Week 3 reflection

Week 3 was by far my best week as both an athlete training at Compete, and as a worker. I feel as if I got into more of a groove and became adjusted to the schedule, and really learned how to make the best of the experience. From a training perspective. I feel like I did a much better job focusing on the small details. For example, it is easy to get greedy with weights on a Friday uppers day, but if there is a 2 or 3 second negative, adding weight often means cheating the negatives, even if it is for a second. However, these exercises are all about range of motion, so I found myself dropping 5-10 pounds in a few exercises in order to make sure I was doing so. Additionally, I feel like my diet became a lot stricter and I began to figure out my plan more. One meal I sometimes struggle with is my before bed snack because no one wants to cook up 6 oz of beef when they are about to go to bed, or make a kale salad. However, I decided to plan ahead. In the beginning of the week, I bought a bunch of grass fed meatballs from a nearby market, which lasted me the week. It was much easier planning ahead and having the food already made the struggling to cook up food each night. Meal planning is definitely something I'm looking to improve in the future.

From a working perspective, I feel like I was really able to contribute to the gym and help everyone out, and this week consisted of multiple tasks. I was firing on all cylinders. One day Joe was extremely busy with training stuff, so I helped with some administrative stuff. I called Verizon, waited on the line and talked to the woman until he finished training his group. Some days he would be busy with administrative stuff, and I would jump in on training people. Wednesday was a great example of this because there were multiple people in the gym who needed a trainer for band work, and I jumped right in and helped. Also, when I saw something that needed to be done, I didn't ask, I just did it. One of the times I did this was when there were pebbles from the turf all over the main lobby floor and I knew it would look better if it were cleaned. I realized at times there was a little bit of standing around, so I needed to find my own ways to help out because I knew Joe was busy with other stuff. The third week was a great way to wrap up this unbelievable experience, and I would like to thank the entire Compete staff for making it possible (@Joe @Dean @Mike @Marty).

5/20/16

Friday was an awesome finish to a really fun three weeks. My workout was tough, consisting yet again of all eccentric upper body exercises and a quick circuit for conditioning. After this lift, I was done with phase 2 of my Spring workouts (I started on 2 because I was 3 weeks behind everyone), and was onto phase 3, which consisted of higher weight and lower reps. For work, I helped clean out an apartment building next to the gym that may be used for offices in the near future. I had to vacuum, carefully take out the tape that was on the walls for whatever reason, and tidy it up. It was definitely a bit messy, but I could see it be turned around into something nice with a little more work.

5/19/16

The Thursday lift was a tough lower body lift, which consisted of sled sprints, side planks, reverse lunges, and lots of speed and mobility work. For conditioning, we had to row 2,000 meters on the rowing machine which was pretty tiring. I feel like I improved at rowing because instead of trying to go a million miles per hour, I focused more on my range of motion, which made it easier and made me row faster. Joe had ordered a new squat rack, barbell and plates earlier in the week which showed up yesterday. I had to unbox all of the new equipment, neatly stack them and order them, and then help put them together. Assembling the new equipment is a lot of work, but it is pretty cool seeing the new stuff in the gym and it will make the workouts go by quicker because there will be less waiting around for one of the squat racks to open up in the summer when it tends to be more crowded

5/18/16

Wednesday was my off day from lifting. It is right in the middle of my 4 workouts during the week, and time for my muscles to repair after a tough first two days was certainly needed. That being said, yesterday was all work. The cable and internet had not been working for 2 weeks and the Verizon guy did not show up despite saying he was going to show up, yet Joe was still being billed for cable and internet. He made the decision to cut his ties with Verizon, which led me to my first task of the day: Calling on his behalf to cancel his plan with Verizon. Perfect intern task. I called the woman, explained to her the situation, mentioning that he had been billed for weeks without having service and the Verizon guy never showed up to fix it, and that it was time to terminate the plan. However, the woman on the line seemed a bit argumentative, despite all I wanted to do was end the plan. This conversation was not going over smoothly for whatever reason. Then Joe took the phone. The conversation was going the exact same way. He then said to her, "Look, I know you get hundreds of these calls every day and I do not been to be rude, but I am just a bit frustrated and want to cancel my plan." From that point on, the conversation could not have gone over any smoother. People skills 101. He saw this situation from her perspective, gave here a feeling of appreciation, and bingo, she finally worked with him.

From there, I helped out with the middle school group. There were kids in this group who weighed 70 pounds, and some that weighed 160 pounds, so it was important to watch over how much weight they were doing in the circuits to make sure each kid was not doing too much or too little. Many of these kids were new to working out, and rightfully so, and it was important to make sure they were doing the correct exercises and maintaining proper form. After, some high school athletes came in to make up workouts they missed from earlier in the week. A lot of the activation was double band resistance work (shuffles, crossovers, bounding, backpedaling, etc.), so I jumped into the bands and helped resist a few of the athletes that needed a partner. Also, there was a hockey specific workout which was slide board strides with resistance, and I helped give some resistance to a few of the athletes in this exercise, too. Here is a picture of the exercise with me resisting.

Week 2 Reflection

My second week was yet again filled with plenty of awesome learning experiences. From an athletic perspective, I really felt much more adjusted to the workouts than I had been the week before. The first week was a bit of a feeling out process and getting used to all of Joe's exercises again. That being said, I had to spend a lot of time emphasizing my form and asking questions. That made the lifts take a little bit longer. Once I had my form down and knew what all the new exercises were,  I was able to go up in weight and cruise through the workouts. From a nutritional standpoint, I feel like I did better, but not my best. I was certainly eating better because I was at home and had my car available to go to the grocery store, but I definitely feel like I could have done better. For example, I would not go to bed until 12 some nights and not wake up until 11, which means that there was a span of 11 hours where I did not eat. I need to start going to bed earlier so I can get up earlier. Also, My meal schedule (posted in a previous blog) states that I need an early morning big breakfast, a snack in between (sandwich with chobani and granola) and then a relatively big lunch. However, if I slept late and ate breakfast at 1130am, I could not possibly stomach all of that food. Therefore, I would end up having a big breakfast, skip my snack completely, and then have a small lunch because I was still full from breakfast. Last spring, I put on 13 pounds of muscle when training with Joe, and I credit a lot of it to my nutrition routine. The key word is ROUTINE. I would be up early for school, know exactly what class to have my 10 am snack in, have a Sunday routine of making food for lunch for the week (usually chicken, brown rice, and broccoli), know to have my after school snack on the way to the gym, Stop at the same place for my post workout meal, eat again when my mom made dinner, and then have my other snack before bed. This is only my second week home, so I still need to figure out a routine and stick with it.

From a working perspective, I really feel as if I did a lot to help out around the gym. I think my best contribution was the day the other intern, Mike, and I painted the foundation. I drive in every single day and see it, and I know it is going to be there for a while and I certainly think it looks a lot better than before it was painted, but that could be a bit bias. Also, I realized how many small errands are needed when operating a gym, way more than I imagined. I feel like every day there was a Staples or Home Depot run needed, and most of the time they were needed for small and unnoticed, yet important things, like the nutrition packet for athletes or screws to build the shelves people can put their things on when working out. I could not speak more highly of Joe, Dean, Mike, Marty, and all of the other trainers for how much time and effort they invest in their athletes. I realize this especially when I am helping out and observing the gym, not working out and only focused on my lift. They constantly push their athletes to reach their highest potential, and are always there to answer questions and help people when needed. It is easy to see each person simply as one client out of hundreds, but they really do make an effort to build a relationship with each and every person in the gym. Being able to grow a relationship with a client in order to get the best out of them was certainly the biggest skill I learned in week 2.

5/17/16

The Tuesday lift is usually the tougher of the two upper body lifts, and by the end of this one I felt like my arms were going to fall off. After doing some medicine ball explosiveness and core work, we  started the lift. My first bracket was dumb bell press with a 2-1-2 negative (2 seconds down, 1 second pause at the bottom, 1 second on the way up), 4 sets of 8 reps, along with 4x8 dumb bell bent over row. After that, we had pull ups with a 2-1-2 negative (by far the hardest exercise) 3x10, along with bosu feet elevated pushups with a weight vest 3x10 with a 3-1-2 negative. The last bracket consisted of kettle bell towel curls (you loop a hand towel through a kettle bell and curl it) for 10 reps, along with dumb bell skull crushers and trx face pulls. By this point I was pretty tired. However, we still needed to do the circuit. The circuit consisted of 4 sets of the following exercises: Sledgehammering a tire x10, Ab wheel x10 and rowing machine x300 meters. This wasn't necessarily the toughest circuit, but after that workout, it was pretty tough to do. For work, I had a lot of small tasks, which also consisted of some cleaning. I cleaned all the rowing machines, bikes, sleds, swiss balls, and put everything in the right place. After, I helped out the next group which was a lot of setting things up and making sure all the equipment was in place for them. Enjoy this picture of my buddy Murph mixing in some KB towel curls in preparation for beach season/next lacrosse season.

5/16/15

Yesterday was by far the toughest workout this spring. It was the same leg workout as every Monday, but it was weak three and the amount of sets I needed to do increased and I had a hockey tournament that weekend, so my legs were already pretty dead. After some stretches for activation, we went on the turf and had medicine balls with us and we did broad jumps and lateral hip tosses to work on explosiveness. Additionally,  we had one exercise in there where you needed to throw the ball up as high as possible, and then sprint 25 yards. I had speed squats, dead lifts, pistol squats and some other mobility work in the lift. For conditioning, we had sled sprints, which was four 50 yard sprints with a sled with 4 plates on it. I was already exhausted before the conditioning, and once I finished, I was ready to call it a day.

After my workout and before I started working, I had a conversation with Joe about a few aspects of my overall development. First, I realized that I was not getting enough meals in me each day because I was sleeping until 10:30 every morning. However, since I was going to bed at 12 each night, he told me to go to bed at 10:30 and wake up at 8, which will allow me to have breakfast, 1 snack and lunch before my workout, opposed to a late breakfast and a small lunch. Also, Joe is an avid reader on personal and athletic development, and he has given me book recommendations to help me grow as a person and athlete since my junior year of high school. He suggested that the next book I read is Winning Every Day by Lou Holtz, which is about the daily sacrifices needed to achieve short and long term goals. Definitely gonna shoot that an order on Amazon today.

5/12/16

Today was an upper body workout day. Again, many of the exercises had negatives built into them, such as the dumbbell presses, pull ups, and elevated bosu pushups. The elevated bosu push ups are when your feet are elevated on a bench, and you are doing pushups on a bosu ball (black part facing up). This requires a lot of balance and it was especially hard when I had to throw in a 3 second negative on the way down. From the past few weeks of functional strength training, I have realized that my flexibility is nowhere close to where it should be. I have always known I wasn't the most flexible guy, but I realize more and more how important it is to be flexible as a hockey player, especially at the next level where skating is so crucial. There are certain moves you simply cannot do if you are not flexible. That being said, I set a goal to become more flexible today, and in order to do so, I am going to stretch for 15-20 minutes a night, religiously. Also, I am going to test my sit and reach each Monday to make sure I'm improving. After my workout, I moved some Compete merchandise from Joe's basement to the gym. From there I had to sort them all out and fold the shirts and sweatshirts neatly. Also, I had to put away all of the gym equipment that was out of place, which took quite some time.

5/10 and 5/11

Tuesday started with a difficult lower body workout. We started off the lift with some agility work and hip activation, which really made sure my muscles were ready for the quite difficult workout. The toughest part of my workout on Tuesday was the dead lifts. Not only are dead lifts difficult to begin with, if your form is not perfect, there is a high chance that you are going to hurt your back. I would always start of the right way, with my back not rounded out, but when I would get to my 5th or 6th rep, I would round my back out again. I think that the reason why was because you get more and more tired after each rep, which makes it tough to focus on the small details when you are that tired, and I definitely feel that I got better at focusing on the small details when dead lifting. When I finished my lift, it was on to helping out the adult group. Again there was one younger client in the group and I certainly did my best at helping him with little details, such as driving through his heels when doing squats. Additionally, I had to make sure that all the equipment was set up, which mean't that I was constantly running around making sure bands were tied to the squat rack for band exercises, moving the boxes around for people to do box jumps, moving sleds onto the turf for conditioning, and many other small tasks to make sure they had everything ready to go. Tuesday was a very training specific day, as both an athlete's perspective and a working perspective.

Yesterday, however, was really a work day. A large chunk of the day was painting the foundation of the building white because it had not been painted in a long time. Another intern and I had to basically paint all around the building, which took a while. However, it was a 75 degrees and sunny outside so I had no complaints being out there. Also, I had never really painted a building before and it was definitely a good life skill to learn. When we finished, we had to do some work around the building like throwing out some broken hoses and moving some things down the basement. When I finished, I had to make a run to Staples for Joe. I needed to make 20 copies of his nutrition packet for his clients, which needed to be specifically done (clear cover, colored front page, every other page black and white, blue back and blue spirals). After making sure the Staples guy (real nice guy, his name was Daniel) had the layout down, I had finished my final task of the day.

Here is a picture of the adult group getting after a day 2 lift!

Week 1 Reflection

My first week was an incredible learning experience from training, nutritional, and business perspectives. I had the opportunity to view Compete from the perspective of an athlete, as well as a member of the staff. From an athlete's perspective, I could not speak more highly of Joe and all of his staff and how much they put into making sure their athletes are getting better. Seeing someone go into their next season a little bit stronger, faster, and more confident is of the utmost importance to them. When I began training with them in 2013, I immediately realized a difference in not only my overall ability as a hockey player, but in my confidence that they had instilled in me. Our group has no more than 7-10 people in the gym at a time, and with 2-3 trainers working, you always have someone making sure you are training properly. Even as one of the more experienced guys in the gym this Spring, my overall knowledge of what I am doing continues to grow. For example, I mentioned in an earlier blog that I learned how effective three second negatives were, I also learned more about my form, such as keeping your knees bent the entire time you do T-bar presses so you are not using your legs to make it easier (it is a shoulder exercise). Also, I learned a few tips to make my nutrition plan even better and more effective.

While working at Compete, I realized how much really goes in to running a gym. It can be simple things, like seeing a shelf where you put your drinks, and realizing that small thing required a run to Home Depot, consistent cleaning, and the time to assemble it. Or it can be bigger things, like realizing there are groups from 6:30 am- 8pm in the Summer and Joe and Dean are in the gym for a large portion, if not all of those groups. That is an absolute grind and I can't see anyone wanting to do that unless they really love it. That being said, if I ever wanted to do something like this one day, I would have to be all in.

Everything happened pretty much as I expected this week, which was a mixture of working out, training others, and odd jobs. However, as mentioned, I did not realize how many small jobs were needed, which does make sense because the sports complex is brand new and there is certainly a lot to be done to set it up. I think I benefited from this weeks activities by becoming better as an athlete by training, learning the ins and outs of running a successful business and learning important life skills by working with other people both as an athlete and an intern. Week 2 coming in spicy hot. Stay tuned.

5/5/16

I started the day off with a lower body workout. The lift started with band work, mobility exercises and agility work. Once we finished our activation, we jumped right into the lift. We had sled sprints, side planks, barbell reverse lunges, and many other core and lower body exercises that made the lift a tough one. For conditioning, we had to row 2,000 meters on the rowing machine. I had never used a rowing machine before, and let me tell ya, they are tiring. When I finished my workout, I had a few chores to do for Joe. I cleaned the cubbies, sleds and water fountains, as well as made a run to Walgreens and swept the gym. After, I helped out with the 7pm adult group. Most of the adults are seasoned veterans at this point and know exactly what they are doing, but I helped out by setting up the equipment they needed throughout their lift.

5/4/16

Today I spent a good chunk of my time working on bettering my nutrition plan. Joe gave me a nutrition plan to follow a year ago, which I still have, but it has been quite some time since I have fully committed to it. Additionally, because of my food allergies (Nuts, seafood, legumes, and more), I needed to make adjustments to the plan given to me which required a good chunk of time and research. Here is what my typical food plan will be on off season workout days:

Breakfast (8 am): 4 eggs, 1 cup of spinach, oatmeal with flax seeds, breakfast shake (1 cup of milk, 1/2 scoop of whey protein, 2 tbsp of soy nut butter, 1/2 of a banana, 1/2 cup of frozen strawberries), and 1 multivitamin.

Snack (10:30): Soy nut butter on wheat bread with a piece of fruit

Lunch (12:30-1): My lunch varies day to day. I sometimes do chicken with broccoli and brown rice, or I will get a sandwich from a local deli or do a salad with meat.

Workout (3:30): Whey protein, 2 pieces of fruit, and a soy nut butter sandwich depending on if I need some extra fuel for the workout or not.

Dinner (5:30): My new go-to post workout meal is steak or turkey tips with brussel sprouts and either brown rice or a sweet potato. Some days ill mix it up and get a burrito bowl with brown rice, steak, chicken, corn, cheese and lettuce.

Dinner #2 (7:00): For my second dinner, I usually eat whatever my mom is making, which usually ends up being 8 oz of steak or chicken, veggies, and a sweet potato.

Snack (9:30): 6 oz of grass fed beef, 1 tbsp soy nut butter, 1 cup of kale, and a flax seed oil pill.




This nutrition plan is still a work in progress. Having Joe, a certified nutritionist, as a resource really helps, as I can always ask him about what I am putting in my body. Working out won't do much if you are not fueling your body with the right foods at the right times, and it requires lots of commitment and planning. Sometimes this means getting up 30 minutes earlier to make a good breakfast instead of rushing to Dunkin Donuts or taking the time to make meals for the day. I feel like my knowledge of nutrition has greatly increased over the past year and I have definitely been doing better at fully committing myself to eating right. It is easy to tell someone what to eat, but if they do not know why they are putting certain foods in their bodies, it will be impossible for them to make these decisions on their own. In that sense, the "why" is more important than the "what."

5/3/16

Day 2 started with jumping into the lift with the 3:30 group, which was an upper body workout. We started off the workout with some activation exercises such as yoga pushups, jump ropes, med put (throwing a medicine ball against a wall by rotating your hips and upper body), reverse bear crawls and sled shoves. After warming up with those exercises, we jumped into the lift. I realized many exercises had a some form of a negative, which means you need to count down a certain number of seconds going down or up. For example, we had dumbbell presses, but instead of just going straight down and up quickly, it had a 3-1-2 negative, meaning I needed to take 3 seconds going down, pause for a second at the bottom, and take two seconds going up. Adding a negative made the exercise 100x harder. In fact, the amount of weight I used was 20-25 pounds lighter than what I would do for normal dumbbell presses for 10 reps, yet this still felt harder. Joe explained to me that adding negatives into certain exercises is a really good way to put on mass. I always thought the only way to put on a lot of mass is to simply put up as much weight as possible, yet I learned otherwise. I'm glad I asked the question because it gave me a new perspective on training methods.

After finishing my workout, it was time to help out around the gym. My work today consisted of running to Home Depot and making a few copies of the key to the gym, helping out the adult group by making sure all the equipment they needed was out, and mopping the gym once the last group finished. Though it was late and I was pretty tired when it was time to mop, the boys helped keep the mood light and the morale high. By observing and helping multiple groups a day, I really feel as if my knowledge for the training industry has grown in two short days and I have a much better feel for what the career would be like. One of the things I really like about Compete is how much everyone wants to be there. The trainers give 100% to their clients, and in return, the clients give back their full effort.

5/2/16

Today was my first day of my internship at Compete Strength and Conditioning. I started the day off with an hour and a half lower body workout, which consisted of speed squats, hex bar deadlifts, pistol squats and numerous mobility exercises. After my 2pm workout, I helped out with the 3:30 group. In the warmups, I helped a client with activation exercises by going inside a double band and resisting him as he did high knees, power skips, and shuffles. After, I cleaned the rowing machines for Joe. He opened up a new sports complex 5 days ago, so there is much to be done to set the new complex up. I helped build a few shelves to be put into the gym, which included a run to Home Depot. Enjoy the photos of the new gym and me cleaning the rowing machines!