FLO FITNESS

   People know the truth when they hear it. Its always funny to me when someone lies to you and after you find out it was a lie you say to yourself, " I knew something wasn't right".  Your probably wondering what made me think about this. Well I just got back from a meeting with the FLO Family, and as I was driving home I thought to myself, what would make people want to meet at 8pm. I remember when I worked for a gym I would be pissed when we had meetings. So what's so different about meetings with FLO?    I thought for awhile about a this topic and could only really come to one conclusion,  people know bullshit when they hear it.  When you keep things real with people they want to listen. It is really that simple. People can see thru your BS. They know when your selling them or trying to push something that doesn't benefit them. Real recognize real! One of my favorite DMX lines is , "I say what's in my heart and you call it a style." . They know I

Setbacks are inevitable on the road to Mastery    In the book DRIVE by Daniel H. Pink he talks about the three Laws of Mastery, we will touch upon them but I strongly recommend that you read the book.         I believe I should first tell a definition of mastery before getting into this blog. Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters. It is important to note that mastery is also an Asymptote. Meaning you can approach it, get close and maybe even touch it but you will never reach it. So why even bother trying to reach for something you can never get ? Because the joy is in the pursuit more than the realization.     I believe that being a trainer really matter. I believe we have the power to change lives and help people. This is why most people get into any business, those who do it for money or other extrinsic reasons will never be happy.       To often I hear the term Master Trainer and I want to vomit. What the heck does that mean? True mastery o

Do you suffer from "Functional Fixedness" ?     One thing I have noticed more and more is trainers suffering from Functional Fixedness.  What this means is that you look a something and only see one function for it.  For example you see a preacher curl bench and only think it can be used for curls, but if you use you imagination you realize that the pad is perfect for pushing. You can load a bar on the preacher curl bench and push the bench like a prowler sled.  (FYI, doing this exercise is one of the reason I got fired from a corporate gym)     Thinking outside the box is something that many people talk about but not many people do.  As trainers we tend to go to workshops and learn a few exercises on a piece of equipment. Then we never learn any new exercises with it, so we get bored and move on to the next cool toy. For example most trainers only use kettle bells for swings and Turkish get ups, however there are countless exercises you can use them for if you would just

Are you a light bulb, mirror or candle     I know what you are thinking, "Chris must be crazy!" , but I this idea just popped in my head and I had to share it. I feel there are 3 types of people, Light Bulbs, Mirrors, and Candles. Some can fall into different categories at different times but most times are dominated by one category.    So what do these 3 things mean?    Most people now and days are Light Bulbs, these are people who suck the life out of everyone around them so they can shine brighter.  These are the ones who take credit for the work of others, the kind of person who doesn't care what it takes as long as You get the job done. They give very little but expect a lot. The problem is that they shine so bright that we tend to overlook the destructive path that they leave. Look at most of the famous celebs, they have innocent kids and people all mixed in Their scandals.  My mom always said that everything that glitters is not gold.  This is so true in the

This blog was written by our students that assist in the training room. I think it is very helpful for all high school athletes to read. It is direct and to the point.      Preseason Survival Tips With the start of fall sports upon us, bad habits are resurfacing. These behaviors, however, are easily avoidable. The athletic training staff at the high school has compiled a list to prevent said bad habits . 1.                 Hydrate-Drinking 5 bottles of soda before practice is NOT hydrating. At a minimum, athletes should be drinking 4 water bottles a day. Drinking a giant bottle of Gatorade doesn’t count. You can have it, but it doesn’t count towards your water intake.                2.                 Stretching- Stretching doesn’t count as one, two, three done. It’s important to properly warm up before practice and stretch after practice. You can even watch Jersey Shore and stretch, it’s that easy!    3.                 Nutrition- Do you really think eating a Big Mac before runni

5 Levels of FLO The purpose of this article is to introduce everyone to the 5 Levels of FLO. This is a system that we have developed to train our Athlete’s both physically and mentally. Obviously we have not placed our exercise library on here due to the fact that it would be entirely too long.  So instead we placed our level system for the Athletes below.               For each new level the Athlete gets a new exercise library to chose from, a new color band and a book to read (this is the mental part of training). The goal is for the Athlete to reach the highest level of training as you would a black belt in martial arts.  The exercises progressively get harder and more intense with each new level.   So where is there room for the Fun training at FLO?             Many clients come to FLO because the amount of fun they have during each session. We still include our wacky FLObata’s and 5 min of Fun into our training sessions. Our goal was to find a way to be efficient and f

Dynamic & Crazy Then Back To Basics So as well all know, we don't take workouts lightly here at Flo Fitness or any other fitness facility we visit and workout at. We use fun and interesting equipment, performing functional movements in our training. We have a purpose when we train, not to just work on our triceps so our fist pump looks better when we hit the clubs. (Which we don't.. lol) We work out as a family here at Flo and mastermind different ideas to come up with movements and exercises to keep challenging our bodies. For example, TRX plyo push ups, TRX pistol squat jumps, FreeForm single leg curl, etc. and then we also have the crazy sandbag and kettle bell exercises, including our new addition, The Arc. After training this way, your body learns to adapt to that type of stressor, even though it is a very tough workout, but eventually the muscle responds the same way. This morning I went back to the oldies, doing push ups, dips, barbell rows, bicep curls, just to

“One Size Fits ALL Fits No One!” (thank you Frank Putcher for the quote)    Some may believe that All men and women are created equally, this may hold true in the court of law but in the world of fitness this is very far from the truth. No one person is the same, no one day is the same and therefore no one program should be the same.    Before I get into this and explain what I am talking about, let me first address some exceptions. If you are a strength coach that deals with hundreds of athletes a day or a group trainer obviously it will be impossible to make programs for each person in a group. So therefore most of what follows will not apply to you. There are always exceptions to rules. This blog is geared to the trainers who make up one program and make EVERYONE they train do the same EXACT thing.     If we are truly “Personal” trainers then we must learn how to train each person. At FLO we mostly deal with High School Athletes. Our main focus is injury prevention and designing in

Peak Seminar. A day with Joe and Dos    If I had to sum up today in one word it would be, AWESOME!     It started out with the FLO family going crazy in the FLOmobile. Jannel was in a super gitty mood, OZ was starving and stood outside of whole foods until they opened and Allison was complaining about her SCM hurting. So it was a crazy mourning to say the least.    Once we got to Peak it was like a home coming. Over the course of a year or so our family has grown close to many of the peak trainers. It's like Cheers, everyone knows your name.  They have a great staff that we really relate to.  There was also a host of other close friends that were taking the class so I knew it was going to be FUN!    Dos got things started with his presentation. He is one of the realist presenters I have ever seen. It was a no BS, straight to the point and funny as hell speech. He gave us the ins and outs of how he trains and why it works.  You could tell he had great passion for what he does