Member Spotlight | The Reward is Worth the Effort

by Sandra Koury | Sep 16, 2019 | All, Home, Member Stories

“There have been days where I really didn’t want to attend a class, but I convinced myself the reward was worth the effort”

Henry B.

LAF Member

Henry has been a member at LA Fitness for the last 10 months, and if you’re not sure how to take advantage of what the gym has to offer, then his story may be just what you need to read today.

Henry’s Story

“I had a regular fitness routine that included 6am brisk walks with weights, followed by various sit-up/push-up exercises. While this regimen kept my heart in good shape, the rest of the body was ‘soft’.

I did monitor my weight but stopped getting on the scale when I saw the number 215 pounds. This was about the time I separated from my wife of 20+ years, so I used this event as the beginning of the ‘transformation’.

I changed my eating habits and met a wonderful woman who was an LA Fitness member. She convinced me to ‘try the gym for a week’ to see how I would like it.

I was very skeptical at first, I mean, I knew how to work out so what benefit would a gym bring to me? We started with a daily exercise class routine, from Body Works Plus Abs, to Power Circuit, to Cardio Jam, to Boot Camp Conditioning. After the first week, I signed up for the annual membership and have been very active since. We have now added yoga to our routine and attend a class 6 days a week. My current weight is 165 pounds, and I feel fantastic!”

Like Henry, many people who want to make changes to their health and fitness don’t know how to navigate all that the gym offers. For him, what worked was to pretty much try everything! He eventually found a routine he enjoyed and customized his workout schedule to include his favorite exercises or classes.

The other major influence was the support of his gym companion. Having someone to attend class with can be a great motivator, can help keep you accountable, and can help push you through the last 5 minutes when your body would much rather quit.

What’s Next for Henry?

“The only next step is to maintain what we have built. Perhaps a role as a motivational speaker at LA Fitness?”

Henry, you may be closer than you think! Just by sharing your story, others who aren’t sure where to begin can look to your success story.

A Piece of Advice

If Henry could offer you a piece of advice from what he learned along his journey, he wants to emphasize discipline.

“My dad was an MP at a Marine air base, so I knew the meaning of discipline from a young age. As I have gotten older, this has become necessary to maintain the routine. There have been days where I really didn’t want to attend a class, but I convinced myself the reward was worth the effort. My wonderful woman agrees!”

Closing Thoughts

The major takeaways from Henry’s story are:

Try as many classes as you can to find what works best for you
Having a gym buddy can be a great advantage
It is important to cultivate the discipline needed to maintain your new routine

Do you have an inspirational story you’d like to share with us? Email us at blog@lafitness.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming post!

For length and clarity, minor edits – none of which alter the original or intended meaning – have been made to the quotes provided.

Finding Your Motivation When It Doesn’t Want to Be Found

by Sandra Koury | Sep 11, 2019 | All, Fitness, Home

Getting motivated to hit the gym isn’t always as easy as it looks. Even if you manage to get through the doors, you might find yourself reasoning your way out of your least favorite exercises.

We’re here to talk about what you can do to pull yourself out of that funk and either start working out for the first time or reignite the motivation that’s slipping away.

01.

Adjust Your Goals and Make Them Achievable

Your goals can make or break you. If you set unattainable goals, you will find a lot of frustration along the way. Break down your larger goals into small steps. The completion of each step will be a victory in itself because it means you are progressing towards your major goal.

Suppose your major goal is to lose an inch off your waist before your cousin’s wedding in a few months. With the guidance of your doctor, trainer, or nutritionist, you will know to what extent you can task your body while still losing weight healthily.

For example, you might add 20 minutes of a new exercise to your weekly routine or adjust your diet by choosing water over soda. Making micro-changes is much more achievable than attempting to adopt multiple changes at once. For more helpful tips, listen to our Goals vs. Resolutions Podcast to hear from Personal Training Director, Tristen Alleman, who shares his thoughts on how members can successfully achieve their goals.

02.

Make It Easy to Get Started

Depending on the other responsibilities in your schedule, you may not have much control over the time of day you have available to work out. What you can control, is how easily you can get started when the time comes.

Make sure your workout clothes are clean and accessible. Have your duffel bag equipped with everything you might need to work out already inside. Make it as easy as possible to start your routine and you’ll find that, with fewer obstacles between you and the gym, you may actually make it through those doors.

03.

Change How Often You Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress can mean logging changes in your weight, taking your measurements, evaluating changes in your overall cardiac health, assessing changes in your strength or flexibility, and more. Taking note of these different stats can sometimes be a huge motivation killer if we are looking for consistent improvement but getting fluctuating numbers instead.

The key to staying motivated as you track your progress is to space out how often you measure change. For example, try measuring your weight weekly or even monthly instead of daily. Because of the way weight naturally fluctuates from day to day, you’ll get a more accurate (and less anxiety inducing) picture of your overall progress.

04.

Stay Future Focused

Keep your eyes on the prize! If you can focus on how amazing you know you’re going to feel once you’ve accomplished what you started, you can help push away the feelings of doubt that eat away at your motivation.

We know how hard it can be to keep focused on the future. It’s unpredictable, it’s always changing, and it’s nearly impossible to know how each choice we make will impact tomorrow. There may even be a complete shift in what your goals are.

The main idea here is to be open to all the uncertainties. You might hit a plateau and need to switch up your routine or find that an exercise is too hard on your body and need to scale things back. The more comfortable you are with change, the easier it will be to focus on your goal rather than on the setbacks or difficulties you encounter along the way.

05.

Remember That the Gym Is a Supportive Community

Having the support of others is a huge game-changer, and here at LA Fitness we crave your success! You can join our Online Community and connect with other members who are also working towards their fitness goals, and even track your workout schedule. We are so excited for your success that we want you to tell your story to motivate others and share your achievement. You can read about members who have changed their lives on our Member Spotlight feature.

For more motivation boosts, read our blog on Muscle Building and Fat Burning Myths or our Meal Prepping Guide for tips and tricks to get you through your meal preps. To access our monthly blog post highlights, subscribe to our newsletter today!

Member Spotlight | Devin Ryan: My Journey in Fitness

by Andrew Gabell | Feb 18, 2019 | All, Home, Member Stories

Fitness was indoctrinated very early on in my life. Healthy competition and athleticism began with seasons of tee-ball, basketball summer camps, and track and field in high school, supplemented by dance on the offseason. With a buzzing household of four active boys and my bountiful curious female presence, my parents always encouraged us to “go outside and play.” My household was never not moving!

My earliest (and perhaps fondest) memory of fitness was watching my mother every day after school. She hastily preheated the oven before going to her bedroom as she got us settled into our school work. There, she removed her tailored office clothes, kicked off her favorite black patent-leather “cockroach-killer” heels and traded them for one of my dad’s t-shirts and her favorite spandex biker shorts. With her work files piled high on the kitchen counter, she threw some pasta sauce on the stove with a heaping amount of fresh and dry herbs simmering over low heat for that evening’s dinner. At exactly 3:30 pm every afternoon, she popped in her early 90s aerobics VHS tape and jumped right into her enthusiastic stepping. I marveled at the overly-animated, permed out fitness instructor sporting spandex and white ankle socks motivating my super-hero of a mom to “go for another 30 seconds more” as she panted between incoming house calls and me racing my sibling’s toy-cars by her feet.

This image of my multi-faceted mother trying to balance work, family, and self-care is forever engraved in my mind. I understand now why it was necessary for my mother to commit to fitness. To my mother, fitness was loving herself and caring about how she felt regardless of the external demands life asked of her to fulfill. To this day, I credit my mother for not only being an example for healthy living but continuing it as a practice today. She was, after all, the person I went to get a gym membership with. We worked out together, supported each other, and reminded one another (while thrift shopping) that the number on the tag of that dress is not as important as the way you feel in it.

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Member Spotlight | A Father and Son Unstoppable Team

by Fitness Contributor | Jan 21, 2019 | All, Home, Member Stories

My name is Al Allen. The members of my family are the jewels in my crown. My beautiful wife Jude gave me the blessing of two boys; Jacob, 21; and Seth, 14. Since he could barely walk, Seth loved basketball. Even at the age of five, he begged me to teach him and I did, passing on all I learned from my college career. While little league provided highlights and memories when Seth because an eighth grader the competition became more serious. I asked him what he wanted to accomplish his last season of middle school and he said, “Dad, I want to be one of the best players ever to play at my school.” I believed he possessed the ability to attain that ambition.

So, I created a PowerPoint presentation for Seth. The first slide simply consisted of ten words. The next slide listed the goals that he would need to achieve in every game he played in the upcoming season (best shooter, best ballhandler, most athletic player, etc.) The next slide covered the eleven strategies it would take to ascertain those goals. And the next eleven slides itemized five to eleven objective to accomplish those strategies. The season started in three months and the work we committed to seemed daunting. Seth could complete a few of the objectives when he woke up and after finishing his homework. But for most of his training, only one place contained everything we needed to accomplish his vision: LA Fitness.

With all of this in mind, we began our training. LA Fitness became our second home. We trained there three to four times a week, sometimes arriving at six in the morning so we could practice in the gym by ourselves. LA Fitness accommodated [everything we needed]. Seth worked on getting stronger, faster, and quicker. We performed numerous shooting and ballhandling drills. I would play him one on home, mentoring him [on] what he just learned. Then, he would lift weights and complete a plyometrics workout, jumping over boxes and between ropes. Once a week, we would play in a pick-up game at LA Fitness, applying what he learned during the week. We did this for three months. A week before the season began, we played our last pick-up game against college players and adults. One of the adults couldn’t believe how well Seth shot during warm-ups. I told him “you haven’t seen anything yet.” Our team won with [me and Seth] scoring all our team’s points. Of course, it didn’t matter that he scored twenty-four of those points and I scored six. Afterward, I told him “you play the season l.ike you played in that last game, you will become a legend at your school and they will talk about you for years to come. You are ready.”

And ready, he was. He led his team in scoring, rebounding, assists, blocks, and steals. He played every position on the floor. His dexterity and skills made him unstoppable [at times]. His team finished the season tied for first place in their division. He made the All-Conference team. But we both knew even after his astonishing season, to accomplish his mission, his team would need [to] win the city championship. To succeed, his team would need to win five games in a row against the best teams in the city. Before the first game, I told him he may need to make game-winning shots to advance. I asked him about his nerves. I said confidently “Dad, this is what I trained for.” As if I prophesized it, he dominated and made incredible plays in the last moments to win every game including the city championship. His team won it all as the tournament declared Seth the most valuable player of the entire city tournament. Seth’s school won their first city championship in school history. I think I can say that my son accomplished his vision of becoming one of the greatest players ever at his middle school.

That week produced one of the greatest memories for my family. Seth’s team winning the championship took great coaches and teammates. It took his mom taking him to doctor’s appointments for therapy after injuries during the season. It took multiple motivational speeches from his big brother, Jacob. It took my mentorship. It even took his grandmother’s prayers when shooting free-throws in the last minute. But mostly, it took Seth’s talent, hard work, and character. However, none of it would have been possible without LA Fitness. LA Fitness provided all the tools to assist Seth in fulfilling his potential as a middle school basketball player. Ironically, I can’t help but think of a million commercials where actors pretend a product caused an indispensable impact on their lives. But the Allens are not actors. LA Fitness did offer us indispensable service to accomplish a dream of my son’s. These videos and pictures are not manufactured. This story is not scripted. All of it happened. Most importantly, LA Fitness helped a father and son become even closer. And, by the way, LA fitness helped me lose thirty-five pounds in the last year.

Seth accomplished one dream but a lifetime of dreams light his path and he is just getting started. I will say [this] about Seth, you haven’t seen anything yet.

See you at 6:00AM.

Sincerely,

A proud dad of two boys and a proud member of LA Fitness