Beating Mo-ti-vay-shun (like, with a stick)

Let’s talk about motivation. Or mo-ti-vay-shun. It’s a common word tossed around in the fitness spectrum. It seems like someone is always telling us to find it, or channel it, or strive for more of it. But honestly, we’d like to take a stick and beat that word like it’s a pinata.

Until it’s too beaten to hold shape and then we can take it down and forget it.

So you may be wondering, if the word motivation is often tied to fitness, and you guys are the Fitness Team, what do you guys have against it?

And the answer is a short list of things, honestly. First off, motivation (not the word, but the emotion) is fleeting. It’s something you feel in moments, but it can vaporize quickly. So quickly, in fact, sometimes it vanishes before you ever have a chance to use it. And what the heck good does motivation do if you don’t have a chance to use it when it strikes??

Secondly, if we had to write out motivation like an algebra problem, it would look exacty like this: motivation=inconsistency. And just like any algebra problem, the answer is not negotiable. It is a hard line answer that works the same every single time you try to solve it. As does our version. If you are going to rely on motivation to get you to a workout, be it joining a class, getting in some time on the treadmill, or heck even getting to the gym, it’s going to fail you a LARGE portion of the time. So where does that leave you? It leaves you inconsistent. Because it won’t fail you every time. No, sometimes motivation is like the popular mean girl in school. She talks to you and tells you you’re pretty and makes you feel like you should try new things. You will tap into the newfound sense of motivation for a few days and feel like you are winning at life. And then….. reality sets in. Mean, popular girl (motivation) tells you that those leggings actually don’t look very flattering on you and suddenly you’re second guessing being seen in them and the end result is you taking off the leggings, stuffing them in the bottom of your pants pile and curling up with a book. To heck with the gym. You’re sticking with reading. Books aren’t mean and make you feel bad about yourself in leggings. And mean, popular girl (we’re still calling her “motivation”) is left smirking knowing she stays on top because once again she has managed to pull the rug out from under another person before they can form a habit. Or channel a better emotion.

Cue evil laugh by “motivation.” (Now do you see why we want to hit her like a pinata??)

We can’t beat the word out of Websters. We can’t wish it away on our birthday candles either. So we’re stuck navigating around it. We give it a wide berth - staying as far away from it as possible. Avoiding its use like the list of words your mother forbid you to use when you were younger.

We don’t wait for it to strike because we, as instructors, can’t afford the roller coaster ride that she drives. We have to show up for class each day/week. We can’t rely on something as flitting as motivation to carry us to the gym and through the door. That’s a job better left for those hardy emotions. Discipline. Consistency. Good ol’ fashioned Drive.

Drive allows us to put our cars in reverse and run right over motivation on our way to the facility. Leaving it squished in our driveway. She might be hollering, “Come back, I was going to be helpful today!” but we can’t take that chance. We need to rely on something that’s helpful every day. And motivation - you ain’t it.

Be Data-Fueled

We hear (overhear, maybe?) many of you make comments about “the scale,” “where my weight is at right now,” “that dreaded number” and we are perplexed. Are you talking about the number on the scale? And if so, why?

That is a worthless and baseless number. And so many of you are giving it time and power and precious space in your daily thoughts. And again, why??

Let’s dive into what “your weight” means. Your weight, as shown by the number on a scale, the amount of mass that gravity pulls to hold you to the earth. It tells nothing of your skeletal makeup. Your fitness level. Your genetic predisposition. How well your ticker is ticking. And yet we hear it over and over that some of you are very (overly) concerned with this number.

Friends, if you find that there are things on here that you deem “garbage” please know that you giving any thought or energy to the number on the scale is what we categorize as “garbage.”

But… but, but… how do I know how much I need to lose if I don’t know my number? Okay, let’s get behind this question. First off - you are making the decision that you need or want to lose some weight? Okay, great. Is your doc behind this decision too? Awesome. Onto step two. Next step, let’s get some real data, shall we? Let’s stop taking one number and using it as the end-all-be-all gauge by which we measure ourselves. Instead let’s look at what you’ve really got going on. Step two let’s get the data off of the Omron scale.

What’s the Omron scale? I want one.

You don’t need one. We have one and you can use it for free. And it is a scale that will give us some REAL info. This scale will measure your weight (cuz goodness knows some of you would discredit it immediately if you didn’t have that piece of info) and then it will break that down into categories.

Ahhhh, now we’re talking.

From this scale you will know what your body fat percentage is, but also what percentage of muscle mass you have. You will learn where your Visceral fat number lies and how many calories your body uses in an average day to function. It will also give you your Body Age number. As in, how old it thinks your body is in comparison to your birth age. And once we have this data - now we’re cooking with gas, baby.

Now you can start to make some educated decisions based on actual numbers. (Plural. Numbers, with an s.) Now that you know how many calories your body needs in a single day you can get into what the number of calories is that you want to make as a target each day, creating that deficit if weight loss is your choice.

Now that you know what percentage of you is muscle v. body fat you can work on increasing the former while trying to decrease the latter. And if the next time you use the scale, the weight doesn’t change or (gasp!) goes up, well - knowing that muscle percentage number might give you an answer as to what’s going on. Basically, it’s going to give you answers on your journey.

And now that you know you could have all of that data at your fingertips, doesn’t only knowing your weight and trying to make a change based only on that seem a little… incomplete??

We think so too. Be data-fueled in your decisions.

Instructor Team Behind-the-Scenes

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be an instructor in this facility - you may find this interesting. (Or you may find it boring, but your ability to stop reading and click the ‘x’ button is yours to control. If, however, you’ve ever wondered, well allow us to give you some insight.

No matter the instructor, their age, the class they teach, water, land, whatever, there is a common misconception that this person is confident and has their fitness-related crap together.

But here’s the real story.

They don’t. They are just like everyone else in the sense that they aren’t always confident in their abilities. They work hard in their own time to plan out their class workout and sometimes its awesome and leaves the class feeling empowered. Sometimes it’s meh and on those times the instructor feels it - acutely.

If you’ve ever taken a class and left feeling like it was an ‘okay’ workout. Good but not great. You’re glad you took it because it was ‘at least something’ but it didn’t leave you feeling like you could conquer the world - know on those days, most likely, that instructor went home and chewed her fingernails to the quick (if she was the fingernail biting type.)

She worried and fretted that the meh workout was not going to be enough to bring people back to her class next time. She sat and thought about what she could have done differently or better and she wrote and rewrote her next workout probably eight different times trying to make darn sure it was not going to be another meh.

And here’s another thing - have you ever had the best of intention to take a class? Put it in your calendar? Packed your gym clothes only to arrive at the gym for class and realize you forgot your (shoes, sports bra, leggings, towel, etc)?

Yeah?

Us too. As instructors, that stuff happens to us AND we still have to figure out how to stand in front and lead. As a participant you can decide if you want to attend the class with your missing piece and make the best of it or if you want to scrap it and say, “I tried.”

As an instructor - the show must go on, baby. Borrow, use some duct tape, do it barefoot - whatever you have to do but you don’t have the luxury of saying, “no class today since the instructor forgot her tennis shoes at home.”

No sir-ree. If you have people that show up to take it, you’re leading it.

So, not to let this detain you if you’ve ever felt the call to lead a class, by all means - step up. Send an email. Put a bug in someone’s ear and get the ball rolling. Don’t give up the thought after reading one blog post. We need motivated people who feel the call to motivate others.

But on the flip side, if you’ve ever had the ‘meh’ experience - maybe offer a little grace and give it another chance or two. Or just talk to the instructor in charge and be up front saying something like, “I was hoping for a little more push than I got last time, is that the standard burn I’m going to feel in your class and if so, can you recommend one that may offer a little more intensity?”

It’s perfectly okay to do that. We, as a fitness team, are a team first and foremost. We support one another and often times recommend someone else’s class if it may be a better fit. This wouldn’t offend any of us because the bottom line for all of us is - are people in our community coming to and enjoying the classes that Unity has to offer? We want that answer to be yes.

We’re not perfect. We know that not everyone who takes our class will mesh perfectly with our version of fitness. But that doesn’t mean we won’t work at helping you find a meshier instructor.

That’s the definition of team. We’ve got that down pat. Just don’t ask us the definition of “meshier” - that one is a little unclear to us and probably the Webster's people as well.

Welcome. We're New. Are You?

Well, we’re not sure how you found this page? Did you go down a rabbit hole? Bottom of the trash can? Well, however you got here, whether you stumbled or searched - welcome. We’re happy to have you with us.

A couple key things to note if you’re here; one: check back often. Not everything that is put forth on this page will pertain to you. Some of it you may even find to be garbage information. But hey, not all of it will be garbage. Some will be really informational. And some of it will be so funny you’ll overlook that it’s garbage. So if you don’t find what you’re looking for the first time here, check back. Give us a second chance, man. It’s the least you can do. Two: there’s a whole team of peple that make up the fitness team at this place. Some are more vocal than others. Some give topic ideas and some give tidbits and factoids. But ultimately, there is only one writer of the ideas, and all the rest of the team would like to you to know that so if you want to come in with your burning torches over something that is said here (don’t do that please. We will call the fire people on you,) you should take those torches directly into the office of the writer. And considering there is only one of the fitness team that has an office - we think it’s obvious as to who that is.

And the final food for thought on this post - thank you for being here. Even if you stumbled here. Even if you don’t mean to be here. Even if you wish you could erase the last 95 seconds of your life and pretend you were never here - you were. the blog clicky-thing knows and it doesn’t lie. you came, you were counted and we appreciate that.

remember: check back. Next time you might get something that’s actually useful.