Recapping the Mile

By Lizz Bennett

What an incredible and powerful event we were all lucky enough to be apart of! i am still getting donations and registrations so it will be a few
More day before I have the total numbers of participants. I will let you know as soon as I can! 

To all the brave and giving people that supported The Burpee Mile, what a crazy thing to do. The amount of time, alone, in burpee-ing a mile, is the same amount of time it takes some people to complete a 10k or 1/2 marathon. Some people can bike a good 30-40 miles or trail run up to Elephant Rock and back. In that same amount of time, on a motivated Saturday, I can edge, mow, and fertiluze my lawn...probably weed my flower beds. 

Without hardly any notice AND paying for it, you decided to put yourselves through a mile of the most hated movement we ever throw at you.The soreness, grass stains, hives, scraped knees and ripped up palms could have easily been avoided by just writing a check, true. And that's what NMV needs most, is the $ to help those children find safety, guidance, support, and strength to heal from the layers of damaging abuse that people these children, at one point trusted. People who inflicted willingly and repeatedly to these helpless children. NMV needs this $ to pay the therapists and for the programs and centrrs for safety for these victimized children. And $, even a little bit goes such a long way when every single cent is for this purpose alone.

$ is only part if the need. NMV needs brave people to lend a voice to the ones who can't speak about it. Whether us because they think its their fault, because they're embarrassed, because it might get someone they really care anout in trouble, because it makes other people uncomfortable, because it isn't a topic that anyone wants to think about or address, its too awful to face and confront. But one victim lead to another. It is a silence that is loudly banging against the shut doors around us. 

To everyone that supported The Burpee Mile, in ANY WAY, you opened your mouth and lent a voice to the speechless, spoke the taboo, stood up for the beat down, sacrificed your time, sweat, skin, clothing, other more glorious events, possibly even the snide remark or comment from another. Based on all the statistics in Utah alone, we ALL either know someone that has been sexually abused as a child, by someone they knew, or we have been victims ourselves. 

A Mile of Burpees is a crazy thing to do. So very many of you did it! Alone, with your families, in OK, FL, WY, CO, MI, Canada, TX, with perfect strangers, with 40 sponsors!

With victims. As victims.

On behalf of No More Victims, the many generous and suportive Sponsors, the families of victims, the victimized children, as a victim myself, thank you for speaking up and doing something hard because you can and because there are things so much worse than a mile of burpees. One day let us hope and pray the cycle will end and these children will be victims no more.

Have You Got Skin in the Game?

by Neil Anderson

The pursuit of health and fitness is a peculiar game.  I say "game" because it is to some.  At least it appears that way when you take into consideration the actual lack of effort they put in to such an undertaking.  We have observed that many (the uninitiated) begin this process with little to no thought about what it will take to be successful.  I mean, I have personally witnessed games of Pictionary played with more forethought and planning than many people put into getting healthy.  It's weird.  But it happens.  OFTEN.  It is little wonder why most fail to meet their healthy objectives.  

Gaining health and fitness is a ROUGH process, to say the least.  An unrelenting, frustratingly ROUGH process that grants success only to those who possess the will to succeed, the bravery to endure and the humility to change.  To think you might forge your way though this process without walking through the refiner's fire is a farce.  In this day and age (it is 2012 for Hell sakes), if you still believe "easy" and "optimally healthy" belong in the same sentence - you watch too much T.V. 

To be successful at regaining your health and fitness you'll need to become VERY clear on what exactly you are willing to sacrifice.  Will you give up your comfort, your convenience, your entitlement?  

You'll also need to become VERY deliberate on how you are going to go about becoming healthy.  Winston Churchill said, "Failure to plan is planning to fail."  If you don't have a working schedule (workout, rest, family time, meal plan, etc) that you are trying to follow to the letter, it is time to get with a trainer - STAT!

These are basic steps.  Steps you know all too well, but let me ask you this:

Have you got any skin in the game?  

Have you ever wondered why the bank makes you put money “down” on big loans?  It is simple.  They want you to have some “skin in the game.”  You are less likely to walk away from your commitment to them if you have some flesh on the table.  Something that will hurt A LOT if you walk away from it.  They have figured out that you are more apt to pay them back when you have contributed (invested) something very valuable to the process of borrowing money from them.  It is interesting to note, in the process of negotiating with a bank for financing a home, many are willing to contribute all they have.  

So the question NOW is ..., Do you have skin in THIS game?  More specifically, what is it that you have contributed to this process of getting healthy and fit that you CANNOT walk away from without some REAL pain?  Have you considered it?  What have you got to lose if you walk away?  

You should know, if your answer is much less than EVERYTHING - it should be no surprise to you that you may be struggling to see results.  Truth is, until you put that which you truly value on the line, you haven't shown enough faith in yourself to BE successful.  Yet ...

There are things we value in life above all others.  When we learn what these are (family, money, time, appreciation) they become even more valuable.  Some of us are well aware what these are.  Others have not discovered them yet.  In part II, I have joined forces with renowned Clinical Social Worker - Louis Naegle to expand on the concept of "Putting Skin In the Game."  We have also created an exercise to help you discover what is most valuable to you and what you might use as leverage to put it "all on the line" to become more healthy.

Programming - Works

It is called "programming."  It is the element missing from your friends' workouts.  It is too bad.  They could be saving a lot of time, energy, money and frustration if they'd consider it. 

Let me take a minute to brag on ya'll.  Today we saw impressive improvement in strength across the board.  All class times reported significant improvement.  Personal records were set all over the place on heavy deads.  Both the over-all male (455 - Brother of Beastmode) and female (255 - Buff) dead lift records fell today.  Many many other PRs were reported.  Some by 50 lbs!  Others by more! 

OUTSTANDING work all! 

The thing is, we have hardly done ANY heavy deads this year.  A couple of times we have done heavy sets of 5.  Once, we did heavy 4's.  Even then, I can only find (less than) a half dozen times we have done heavy deads at all.  The question then becomes, HOW is this possible?  How is it that so many of you saw such improvement on so little specific training on this movement?  Wouldn't you think that to improve your dead lift by over 50 lbs. and set a new PR you'd have to put some specific, constant and focused effort on dead lifting?   

It is called "programming."  And your trainers at GPP have learned how to put these improvements onto you without subjecting you to the potential dangers and rigors of frequent dead lifting. 

The popular notion among fitness trainers in the world (the bad ones) is that delivering a daily "hell beatin" is all that is needed to show improvement in fitness, strength and health to your client.  So, instead of learning anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, biomechanics and the like, inexperienced (and bad) trainers are putting all of their effort into thinking up creative ways to "WOD" up their clients and mop them off the floor after a workout.  And while many clients will see some improvement from this type of training, the improvement they see is not without downside and risk.

Downside - Slow change, incomplete fitness, imbalances in physique, injury and expense.

Risk - Permanent injury, poorly developed health & fitness, de-motivation, lack of confidence, illness and imbalances.

The problem with this randomized stuff is that your body just doesn't respond well to random.  Case in point, can you imagine how successful your doctor would be at helping you if he prescribed random drugs, to be taken at random times, in a randomized dose?  Or how about your orthodontist?  What if she randomly tightened your braces using randomized forces and tension?  You might see some improvement, right?  Then again, it could really mess you up bad too.

It isn't much different with exercise.  The thing is we all know it.  Can you imagine training for a marathon using randomized protocol?  Just start running however many miles, however many times per week/day? 

To see progressive change that is healthy and can serve you in every way, you'll need some well thought-out programming to see the fastest, most complete improvement.  Anything less than this will yield poor results.  We've always said, "Randomized training yields random results." 

If you'd like to learn the specifics of how we program and train at GPP, please send us a letter to "Contact Us."  We are organizing a class to teach our specific methodology and training techniques to others.