At the time, having a financial security was much needed for me to focus my attention on KINAVIA, slowly building the brand while not really worrying on my income. Fast forward to more than a year, I want to share with you a raw summary of the message I took from that experience.
MY ROLE
Appart from making sure that the gym was alway clean and tidy, my role as a floorcoach was mainly making sure that new members received the best possible fitness introduction that they could. By having an initial free meeting, (called an "induction") they had the possibility to share their fitness experience, current goals, their struggles and to end up with a training that they could do whenever they wanted. Coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, I had to deal with a lot of beginners and people that didn't have a fitness oriented lifestyle.
In one hour, I had to concise all the knowledge I have accumulated since my teenage years and to summarize it so that members would understand the fundamentals, leave our meeting curious willing to discover more and tackle the workout I just offered them.
In one hour, condensing all the informations that relate to training, nutrition, recovery, and stress management was definitely challenging. But with practice and lots of different profils, I was able to articulate properly what was important and to give the right informations so that they could listen and understand the foundation.
THE ONE HOUR INDUCTION
In 60 minutes, lots of things can be said. Even if I knew that an hour was very very short, I also recognized that this moment could potentially be the initial spark of the "change" that members were looking for. So with trials and errors, I eventually came to the following condensed version of what people need to hear when they want to begin their fitness journey. Whether you are still in that beginning phase, intermediate or even advanced, I believe that it can still be a fresh reminder.
1. CREATE A PLAN: as with any project, having a plan is vital. You can't build a house without a precise schedule of the various stages well synchronized altogether (design, preparation of the site, materials required, etc).
Your fitness project is exactly the same.
After reflecting on what's currently not working and really being honest with yourself, preparing a finely-tuned weekly schedule is the first thing to do in order to get an overview of your training frequency (based on your schedule, available time, priorities), style and training volume. Once that overview of your training is created (think SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound), it's time to take actions by showing up, not making excuses and to do the things you said you were going to do.
2. FOCUS ON BUILDING MUSCLE MASS THROUGH RESISTANCE TRAINING: something that people just don't get at the beginning is how muscle mass is vitally important for reaching their goals and that it's not just about "looking jacked". Building/maintaining maximum muscle mass is absolutely essential for longevity, life expectancy (along with your VO2 Max baseline) and to have the body composition you are looking for. Having more muscles considerably reduces the risk of illness, injury and loss of autonomy.
How do you build muscle mass? There are many factors involved in that process but I've tried to cover the most important ones while not going too much in depth (remember, I had 60').
1. Progressive overload: the aim is to progress gradually. Whether it's the load, the total volume, the tempo of execution, loads placement, etc., you have to progress in one way or another by increasing the stimulus applied.
2. Effort: building muscle mass takes time, consistency, hard work and a hell lot of effort. Don't get distracted by the fancy workouts or by being overwhelmed by all the details of resistance training. Without true effort all the rest will not serve you very much.
3. Adequate protein intake: to recover from the stress imposed on your system and muscles during training, you need to consume between 1.6 and 2.2 g of protein per kg of body weight every single day.
4. Regular training: there's no secret around it. You need to put your muscles under mechanical tension (using elastic bands, body weights, loads, etc.) on a regular basis (3 to 5 times a week).
5. Calorie surplus: to build muscle, you need to eat a little bit more calories (200-300kcal/day) than you burn to promote muscle growth.
6. Compound exercises: the priority in training (after a good warm-up) should be on exercises that take up a lot of muscles and joints (Squat, Push Ups, Deadlift, Lunges, Rows, etc). It's about understanding the movement patterns and by repeating them that you slowly build those "MIND MUSCLE CONNECTIONS (MMC)". Why placing your time on machines as you still haven't understood how to use your own machinery?
7. Train with "tempo": tempo aka the time under tension assign for each repetition of any given movement. When you start to train, your MMC are still not fully developed. Feeling the right muscles contracting while exercising takes time but can be way more emphasized by slowing the reps down. Long eccentrics and pauses will be your friend.
8. Be intentional: when training, you need to be present, focused and intentional. This means limiting distractions and executing each movement with quality, control and proper ranges of motion.
9. Appropriate rest and recovery: the adaptation of your training takes place during recovery (mainly when you're asleep). Allow time for recovery with rest days, good sleep and a few naps here and there.
10. Play the long game: your fitness won't improve overnight. It's by implementing this lifestyle and habits around your training, nutrition, and social life for years that you can fully earn the work put into it. Your fitness experience will have seasons, chapters, success and setbacks. But by consistently showing up and stacking those small wins, you'll eventually become a true "muscle building winner".
3. DEVELOP YOUR AEROBIC BASE: having muscle mass is great but it's only one spectrum of our health. Improving your cardiovascular capacity also require a lot of time but is trained differently than tearing up muscle fibers.
Developing your aerobic engine (the ability of the cardiovascular system to provide oxygen to working muscles) require to stay in prolonged time domain with an increased heart rate. We often refers those zones as effort ranges based on your heart rate with "Z1" (50-65% of your max heart rate) and "Z2" (65-80% of your max heart rate) being referred as "easy" compare to Z5 for "all out effort".
Keep 80% of your aerobic training in Z1/Z2 and 20% in higher intensities.
PS: we talk about this extensively in our FREE ebook that you received once you've signed up to this newsletter (have you read it yet? 👀).
4. KEEP IT SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE (KISS): I know how hard it can be nowadays to not get distracted by the noise and to stick to a plan. But trust me, the beauty of training and therefore your results hide by consistently showing up day after day by repeating the same "boring stuff" over and over. Select the parameters you decide to implement in your plan, stick to it, progress the patterns and show up - even when you don't want to.
THE FITNESS WRAP UP
