Q3 Overview
Woo-baby! Let the summer fun begin! Pandemic might be winding down, most everything is presently opening back up and the humans are readying to recharge their spirits.
2 Mindsets
Here are 2 mindsets I'd like you to consider.
1. Work + Rest = Success, not Work Hard / Play Hard.
So if you need a break because you maxed out your bandwidth during the grind of the pandemic, take it. Have fun, play hard, recharge and do it in a way that rejuvenates you with minimal to no cost.
2. Off Season.
You know I love sports and summer reminds me of the off season from school and basketball. I had always viewed it as a time to make money (hello Big Y!), have fun with my people and get better. The get better part is the part I want you to focus on. I loved to plan and take action. What happened this past year, season, semester, that I can reflect on and learn from and what do I want to do next semester / school year / fall / season and how can I prepare for it now. Then take action towards it. And remember if you have a bigger motor and you're more resilient you're more likely to be all day strong, all day long and then the next day too, and the day after that, and so on.
Mindset Summary
Use the quiet of summer to reflect, plan, get better, recharge and have fun!
Translation. This is a great time to leap frog forward on your health, body composition and performance goals by kicking serious butt and making your health, self-care and training and untouchable #1 priority each day.
Q3 Themes
Beach Season #2, summer & fall sports and peak for fall races!
You're going to work hard and smart with your movements and on your body and you're going to feel body confident and become more capable and resilient to do more in life, work and sports. And you'll be able to be the sherpa at the beach or lake (wink) and move the heavy stuff as you declutter and streamline your life to have less friction and more speed.
When you play sports, you'll have a bigger tank & motor, more fluidity with your movements, better durability, stamina and recovery. You'll be faster & stronger, allowing you to enjoy your participation more because of the advantages you've earned through training.
Great sports to consider for the summer are baseball, softball, tennis, golf, ultimate frisbee, lacrosse, volleyball, swimming, cycling, running, track, triathlons, kayaking, canoeing, kiteboarding, paddle boarding and surfing. If you trained with us in the spring, you're in shape to show up and play, but you may not be skill specific in shape if you haven't practiced.
Great sports to consider preparing for the fall are flag football, soccer, track, fall baseball, volleyball and golf.
And in New England consider training for a race that starts in late September / early October when the humidity is gone and the temperature cooler. If you train all summer through the heat & humidity, you'll build up stamina, work capacity and tolerance to discomfort, so when the weather drops, you'll feel faster and be able to perform harder for longer.
Q3 Schedule
Q3 is the only quarter with 4 phases.
P7: June (6/7-6/26)
P8: July (7/5-7/24)
P9: August (8/2-8/21)
P10: September (8/30-9/25)
The summer phases are all 3 weeks on, 1 week off, which means 3 weeks of face to face coaching and 1 week of empowerment where you train on your own. The September phase is 4 weeks long and is part of a 16 weeks straight stretch of training to finish the year.
Q3 Empowerment Weeks
P7: 6/27-7/4
P8: 7/25-8/1
P9: 8/22-8/29
In an ideal world you're vacations would line up here so you could peak for them and then take a week off from focused training and simply do fun recreational activities, keep going with your training and focus on all the details of it without rush or a hybrid work + rest.
Phase 7
P7's theme is strength. You're going to look to get stronger. We'll dial the weights back a bit from 30-50% back down to 20-40% bodyweight for total DB load, however we're increasing the skill level of many exercises, so there will actually be very few exercises in which you're using heavier loads.
Strong vs. Fast
Strong days will be the white columns on the workout cards, days 1, 3, 5.
Fast days will be the gray columns on the workout cards, days 2, 4, 6.
Strong days = 20-40% BW
Fast days = 15-35% BW
Strong Reps: e.g. 6 reps; you should feel like you could get 7, maybe 8, but not 9.
Fast reps: e.g. 6 reps; you should feel like you could do 6 reps very fast and could do 9 or more reps easily.
Strong days we work hard to build muscle, get stronger and get better. You should feel tired and invigorated afterwards.
Fast days we work to recover our Central Nervous System by moving fast with lighter weights and easier movement levels. You should feel energized afterwards and like you could have done more.
DB Complex
Most everyone loves the DB Complex. It's fun. If you like lifting weights, if you like the feeling of your muscles burning, the challenge of practicing full body skill movements in which you feel powerful, you'll love these 5 exercise strung together. We'll continue with 1 rep every 4 seconds, so everyone can move at the same time, which is beautiful to watch and easier to coach. Then we'll do the cat + camel and the forearm / foot stretch after.
Conditioning becomes Finisher
This was a very difficult decision, that I may change my mind on. These finishers will be less mobility cardio and more muscle building. They'll be challenging and fun. I think you'll love them. They'll be very teaching intensive to learn them, so come with a long range view that if they work, we'll do them for all 4 Q3 phases, meaning I won't have to teach them as much and you'll be able to just do them.
Day 1=Legs
Day 2=Beach Muscles
Day 3=Core
Fresh and Same, Same
You'll notice lots of changes and lots of familiarity.
This phase should be fresh, familiar and fun.
