^st. Send me an e-mail and let me know how you’d like to pay ($40 to cover the data entry) and we’ll add you to the list! Also be sure to let me know how you’d like your name to appear in the spreadsheet (aliases welcome).

For more information, click here.

For more information click here.

2012 Saturday Morning Group Details

What: A blend of our fundamentals and advanced classes, this workout is a multi-station circuit that is easily customizable to your current level of fitness.

When: Every Saturday morning, 9am

Details: Spots available on first-come-first-served basis, so arrive on time!

People often suffer from one of two big mistakes that can result from a lack of an overall strategy. One of the biggest mistakes is training the same way all the time. The problem with that approach is that within weeks, what was once a stimulus to the body that forced it to get stronger is no longer sufficient to produce adaptation. Thus, results hit a wall.

On the other end of the spectrum, too much variety with no structure can be limiting as well. While too much of the same stimulus eventually stops working, inconsistent stimulus can also prevent positive change.

Driven Personal Coaching is geared to avoid these pitfalls by helping you focus your training with a clear goal and a strategy to get there.  Driven Personal Coaching is an extension to our Group and Semi-Private training programs and can also be leveraged as a stand-alone approach.

Clients typically sign up for Driven Personal Coaching because they are:

- Frustrated by their lack of progress,

- Concerned that they are traveling a lot and missing group sessions, or

- Worried about how to get the most from their training time, both at Driven and at home.

Features

1. Collaborative goal setting: We’ll help you set specific, measurable, and achievable goals.

2. Comprehensive program design: We’ll help you lay out a complete training program based on your goals, both for your training days at Driven and at home (or on the road).

3. Accountability: Weekly e-mail training review/feedback from your performance specialist.

Cost

-$149/month

-$99/month (6-month commitment)