January is over, which means New Year’s resolutions are in full force!
Every January, you’ll find people crammed into gyms across the country, and everyone seems to have the same goal year after year: lose weight, drop a dress size, get a six-pack, or the like. The problem is that the work is hard, the effort is unfocused and the motivation never seems to last. Why?
When the goal is purely cosmetic, they ignore the gains that they are already making and lose heart while they are working to hit that goal.
At Forteza Fitness, we propose something a bit different. Instead of focusing on the superficial, have your goal to be simply getting stronger, increasing your endurance levels, and becoming more agile. The problem with shallow goals is that they produce shallow results.
For your strength goals, try and really challenge yourself. If you’ve never been able to do a full, head hang pull-up, put in the work under the bar this year and make it happen! If you can do a pull-up, then make it your goal to do five in a row, or ten. Or, work up to deadlifting twice your body weight, which is a great marker to be considered truly strong. Whatever your goal, aim high, and every week work your way up that fitness mountain.
For your endurance goals, sign up for an obstacle race this summer. Many people hate running – it is exhausting and seems to have no focus. Obstacle races solve that by giving you a set of challenges that keep you focused, give you more to do than just fun, while giving you a cardio butt-kicking. And they are great fun! Forteza will be running a number of obstacle races in 2013:
Warrior Dash. June 16th. This is a great introduction to mud runs. This course is doable for a variety of fitness levels. If you’ve just begun your fitness journey, or want a warm up before challenging yourself with the Spartan Race, this is a great place to start.
Run for Your Life. June 22nd. What better motivation to run than being chased by zombies? Run For Your Life is a 5K obstacle run where the course is infested with zombie hoards. The better shape you’re in, the more obstacles you can climb, and the faster you can run, which Just might allow you to get to the finish line. In order to enjoy the full zombie apocalyptic feel for this event, we are planning to camp out the night before, and then enjoy being chased by zombies the following morning.
Spartan Race. July 21st. This is the highlight of the race season for us. With only a 70% finish rate, the Spartan Race is a 9+ mile course that is considered by many to be the most challenging obstacle race out there. The Spartan Race demands a lot of dedication, so if you join the team, prepare for some hard training.
If you have any interest in joining Team Forteza for any of the above races, please contact Keith or Jesse. Training begins in April!
Forteza Fitness and Personal Training 