The best group of friends is one where you share enough similarities to get along well and enjoy some of the same things, but you’re different enough to keep it interesting. Plus, you should always have people close to you to practice your debate skills.
If you decide to join a gym, you’re basically faced with a trio of options:
- You can join a globo-gym (Vasa, Gold’s, 24 Hour Fitness, etc.) where you’ll go workout by yourself, or maybe recruit a training buddy. The benefit: you do your own program, but you’re doing it alone.
- You can join a micro-gym (a CrossFit box or another class-based environment) where you’ll join classes. The benefit: you get to workout with a group of like-minded individuals, but you’re doing the same workout as everyone else. Yes, I realize that good coaches help to modify the workout for individuals, but you’re still working from the original template for the workout, as opposed to starting something that aligns with your goals.
- You can hire a personal trainer at a globo-gym, a micro-gym, or a boutique studio. The benefit: the program is custom designed for you, but you’re also in the company of your trainer the whole time, without a larger community.
For the last year, Wasatch Fitness Academy has offered both whole-group-we-all-do-the-same-thing and 100% individualized workouts, and our athletes have gotten stronger, faster, leaner, and fitter. It’s been working. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do better. In fact, I think it means we can, and that we should.
So here we go.
Wasatch Fitness Academy now offers individual training experiences in a group setting. Each of our hour-long group classes now includes a 20-minute block of independent study time where athletes can select to complete the workout of the day, or to follow a 6-week program. We already have programs designed to build bulletproof legs for skiing and running, upper body strength for climbers, and whole-body muscle gain to get swoll and shed body fat. And more programs are coming, including “torso durability” and “prehab for bad asses.”
Or, one of our coaches can write you a custom program to follow to help you towards your specific goals. Here’s what’s so exciting to me:
Everyone has the opportunity to train towards a specific goal of their choosing, while training in a community of like-minded people who are also on their own paths.
Plus, once you’re done with the Independent Study time each day, you get to suffer along with those people for a 20-minute conditioning session. I think it’s the best of both worlds, and I invite you to come in and see what it’s about. Sign up here.
-Michael