PDXStrength News

Blog 38 – Fall Schedule – Thanks!  

Well, we’re mostly through the first week of the new schedule. We’ve moved indoors for the foreseeable future due to many factors – most notably the weather – AND we’ve added a number of new classes to accommodate the limited class size. Fear not for those still enjoying the zoom classes, those are still available and recordings have been posted on the website and social meeds. 

This real purpose of this blog is to be a shout out and thank you to our members. You’ve done a great job finding a new routine, staying connected with us, and generally making the most out of a really funky situation. I want to also give a special shout out to the folks that have come in to the gym this week. 

Logistically, the coaches are trying to come up with plans of action that keep you safe and follow the recommended guidelines of indoor activity, but the best plans don’t always come to fruition. We never know how the flow of class will interact with or disrupt our intentions. And for any folks that cam to Nigel’s little “welcome to conditioning indoors with masks” burpee and rowing WOD, you have a really good understanding of what GSC classes will look (and feel) like throughout the fall. 

For those of you that have yet to come in yet, I would encourage you to do so if you’re wondering about how it all plays out – even if that means you just come for a visit or just to pop your head in to check it out. I, for one, have been skeptical about how all of this will go down; trying to be relatively cautious through the whole thing with my own health conditions to consider. I do feel more comfortable after seeing how committed our membership as a whole have been to maintaining the order of the gym. I shouldn’t be surprised that all of our members have been very gracious; helping clean their equipment, keeping their own distance from other members, and generally working towards making us, as a community, safer.  It hasn’t gone unnoticed, and it’s very much appreciated. 

I know that I’ve made a large “everyone is happy” claim here, and I’m aware that that isn’t likely the case. So we always want to leave the line open for feedback here too. Please let us know about all things new schedule, cleanliness, protocols, etc. 

Happy October! 

D 

Blog 37 – Fall Goals – Cont’d

Inevitably we’re going to come up with at least one goal that we’ll have no clue how to reach. While I could end this blog by saying, “ask your coach” – again – that’s not really why any one is here. So we’ll go down another road, perhaps the one less travelled… or whatever literary cliché you prefer. “What road is that?” you ask. 

Well, sometimes “the hardest part, is deciding where to start.” (No, my friends, that’s not another Robert Frost reference it’s an Olive Garden commercial.) For example, I was having a hard time figuring out what to write this blog entry about. First, I assumed that many folks would come up with a strength-based goal so I was going to share all sorts of resources on different periodization methods and blah, blah, blah, but then remembered there is a such thing as too much information AND many of us really don’t give a shit about the technicalities of programming. So rather than write something that would likely only add to the confusion, anxiety, and likelihood of steering you farther away from your goal, I took inspiration from Kimmy and, yes, an Olive Garden commercial, and just started writing. 

Now, is the blog perfect? Nope. Did it start off reading like a person wrote it with no clue about what they were going to say in the next sentence? Yep.  Are there typos, poor grammar, and whatever other mistakes that could be made along the way? Sure are. But you know what else there is to this point? Most of a blog. And that’s really the goal here, write ( see what I did there?!?!?)? Sure it doesn’t look like I thought it would. Nor would I necessarily recommend writing a blog in the same way that I do. But it works for me. 

And THAT, my friends, is ultimately the way that we will all accomplish our goals. By just starting. By exploring. By making time to dedicate yourself toward your craft, or pull-up, or conditioning, or whatever you’ve decided to work towards. When we create time for our intentions, it somewhat doesn’t matter how we spend it. I know some of you will inevitably be chirping that you can’t just think about doing a pull-up. In which case, you’re absolutely right, but that’s not what I’m trying to get across here. Yes, you have to do something in relation to the your goal in that time, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to look like your neighbor or the Instagram influencer or whatever. It just has to look like you working toward your goal. 

Over time, with continuous effort, you’ll reach your goal… much in the same way that I’ve reached the end of this blog. 

More confused? See how I could have ended the blog in the second sentence. 

-D

Blog 36 – Fall Goals 

Welp. The smoke is clearing. Fall colors have appeared in Forest Park. And we’ve rotated the schedule and added more classes/options at PDX Strength starting next week – just in time for the fall rain to drive us inside. With all these changes, we’re also going to start talking about goals, or as the last blog called them, beautiful beaches and lagoons. 

We do this every-so-often at the gym, sometimes we all have a group goal or others we allow you to select them yourself. This fall is going to err towards being all about you, with perhaps weekly and monthly challenges for all of us – a la the wildly successful team challenges that we started at the beginning of the shut downs (Results are still being calculated, if you are wondering which team “won.”).

I’m going to avoid repeating the SMART formula here. Not because I don’t think there is value to it, which there is, but I assume you already know the formula AND I assume you’ll hear it from someone else. I could be wrong in both of those assumptions, but now I assume you’re reading this on some device that includes Google. No, this blog is more or less going to be a list of questions to ask yourself as you think through what’s a good idea AND what’s particle. This, to me, is the crux of goal setting (it should also surprise no one at this point that the only thing structured goal setting does for me is structurally plan for shit that just isn’t going to happen.)

So in light of that, I’d rather let you have an open dialogue with yourself or, perhaps, your coach around the following – This is not an extensive list:

• Why do I want this goal? 
• What will achieving this goal allow me to do? 
• Could I achieve this in a different way?
• How will I have to change my current routine to reach this goal?
• Am I willing to change what I am currently doing to prioritize this goal?

After you’ve filtered your thoughts through these questions, you should have a smaller and more attackable list of goals. At this point, go nuts with whatever structure you need – SMART formulas, color codes, phone reminders, et al. 

More questions? You know whom to call. 

D