A Scientific Approach

DIFFERENT EACH DAY, BUT NOT RANDOM

It is well established by studying elite level training programs from the best in the world across multiple disciplines, that there is a delicate balance between repeating exercises and variance in a program to optimize results. Most other workout programs are at one extreme or the other, missing out on a ton of potential results.

It is very easy to predict how your body reacts to different stimulus. The first time you do an exercise or reintroduce an exercise you haven’t done in a while, your body is re-learning to a certain degree how to efficiently move. The next few times, the exercise will feel dramatically better as your ability to move heavier weight faster with good technique improves. You will be able to move more weight faster and with better technique. It is not long though before there is a plateau. If we constantly change exercises, you have no time to develop high-level technique with a movement and no time to take advantage of your body adapting to the stimulus. On the flip side, if we stick with a movement and rep scheme for too long, we hit a plateau and are not making the most efficient use of our time in the gym.

At our MovementLink gym, we plan and run our workout program in dedicated cycles, maximizing adaptations and minimizing plateaus. There is a wide variety we do within each cycle keeping every day different and fun, but the big picture of our program allows you to gain proficiency in the movements and skills we use while taking advantage of the adaption phase of training.

WORKOUTS DESIGNED FOR IDEAL RESULTS

Think about what a typical bootcamp workout is. A minute over here, a few minutes over there, go for a run, pick up a dumbbell and now we are doing this thing, ok good, now we are going to do a bunch of abs…The trainers have no idea how many reps you are doing.

The term we use is called maximal recoverable volume (MRV). To keep it simple, at different weights and for different movements, for each person, there is an optimal number of reps in a workout program that will elicit the best results. If we do too few, we are not making, or at the very least not maximizing, changes to our body. But, every rep that is over our MRV actually makes us worse than we could potentially be!! Working out is all about creating a stimulus in the body to promote the adaptions that happen during recovery and our program uses gold standard reps, sets, and time domains. At the MovementLink gym, we are not asking you to do a random number of reps with random weights and movements, we help you customize your workouts in each class to ensure you are getting the best results.

MEASURABLE PRs FOR COMPETITION AGAINST ONESELF

In our classes, some of our workouts are scored. You can use that score as a data point in time for your fitness on that particular workout. You can use the data to compare yourself to others across whatever categories your choose to see how you stack up. That can be fun for some, but that is far from the primary purpose of scoring workouts. We want to be able to accurately measure your fitness across time and compare your scores to previous versions of you. You will have data showing your progress and will be able to compete against previous versions of you.

At the MovementLink gym, every now and then we perform benchmark workouts. Combined together, all of our benchmark workouts test all aspects of fitness. Members write down their scores, the weights they used, and any scaling modifications they made. We repeat these benchmarks a few times a year, so our members can track their progress. In the gym we call a new best score on a benchmark a Personal Record, or a PR. We love filling up our PR chalk board with member’s accomplishments!!!

BENEFITS OF HIGH-INTENSITY EXERCISE

The benefits of high-intensity exercises are far reaching and span across performance, body composition, and overall health and vastly superior to aerobic exercise alone.

• It’s not just about Calories burned in a workout where longer, aerobic workouts actually burn more. Short, high-intensity training increases your metabolism for hours and sometimes days, so you’ll burn more calories overall relative to aerobic workouts.

• Reduced Body Fat, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, Risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Risk of Diabetes, Risk of Metabolic Syndrome, and Triglycerides. Virtually every marker related to overall health and longevity can be improved through high-intensity exercise.

• Not surprising to us, but surprising to most newbies is the improved long-distance, aerobic capacity. Most runners have an old school approach to long distance training, but we consistently improve our members 10k and half marathon times through our methods at CrossFit City Limits. The added benefit is they also get good at a lot of other things beyond simply “cardio.”

• Shorter workouts at high-intensity means more results in less time.

What differentiates the MovmentLink gym from other gyms near you is the extremely high priority on quality form during our high-intensity workouts. While trainers at other gyms say they care about for, most simply act as cheerleaders as they motivate you, tell you what exercises to do, and make minor critiques on form. The coaches in the MovementLink gym are not only extremly motivating, but are amazing personal trainers who, in a group setting, has the one-on-one expertise and experience to help you at an extremely detailed, individual level to provide you exactly what you need.

The MovementLink workout program incorporates low-intensity workouts to take advantage of some amazing results that can only come about through low-intensity exercise. To really deep dive into the specific effect we are targeting with our low intensity exercise, check out this article: Benefits of Lactate Zone 2 Training.