Firstly, we want to thank everyone for the taking part in the Make Hammer Great again survey. We feel truly blessed to have so many great people attending our facility and really appreciate the constructive feedback. We wanted to touch on some of the issues that were raised fairly consistently throughout the survey.
“The carpet upstairs in the group training room needs a clean.”
In our defense, the poor old carpet upstairs has always needed to be replaced. It had been deep cleaned 5 times in the last 2 months as well as vacuumed twice a week. But unfortunately, nothing makes it look any better – it is old carpet. Replacing this floor has been on the ‘to do’ list for quite some time but we’ve decided we can’t put it off any longer.
So some good news going forward is that we will be installing gym tiling in the conditioning classes room which will make it easier to clean and also easier to handle equipment. This type of floor will also allow us to do a little more with our classes which is covered in our next point.
“More classes on the timetable.”
The timetable is about to get a bit of an overhaul. Most of you will know this if you have joined our community forum on facebook. The changes will include some brand new classes we have never done before, changes to the Mama Strength classes, creche times will be updated, more of the classic classes will be added all to help increase the availability of all our services we provide here at Hammer. We will also be extending our open gym times significantly.
While there are many new classes unfortunately we had to make some hard decisions and cut some classes because of the lack of traffic. All of these changes are being finalised and will be announced in the coming days.
“Sometimes things can get crowded on the gym floor.”
This is an age old problem at Hammer. Over the years I have tinkered and switched up the positioning of equipment on the gym floor to maximise space. Every time I think we have it mastered we think of a better way. It’s all a bit of an art and I am no artist, but we have brainstormed and decided to:
- Move some major equipment around to maximise space and movement throughout the gym floor
- In phases throughout the year (funds permitting) we will introduce more equipment into the gym which will also dilute waiting periods for popular apparatuses
- We have to not be greedy with the use of equipment, for too long we have had the ability to use 4 barbells per group or 3 squat racks per group etc, no gym in Brisbane has that ability to use that much equipment per group or session. So, by revamping our programming and increasing the involvement of you the client with the taking off of weights here and there will reduce time between sets and allow us all to use the same equipment without spacing out and being on people’s toes.
“Sometimes banter can get to carried away and our minds can get off the job.”
This is something we really took to heart and appreciate the honesty everyone who commented on this in the survey. We are and always will be a facility that loves to throw a bit banter at each other, it’s what makes us Hammer.
However, we can all admit that it goes too far sometimes or for too long. All of us here at Hammer have had a sit down and have addressed this very issue. We are all aware of it and will endeavour to be better in the future without losing who we are.
“The programming for Group strength…”
Group strength really is a hard model to nail. I think our model is almost the gold standard but that is not saying we do not think there are frailties with the notion. But because it is cheaper than one on one training, some things (like over specified programming) has to take a back seat.
When it comes to individual goals we realise these vary: you may want your arms to look better whereas another member in your group wants to get stronger. You may wonder how the hell is this going to work when we want completely different things.
Regardless of the sparsity of goals, training the same phases of training will still illicit the same results. Getting stronger and leaner almost go hand in hand (unless you are an athlete of some sort or competing then we need to specify more) when training. If you are getting stronger you are putting more muscle mass on, more muscle mass means your resting metabolic rate is increasing which means you will get leaner. Meaning: more muscle makes you lose fat at the same time make you stronger and more powerful.
Furthermore, while there is a common program, we individualise exercises based on mobility, competence and injury. But if you look at it like this, if I were to train a team of Rugby players or netball players they all do the same phases of training as they all are after the same thing, leaner, stronger, fitter and more powerful.
The coach will just individualise their differences based on the factors I mentioned before, (mobility, competence and injury). The outcomes are the same. Obviously, volume work with minimal rest is more beneficial for fat loss but we cannot do it for too long as injury will happen due to over use which then hampers your ability to train, which then effects your ability to lose fat. By cycling your phases like we do, we nullify this. We also get you stronger and more powerful which then aids you the next time we go around the cycles again because you are in better shape physically.
If you disagree that’s ok, but our results for the last three years using this format has produced awesome results for body fat, strength, fitness and power. I highly doubt that individualising every single person would yield better than we are currently getting and secondly, the main reason for doing what we do is reducing injury and keeping you consistent. After analysing the injury rate from last year, we had a 7% injury rate: this is 2% better than last year and less time missed on the gym floor then ever before. Meaning more of you are training week in week out.
So to finish on programming I know it seems like we are generalising, we aren’t. A lot goes in to this and it seems to be working. Sure, if it doesn’t continue that way we will definitely change the format, hence the reason for all the testing we do as that is our constant barometer for change. But we seem to be on the right track.