Steak & Wine Night and Commercial Premiere 7/2!

Remember all that heavy-lifting we made you do during June? You worked together and crushed all of the goals we set during the first month of the Community Gains Program!

We’re going to take tomorrow night, July 2nd, to celebrate with a Steak & Wine Party at the Shop. You know the drill: You bring the steak, the wine, and the fixin’s. We will supply the grills!

You’re in for another treat: We’ll be premiering the DBS commercial filmed by Moth to Flame Films. So join us at 7:15pm, tomorrow night, for steak, wine, and to see yourself and your community on the big screen!

Bring your friends, family, dogs, and cats. The fun starts at 7:15pm.

Coaches’ Corner: Train Like a Fusion Athlete

by Chris Stoos

Think back. Do you remember the first time you were in Dane’s Body Shop and saw this phrase on the board:

“50m Jog to SPRINT.”

Ah, how long has it been since you ran as hard an all-out sprint? Just last week at a pick up soccer game, or maybe 10+ years when you were back in school? Strength can be clear-cut in our minds when it comes to training (example: pick up something heavy and putting it back down), but conditioning can take on many shapes and forms, with some being more effective than others. Why do we prescribe both at the Shop?

I can never get enough of strength week. Give me a heavy barbell any day of the week over my running shoes. Building up a base level of strength is essential, not only for life at the Shop, but for whenever you go back to your daily routine. The work that you put into the Shop immediately translates over to real life. Some surprising benefits of strength training can include picking up your dog when he or she is tired from walking, farmer carrying two bags of groceries back to the car or into the house, or for the college student, running to catch a bus to campus with a fully-loaded backpack.

In his book, Intervention, Coach Dan Johns  recounts, “My good friend and mentor, Brett Jones, once told me this: Absolute strength is the glass. Everything else is the liquid inside the glass. The bigger the glass, the more of ‘everything else’ you can do. So, lifting weights is the quickest way to build strength. As your strength goes “up,” everything else can be expanded, too.” In this case, “everything else” can be all your abilities and skills. If your strength goes up, then your max strength glass makes all the other abilities glasses easier to fill.

So, how does conditioning factor into this?

For the longest time, outside of playing hockey, I had never programmed my workouts to make me sweat. Sure, I used to do the long bouts of cardio on the treadmill, bike, and even the elliptical, but away from those pieces of equipment, training involved a lot of moving heavy weight around, then sitting (probably for too long). There’s nothing wrong with these long bouts of cardio, but I was foolish to think that doing this same process over and over again would result in something different.

Enter my first day at Dane’s Body Shop. To make a long story short, Dane put me through an entire conditioning workout where I never even touched a barbell, and when everything was said and done, I felt great (and exhausted). Over time, you learn to use all sorts of tools and equipment, including no equipment at all, to push your body and to sweat. We use equipment such as kettlebells, battle ropes, medicine balls, and much more to build that base foundation that many of us left behind in our younger years. In the end, the workouts get you comfortable being uncomfortable.

As I’ve said in some of my classes and emails: What’s the point of lifting 1,000lbs if you can’t even walk to the gym without running out of breath? Life demands so much more of us than just simply picking up heavy objects or just running long distances. We want you all to get comfortable at being uncomfortable, so that when life throws you something that’s discomforting, it’s nothing new to you. As you keep “expanding your glass”, there’s so much more that can be done to make life that much better.

 

Crush strength and conditioning weeks with Coach Chris at 6:30pm Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:30am Tuesday and Thursday, and 10am on Saturdays. Register here!

Coaches’ Corner: Why Working Out Shouldn’t be a habit!

I’m going to tell you right now that working out shouldn’t be a habit.

A habit is a behavior you acquire that becomes automatic due to repetition.  Brushing your teeth, taking a shower, eating breakfast, driving to work are all habits that we have acquired due to repeating the action so many times it becomes automatic.

So, why wouldn’t we want working out to become a habit? Wouldn’t we want working out to become automatic; something we do without even thinking about it?

No. Working out is not something you are doing to make your life easier. The point of a workout is to make your body into something better: to become fitter, stronger, and healthier. That requires a determination from within yourself to move your body faster and harder than the day before. This also requires you to move out of your comfort zone and demand that your body be better. Working out should be tough because it takes commitment, motivation, and hard work to make yourself into something you weren’t before.  To do that, you have to struggle and sweat and run and jump and lift and throw and sprint and swing and move.

So, if you truly want to get better, truly want to get fitter, truly want to make a change, you have to face the fact that working out will always be and SHOULD always be a challenge. The point of a workout is to achieve something you didn’t have before. So, no. Working out shouldn’t be a habit. You cannot just go through the motions. Because then it would be easy. Every day you should push and hurt and sweat and try harder than the day before.

And if you do that, that’s not a habit,  that’s a workout. And that’s making yourself better.

Don’t let making yourself better become a habit; make it something you can’t live without.

 

Ali will push you harder than you’ve ever pushed yourself before in the 5:30 Fusion class, as well as DBS Run Group every Tuesday and Saturday. To register, click here. 

 

Coache Dunte answers the question “What does that work?”

Professional bodybuilding in the 1980’s was probably the worst thing that ever happened to strength training. Since the eighties, amateur bodybuilders, the dilettantes of exercise, have doomed coaches to answering the ineffective question, “What does that work?” People have come to accept that isolating muscles with dozens of exercise machines and carefully selecting toe angles during lunges are essential to getting in shape. This folly has complicated training and skewed innocent folks’ perspectives about exercising.

No more! Here’s the skinny on why you can’t ever quite pin down what is worked by the movements we use at the Shop, why you keep getting stronger in lifts you don’t train, and why it all hurts so good:

It works everything.

If you did farmer’s walks Monday, did you ever find it difficult to do sit-ups or run on Tuesday? If you worked heavy push-presses, it may have been a mystery why Russian Twists or box jumps were so hard the next day. As every one of you has probably discovered in your time with us, heavy squats seem to make everything harder.

From master strength coach Dan John: “In training, remember the body is one piece.” That is the secret! Carrying something for hundreds of meters or pulling your body through space to put your chin over a bar; pushing a big weight over head or plucking it from the ground; whatever the task, the body is one piece. Every part works together in a beautiful, complex, synergistic dance so you can jump, twist, throw, push, and pull with grace.

We pick movements at the Shop that are whole-body in nature which require you to transmit force from your toes through your trunk to your hands. In doing so, you can lift more weight. That means you’ll get stronger more quickly. And, ultimately, that means you’ll achieve your goals faster, whether to shed some fat or dominate in disc golf.

The first step to building a better body and becoming more capable in every area of life was realizing there was a better way than the machine-and-treadmill gym membership approach. (So thanks for being with us!) The next step is breaking free from the myth that effective exercises train this or that muscle. In everything you do, from squats in the warm-up to kettlebell snatches in the conditioning, remember that the body is one magnificent piece and we are here to help you develop the whole thing.

Someone asked about the Turkish Get-Up once — when the class was scheduled to perform 15-20 get-ups during a circuit. “What does this work?” At a loss for words, I could only think to joke, “Ask me tomorrow.”

That is probably the correct answer. So if you’re ever curious yourself just what muscles we’re working out at the Shop… ask me tomorrow.

 

**You can train with Coach Dunte Tuesdays and Thursdays during Fusion n’ Go! You’ll definitely know which muscles you worked after 30 minutes.** 

DBS Voted Best Gym in Austin

Dane’s Body Shop was voted “Best Gym” in the Best of Citysearch 2013! Thank you, everyone, for your votes! We are so lucky to be a part of such a supportive community, and we are extremely grateful to have some of the most brilliant and friendly coaches around!

Spread the word! The biggest compliment you can give us is to bring a friend!

Fundfit Presents: Dane’s Field Day June 22nd

Beat the summertime blues…join us June 22nd for “Dane’s Field Day” at Barton Springs!

This summer’s event will time warp you back to the days of slap bracelets, free spirits, and those little trolls we used to put on the end of our pencils. Pair up with a friend or make it a party with a group of four. Children of all ages are welcome and can participate!

We’re excited to be working with our friends at FundFit Collective on this event. FundFit helps entrepreneurs succeed by creating fun and entertaining fund raising with their fitness events. They believe that staying active and exercising are a crucial part of success.

We’re going to show you a great time at our good, old fashioned Dane’s Field Day from 9am – 12:30pm on Saturday, June 22nd at Barton Springs.

Click the poster to sign up!

fielddayimage

 

On Form: The Clean & Jerk is the sum of its parts

Do you ever wonder what the heck Coach Matthew is talking about when he breaks down the clean and jerk (everyone’s favorite Olympic lift)? Well, he’s got it down to a science, for sure. The clean and jerk is definitely a complicated motion that may feel unnatural while you’re trying to get the motions down, but it’s really the sum of some very basic movements you may see all the time in your workout.

Broken down, the clean is a Romanian deadlift (a deadlift where you lead with your butt and sweep the bar against your legs), an explosive hip thrust (much like when you perform your kettlebell swings), a shoulder shrug, and a front squat. The jerk combines a push press with an overhead squat.

Check out this slow motion video of Lu Xiaojun, China’s world record holder for the snatch, and notice how he utilizes these basic motions. It’s also important to notice how little the bar actually moves. In other words, don’t be intimidated by the weight. Instead, focus on ways to move around the bar.

Watch this a few times before coming to next week’s strength classes and see if understanding how the basic motions fit together will help!

 

May Fusion Athletes: Mark Hernandez & Cherise Smith

We’d like to congratulate Mark Hernandez and Cherise Smith, our May Fusion Athletes of the Month!

Both Mark and Cherise were chosen because of their dedication to fitness,  as well as their drive and determination to improve and bounce back from life’s obstacles.

We asked Mark and Cherise a few questions about the relationship with fitness, their experience with our community, and how they manage such busy schedules.

 

How did you first hear about The Shop, and how long have you been training here?

MARK: I’ve been working out at DBS since the summer of 2011. A fellow DBS member, Richard, kept telling me about this great boot camp run by an ex-pro football player and suggested I give it a try. After the first day I was amazed, humbled, and hooked!

CHERISE: [My husband] Geoff started going to DBS first, when I was in the fourth month of a high-risk pregnancy. He’d come home after a workout exhilarated, telling me about movements and workouts.  I was a little jealous that I couldn’t participate, but mostly, I was determined to try them, when I was able.  I started coming to DBS two months after the baby was

 

Can you tell us more about your fitness background?

M: Prior to joining DBS, most of my workouts over the years included swimming, running, mountain biking, and lifting weights. I discovered P90X in 2008 and got great results; however, I was I very bored working out by myself. I played a number of team sports and my favorites were soccer and ultimate Frisbee until I discovered rugby in college. I  played rugby for about 10 years and I was very fortunate to participate in a tour over seas and got the privilege of trying out for the US National team. After my athletic career was over, I got my rugby coaching certification and volunteered my time to help start a high school program here in Austin, along with coaching at UT and Saint Edwards. I continue to play in a touch rugby league during the summer and I will continue to push my limits at DBS.

 

C: I’ve always loved to play sports, for both fitness and competition.  I swam competitively as a kid.  In high school, I played volleyball year-round, in addition to participating in a school-based sport in every season.  I played volleyball at a Division 1 university.  I’ve completed a half marathon — not my thing!  As all of my DBS friends know, I’m a slow and plodding long-distance runner.  I’ve done a number of sprint triathlons, which is much more to my liking.  Since I’ve been in Austin, I’ve also picked up tennis.

 

You both have extremely busy lives. How do you fit workouts into your schedules? Why is working out important to you?

M: As an actor, finding time to workout is definitely a challenge, as I constantly have to adjust my schedule to prepare for auditions and life in general. I work a day job, practice real estate on the side, and I am very active in my neighborhood. Staying fit is a priority for me because it creates a sense of well being that carries into every aspect of my life. I believe that if you really want something badly enough, you will do whatever it takes to make it happen. For me, that translates into making the time to work out rather than coming up with excuses why I can’t.

C: At the beginning of the week, I put the DBS workouts in my calendar.  Generally, I try to workout in the morning, so that the day doesn’t get in the way.  Sometimes it’s hard to fit in, but no one in my family wants to see me without a daily dose of endorphins! I exercise for physical and mental well-being.  As a former athlete, I admit to being a little vain, too!

 

Cherise, you were back in the Shop only weeks after having your second son, how did you do it?

I started coming to workouts when Baby Kaj was 8 weeks old.  I delivered him C-section, so I had to wait a little bit to heal.  To build up my fitness, I started walking, then running.  I went to 2 DBS workouts a week for a few weeks, then increased to three.  Now, I typically do four.  By going to DBS, my fitness returned quickly.

 

Mark, you often attend Veronica’s 7:30 p.m. class. What is it about that class, time and instructor that is appealing to you? 

The 7:30 class is the most convenient for schedule and it also helps me go to sleep at night. Veronica takes great care in her coaching, especially when she demonstrates movements and ensures we maintain our technique. She definitely walks the walk. I like her easy going attitude and she always seems to know just the right time when to push me, especially when I am struggling. Even when we are pushing through a tough session, we always seem to get in a good laugh about my growling because I can’t run as fast as I want to or because we have to do burpees again!

 

If you had to describe your experience at the Shop to a total stranger, what would you say in 3 sentences or less?

M: DBS is a fitness community where you always feel welcome and nobody will ever judge you regardless of your fitness level. The coaches are certified, helpful, and professional. The workouts are always challenging, always different, and we do fun things together, like steak night and the zombie obstacle course!

C: Everyone I’ve brought has liked and respected the workouts. I tell people how much I love the feeling of accomplishment after a workout; that I love how the workouts integrate lifting, stretching, and cardio; and maybe most importantly, it’s a nice community.   DBS coaches push you to do your best and encourage you along the way.

Congratulations Mark and Cherise! Keep up the great work!

 

To give Dane’s Body Shop a try, take a look at our schedule and see which class is right for you! 

 

The DBS Fiesta Pub Run this Friday!

In true Dane’s Body Shop fashion, we will be kicking off Cinco de Mayo weekend the only way we know how: by getting fit and having fun (with a few drinks in between).

On Friday, May 3, 2013, we’ll be hosting our first ever DBS Fiesta Pub Run.

“What’s the Fiesta Pub Run?” you ask. It’s exactly what it sounds like! We’re going to run from pub to pub and party hardy along the way. The best part: it’s FREE and open to anyone!

Here’s the rundown:

At 6:15pm on Friday, we’ll meet at the Shop. Once everyone’s ready, shortly after, we’re all going to run to Flying Saucer. Dress for a party! The best “fiesta” gear gets a drink on us! Be creative!

After Flying Saucer, we’re going to briskly jog to the Draught House. Just because they spell “draft” the old timey way doesn’t mean they aren’t up for a good time. Freshest salsa dance moves wins another drink!

Finally, we’re going to end the run at Santa Rita Cantina for margaritas and much needed refueling (DINNER!). We’ve got the back patio reserved, so there will be plenty of room for us to sweat off the two previous stops.  You better gussy up on your singing and guitar licks: the best rendition of “La Bamba” wins a margarita!

If you can’t make it to the Shop at 6:15 sharp, that’s okay. We’ll be checking-in to our stops on Facebook. So, keep tabs if you want to meet us later. If you don’t want to run, or can’t for some reason, that’s okay! You can meet us on the Santa Rita patio. We’ll be there around 8:30pm until…question mark?

We’ll see you Friday!

For more information about happenin’, fun DBS events, like us on Facebook! 

High Times: Endorphins and the Push for Survival

Imagine yourself in the wild: the desert, forest, jungle, or the Great Plains. Your family is depending on you, and if you fail, it may be months before you find food. Now imagine you’ve spotted your target, only it’s got two more legs than you and can run about 15-30 miles per hour faster. Maybe it’s a water buffalo or a majestic antelope buck. Luckily, you practice strength and conditioning regularly, and can pursue your prey until it’s exhausted itself and slows down enough to be captured.

This practice is known as persistence hunting, and can be traced to early human ancestors nearly 2 million years back. In persistence hunting, the hunter can use cardiovascular endurance to exhaust their prey.

Persistence hunting is suggested to be early evidence of the “runner’s high,” or the point at which a person breaks through a mental barrier during heavy doses of strenuous activity — an hour of Fusion class, for instance — due to the release of endorphins.

Endorphins, as you may know, are the chemical released from the pituitary gland when the body is put through moderate to high intensity workouts, for continuous periods of time, where breathing is difficult and the muscles are pushed to their full limit. The athlete’s sense of pain  is known to lessen, and a sense of euphoria can overcome them when experiencing runner’s high.

If you just ripped through a round of 21-15-9-3 only to be met with a mile run immediately after, yet you managed to get that mile in under 8 minutes, it’s very possible that you just reached the runner’s high.

Now, we may not be training for the primal fitness that our ancestors needed for survival, and we probably don’t have to hunt for our dinner anymore in this modern world — unless we really want to.  However, we are training for longevity, whether it’s for a healthier life or for increased stamina on the field or at the office. Hey, walking up stairs can be taxing on a Monday morning. Thankfully, your survival through the next season doesn’t depend on your endurance, but you’re workouts contribute to a practice that has long been a part of human survival.

Now go eat some delicious game. You’ve earned it!