My wife has been participating in Kemme Fitness workouts since about summer. It took her a few years, but she is finally getting into it. She always had known the areas of weakness in her program (running with some swimming), but didn’t necessary want to get to know a whole new set of exercises. Once she opened up to it, she soon realized that the learning curve was short lived. She is now setting new goals for herself (pull-ups for example) and running her own workouts without any assistance from me. That is consistent with what I have noticed over the course of 4 years. The learning curve may appear overwhelming at first, but it is short lived.
Consequently, I would say my wife has a Functional Fitness exercise program. It still includes swimming and some running, but is surrounded by Functional Fitness workouts for an overall well-rounded program. We are learning a lot about the strengths AND weaknesses of swimming (more to come later).
The other day, my wife made a comment to me that took me a bit by surprise. She said “it is true that you get out of the program what you put into it.” Why should that be a surprise? Sounds logical doesn’t it? Well I thought by the very nature of the variety and intenseness of Kemme Fitness, that you will get tons out of it no matter what. There is no “half-assing” it.
Wrong!
It brought me back to the story of a co-worker of mine who went from weight lifting to Kemme Fitness in 2010. After about 5 months, he left the program and started weight lifting again. I didn’t understand it at the time. He gave the reasoning that he was gaining weight. What?? That didn’t make sense at all, so I simply ignored and rationalized it away. Funny how we can avoid critical thought of our own beliefs!
My wife’s comment brought me back to why this man might have left. See it wasn’t because he was too out of shape, it was because he was not putting into it what he needed to.
My training style is relaxed. I don’t harp on others. I merely lead by example and let those working out with me tweek things as needed for them. They seem to all step it up just out of peer pressure and because I set a bar. Looking back, I realized that this co-worker stayed in the shadows and did not really participate in the program. He would do a few Burpees, but then lay on the ground for a bit in between. He would take short cuts and rested often. Essentially, he was only doing what he had to in order to avoid drawing too much attention to himself. And because of my training style, I let him.
No wonder he gained weight. No wonder why he left. He was not putting anything into the program. Therefore, he got nothing in return. Whereas, he was comfortable with his weight lifting and knew how to push himself in that setting.
The lesson here then, is even at Kemme Fitness, you still need to keep your head in the mental game. Just because the workouts are intense, and just because we provide tons of variety, you still need to “put something into it.”
Kemme Fitness, just like any other workout program, is not magic. You need to participate and push yourself. Don’t worry, we have tons of resources here to help you along the way, but if you need a workout partner to get motivated – then find one! You want a schedule, then try K-Fit for starters. And now I have released K-Challenge for more intense workouts. In the next few weeks, I’ll be releasing K-Element for all you Slosh Tube lovers.
I also have other posts about the mental game here. Keep your head in the game.