I would like to introduce you to MASS: and some of what we believe in, now you may have already read some of our blogs, ads and many of you found yourself agreeing with or totally disagreeing with what we have to say and that’s fine, for every article that is written or with any training programs in place, you will be able to find 100’s of expert’s opinions contradicting each other. So please read on and I will try and explain why we do what we do.
REASON
We started MASS: with 2 reasons in mind the first reason was to help you achieve your goals, now everyone’s goals are different, so we want to be different than most gyms, we don’t believe in the gym model of having memberships where you pay a monthly fee to walk in the door and go for your life( if you are thinking “but I know what I am doing and I don’t need your help” that is fine we gladly wish you all the best), we don’t believe in having programs stuffed in a draw to give you on joining the gym, we definitely don’t believe walking you through the gym and showing you how to use the machine means you know how to use them safely and correctly.
We believe that everyone who joins a gym has a reason, that’s why when you join the MASS: family we like to have a discovery session with you, to learn about you, why you are training, why you need to change your lifestyle or if you are a sports person what you would like to achieve. We then use this information to aid you in setting long term goals, then we develop short term goals to enable you to reach your long-term goals.
The second reason was to make a living out of helping people.
DIET
At MASS: we don’t believe in FAD diets and we don’t believe in 8-week challenges will change your lifestyle or eating habits. When it comes to the food you eat we believe to maintain, lose, or gain weight it comes down to the calories you eat. We believe the food you eat is just as if not more important than the calories. We believe food should be used to provide energy for the body to function through out the day as well as for the body to recover.
TECHNIQUE
At MASS: with all our clients we assess their movement patterns, once we know what restrictions they have, we develop and implement training to improve any mobility issues that they have, these exercises become part of the clients warm up routine (so no more just walking on treadmill believing that you are warming up and preparing your body for a rigorous workout).
We train you with technique in mind first, whether you are new to resistance training or have been training in the Gym for a while at MASS: we will always start a new client with the basics in mind (knee dominant, upper push, upper body pull and hip dominant). Before we add weight to any exercise we need you to have the correct technique down pat. The exercises we train are designed to improve your day to day life. By adding or increasing weight to early your technique is the first thing to break down, now you may feel the muscle start to strain and work harder and you may believe that this is the way to become bigger, stronger and to achieve the results you want, however over a period of time you will also find this is the way that leads to joint pain, tendinitis, back pain, strained muscles and more importantly you are training your body to move in a way that will increase the risk of injury. Resistance training should be used to teach the body to first move correctly and efficiently and then to strengthen the body to assist in injury prevention, with injury prevention I am not just talking about an athlete trying to avoid soft tissue injuries, I am talking about everyone avoiding soft tissue injuries as well as wearing through their hips, knees and shoulders and avoiding having surgery or worse replacements.
PROGRAMS
The way we design you a program we use your goals, training history, your fitness level, strength level, ability, injury history all to develop a program specifically suited to you. We don’t believe in having a draw full of programs designed for anybody to use.
If you are an athlete/sports person you need to train to enhance your chosen sport and assist with injury prevention. All sports require you to move efficiently, have explosive power, endurance and strength. Lets look at Football, if you are currently in pre-season training and you have spent the off months going to the gym to get bigger muscles by using a program designed for a body builder (think German volume training) I commend you for putting in the time and effort, but have you improved you mobility and explosive power (being able to move forward/backwards/laterally to get out of a pack), have you improved your running technique( being able to run efficiently for a longer distance at a higher intensity), Increased your strength(allowing you to break tackles, lay tackles or push off an opponent), reduced your risk of injury( improved mobility, increased strength). I would say not, if you have been solely concentrating on putting on size you have probably done the opposite of what you require.