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Monday WOD (Workout of the Day)

Next time you hit up the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym, your goal will be to make love to the squat rack. Yeah…you heard me right.

Here’s one solid, squat rack WOD for you to tackle and tear up:

  • 30x Back Squat
  • 15x Push Press
  • 10x Pull Ups
  • 20x Front Squat
  • 15x Push Press
  • 10x Pull Ups
  • 10x Overhead Squat
  • 15x Push Press
  • 10x Pull Ups

Don’t have the slightest clue about these various squats? Don’t know how to properly perform a back squat, front squat, overhead squat, or push press? No worries. YouTube to the rescue!

Tune into these YouTube videos with one of my favorite fitness inspirations, Elliott Hulse – a pro strongman and strength coach – to master the front squat.

Click here to learn the correct form. After you’ve mastered that, check out Elliot’s video for a juicy tip to make your front squat that much stronger. Oh yeah.

Next, to master the back squat, check out this CrossFit back squat demo.

To learn the overhead squat, click here for a CrossFit overview of overhead squat basics.

Finally, receive detailed instruction for the push press in this CrossFit push press video.

It’s incredibly important to learn the correct technique and form before you crank out this squat rack workout at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. Get real familiar with the proper movements to avoid uncomfortable sensations in the body, pain, and potential injury.

In terms of weight, keep it light to start. If you don’t know where you are at for weight, consult a Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym personal trainer. For all fitness related questions, don’t hesitate to ask our athletic trainers and health specialists. The fitness team at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club is here to help you!

Don’t fear the squat rack. Make it your friend. Get intimate with it. Make love to it.

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3 Awesome Health & Fitness Resources

Maybe your self-transformation progress feels like it has reached a standstill. Maybe you need an extra push to motivate and move you upward to finally achieve your fitness goals and create your best you. Maybe what you are doing right now is not enough. Maybe you need to rework your focus – to place your energies on a new exercise routine or a new meal plan. Maybe you just desire some new information – a fresh perspective on fitness, health, and healing.

The following 3 resources have helped to transform my life, fitness, overall health, and perspective. They steered me in the right direction, effectively and quickly enhanced my progress, and supported (and continue to support) my health.

The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss

Get thinner, bigger, faster, and stronger! Learn the ins and outs of the slow-carb lifestyle in this comprehensive book. Also, read up on how to improve sexual prowess, how to slim down, how to build 30 pounds of muscle in 30 days, and how to eat whatever you want in excess one day per week and still loose weight. That’s not all. You’ll gain additional weight loss and strength enhancement tips and tricks.

This book is accessible, informative, and self-supporting. You will gain plenty of tested tools to create your best you, including various exercises to perform while working it at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym.

Not sure you want to plunge into this massive text. Enjoy the first chapter FREE. I bet you’ll become convinced of its incredible value.

The Slow-Carb Cookbook (Online)

Enjoy lots of healthy, creative, and easy to whip up slow-carb eats in this handy-dandy online cookbook. These slow-carb meals will definitely enhance weight-loss and promote the buildup of muscle. Eat a slow-carb diet for 20 days, and you’ll surely realize inches lost, pounds lost, and definition gained. This diet will definitely support your workouts at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym by boosting your energy and creating a leaner, lighter, and stronger you. 

Eat-Taste-Heal: An Ayurvedic Cookbook for Modern Living

Learn about the healing science of Ayurveda – the most ancient system of healthy living and medicine. Create harmony within by eating foods appropriate for your mind and body and by involving yourself in healthy lifestyle practices, such as yoga and meditation. Learn to eat right for your unique make-up and design. Learn to personalize your health and healing and cater to your own specific needs. Completely restore and transform your health! Plus, experiment with new, healthy recipes and foods!

Use of these 3 resources will definitely complement what you’re already achieving at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club and may even get you to where you want to be faster and more effectively. So, add these fitness gems to your list of things to read and implement!

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Getting Motivated, Part 2: Fulfilling Your Ambition

Last week, we talked about the importance of setting a goal. This will fire you up for a challenge and give you a reason to add a boost of motivation to your regular old routine. But setting a goal is easy – the challenge is, of course, actually following through.

There are some common obstacles to look out for when you sit down to set an exciting new goal, and we have some solutions:

  1. First of all, you want to be realistic about your aims. If you’ve only been running about 10 miles per week, you may not want to sign up for a competitive 50K.
  2. Second, you want to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. If someone else is pressuring you to achieve more, you may wind up resentful toward your efforts rather than feeling good about them as you should.
  3. Third, you have to be honest with yourself about your limitations. If you’re a procrastinator or someone who gets in their own way in other areas of life (like at work), then it’s possibly that you can set a goal only to become frustrated when it doesn’t seem like you’re going to achieve it. To counter this, you can enlist a support team or personal trainer to help keep you on track and make your dream more realistic. But other people can’t do it all for you; you’ll need to make a strong commitment as well.
  4. Fourth, the idea of fulfilling your ambition is going to be very appealing, but you want it to be more than a fantasy. Make the entire process more concrete by breaking down the process in advance. You’ll want to come up with specific mile markers and time frames, figuring out how much training you’ll need and how long you’ll need to accomplish it. If you can’t get in enough conditioning in one month to bike a 20K, then you might need to look for an event that’s coming up a little more down the road.
  5. Fifth, you may become discouraged if you have any setbacks or if the goal at hand seems so far away that it may as well be a mirage. One way to counter this unsure attitude is to build in a system of rewards along the way, so it’s not just about the big final payoff. Get creative – maybe you’ll buy yourself a treat each time you hit a new marker, or maybe you’ll make a bet that you can do it and enjoy the satisfaction of being right. Maybe loved ones will treat you to healthy meals or your significant other will owe you a massage for your hard work. Pulling other people in to witness and support your accomplishments can certainly help. The important thing here is that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, the journey should definitely be part of the fun!

Got a specific event coming up? Want to set a goal with a group? Feel free to share your story with us or reach out to others to join you at our Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym.

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Do You Feel Shy at the Gym?

Canadian researcher Marianne Clark recently published an article about how shy women can be in a public changing space – like the locker room at the gym. She says that ladies go to great lengths to avoid undressing with anyone else around them. She adds that it’s “all about showing as little skin as possible.” Although she doesn’t suspect it will keep health-minded women away from joining fitness clubs, it may impact their overall experience and cause them to choose less convenient options, such as entering a bathroom stall to change.

In other public spaces, women aren’t necessarily considering their appearance or comparing themselves to others – but this thought process comes to the forefront as soon as women enter the locker room and realize they need to get undressed.

It’s not just insecure women – and it’s definitely not just you! Clark found that even women who feel very confident about their looks simply give pause when it comes to stripping down in a common area. It’s just built into women’s wiring to second-guess themselves when confronting a moment that’s all about baring their bodies.

And it goes both ways. Subjects also reported that they felt awkward when seeing others around them undressing, especially if it’s an acquaintance or someone they might see again outside of the locker room.

We know that you’re not only sometimes shy about changing your clothes in the locker room. Sometimes working out in front of others can seem nerve-wracking, too! Whether you’re comparing your body size or your technique while working out, it’s all too easy to be sidetracked by the presence of strangers around you while you’re covered in sweat and prioritizing your appearance. And let’s not forget about all of those mirrors everywhere. But don’t worry, it’s completely normal – and it doesn’t have to get between you and your workout goals. Even the most confident-seeming person standing next to you probably has the same fleeting doubts. And there are ways to overcome them.

If you’re worried that self-consciousness might impede your health and fitness development, please feel free to speak with one of our trainers for some motivational tips and tricks that can help you surpass your fears and succeed at getting the body you want.

Plus, membership to our Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym means that women have access to a ladies-only gym that can minimize the distractions and self-doubt that might particularly have to do with working out alongside men. Ask for more info!

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The Buddy System Fitness Plan

Do you find it difficult to get out of bed and visit your local Greenville gym? Does it often seem easier to just pick up fast-food on the way home than make smarter eating decisions? One of the hardest obstacles when you’re trying to stay fit and healthy is finding the motivation. But there is a tried and true system to stay motivated, and that’s the buddy system.

When people feel like they’re trying to meet their fitness objectives alone, it can seem daunting. When you skip a trip to the gym or do 5 reps instead of 15, no one’s going to hold you accountable except for you—and this can make it easier to cheat or slack. But when there’s someone else nearby who you trust to keep you on track, suddenly your successes become even more rewarding and you find a new drive to succeed. Creating a workout buddy system for accountability is one of the easiest, most powerful ways to stay focused on your exercise and diet aspirations.

Your buddy doesn’t necessarily have to be your best friend. You could ask someone from you office to join you, or even your spouse. If you visit our Greenville gym often, you may notice others who frequently come in at the same time as you. You can approach someone and ask if they’d like to be your gym buddy, someone who might make plans to meet you at the treadmill at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays or regularly grab a smoothie with you after your spin class. And this person will notice when you’re not there. Just knowing that someone other than you is paying attention to your successes or failures can be a powerful motivator. Of course, a personal trainer is someone who will always keep you on track and be a helpful participant in your fitness regimen.

You can also invest in a generalized support system, where you constantly keep your family and friends updated about your workout goals. You can keep them abreast of the gym classes you’ve joined, or discuss how you feel about your latest workout or weight loss. By sharing your experiences, it welcomes others into your world. They can offer feedback or just listen. Either way, it gives you a personal team of cheerleaders to encourage your positive, healthy actions–ultimately helping you stay motivated and meet all of your fitness aspirations.

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