WOD

In case you didn’t notice I’ve gathered some shadows 🙂 This is good, we’re finding ways to grow. There are five studs and studettes (industry term) looking to become “New Trainers” here at Lynnwood CrossFit: John “Darkness” Harkness, Renee Lirette, Lisa Merritt, JP Levesque and “Ponch” Hartley.

We’ve developed a curriculum to develop their training and coaching skills. In a month or so they will lead some classes under the Fearless Leader’s watchful eye (like Sauron I have only one eye). After that they will be building their own clientele and adding new people to our community! So when you see them with a clipboard writing notes, let them be, you focus on being the awesome athlete you are, developing your skills and abilities to the highest degree and they’ll focus on becoming an awesome coach, developing their skills and abilities to the highest degree. See a common thread here?

The Vision: (besides world domination)

Actually that is the Vision, to develop more coaches so that we can get more and more people involved in changing their lives for the better. The rate limiting factor in this equation (world domination occurs when: # healthy people > # of not healthy people) is quality coaches who will help their clients achieve success. Getting Certified (by any agency, CrossFit Inc. included) is only the beginning, as if there was an end to the tutelage of an excellent coach.

Where do you (the life blood of Lynnwood CrossFit) fit in?

You are the front lines! The Navy Seal, the Green Beret, first in last out. If that’s a little too hardcore, you could also be the strength of the base of the pillar (horrible Dune reference), the very foundation of the gym. You could also be the muscles of the body, doing all the hard work day after day! I know my analogies are lame. I’m a weightlifter people, I coach weightlifters and budding gymnasts, I’m not a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, work with me here!!

Does that help? Keep coming day after terrible day, keep learning, keep trying to be the best version of you, not just for you, but for your family, and friends. What we’ll do is keep putting up CrossFit’s WOD, keep scaling the workout so that it develops you as it’s intended, and keep instructing you so that you’re safe and progressing because you are our family and closest friends.

Big Group Hug!

Sunday, the day after Halloween. My thinking is that the 8am class will be a bit sparse. So, the gym will be closed in the early AM, opening instead at 11:00AM for class and remaining open for a few hours after that.

Sold.

Friday’s practice total was awesome! It was a great Friday workout and legitimately the first “easy” day ever… I’ll see to it that we don’t get in a pattern of that around here 😉

I had to put in that last one, the kidlet is CUTE! Great job though you guys, “comfort” with these movements is getting really up there and we’re ready to bring it on the 7th!! Yeah, that’s next Saturday! CrossFit Seattle, Rainier CrossFit, Outer Edge CrossFit, CrossFit Advantage and perhaps some other seemingly random lifters will show up to attempt to earn Glory.

Can’t wait.

Here we go.

Gym’s charge money, people have to eat. Let’s examine a few things: “Joining Fee’s”, Personal Training Rates, Group Training Rates, Monthly Dues, Sales 101, “Processing Fee” and wherever else my frustration leads this blog update.

Joining Fee: First and foremost, if you pay this you are a sucker. Sorry, I just gotta say it like it is. Why does a gym, or fitness center, or spa (least favorite) need to charge you $99, $199, $229, or $459 to allow you to start paying them monthly dues? Here’s the deal. The Sales Staff (PC for salesman), or membership advisor, or fitness assistant or membership representative or whatever derivative the name tag says get paid on a percentage of “Cash”. “Cash” is usually the aggregate of all monies brought in at the Point of Sale (POS), this usually includes first month’s dues, last month’s dues (are you renting a house?), joining fee, processing fee, tanning, personal training and anything else they can roll into that wonderful initial experience at the gym. A percentage of “Cash” so the higher that “Cash” number is they make more money. That’s it for the joining fee, it’s just the best way to get “Cash” up so they can get to the higher “Tier” to get a bigger cut of what they bring in. What else could it be for? They’ve already got 4,000 members paying whatever a month, and if that can’t cover expenses, try pawning an elliptical. Sorry I had to 🙂

Ok, now that the “Joining Fee” has been discussed, I’ll move on.

Personal Training Rates: First and foremost, big box personal training like selling used cars is a commission based pay system. Jack Johnson the Wise determines (using a pre-scripted often memorized sales protocol) that you need X number of sessions to get in shape. This many sessions will cost Y dollars. Jack Johnson the Wise will get paid a percentage of that sale right away, and yes it will increase as he sells more and more. Furthermore, he gets paid pretty poorly per hour spent training, in the end if he services all the sessions sold, Jack Johnson the Wise may earn only 45%-50% of what the sessions cost (including the lump commission at the holy POS). This means that if Jack Johnson the Wise is smart, he will spend most of his time selling training, rather than actually training. This is in fact the easiest way to make the most money as a TRAINER is to sell massive amounts of sessions. Furthermore, try this out you’ll flip, the sessions cost upwards of $60 (I’ve heard of LA Fitness charging $92 per session). Go ahead and do that math for 5-6 workouts a week, if Jack Johnson the Wise can even guide you through the WOD…

Group Training Rates: Laughable, most gyms don’t have packages for this, they just lie and make something up, or they just charge the people the same and basically make twice the money. Try this one out too. Crazy.

Monthly Dues: SALE! $9 A MONTH, please sign up. The goal here is to charge you an exorbitant amount of money in the joining fee and then have it be small enough so that you won’t notice it when you balance your checkbook. Seriously. Furthermore, the workout options are so boring that you should quit relatively soon after starting if you’re smart. They blame your lack of discipline, I blame their lack of programming or skills at training, but hey whatever.

Sales 101: Attempt to close, they say “no” which you know is an “objection”. Agree, isolate, overcome, re-close. Agree: “Sally I understand that it’s hard to get to the gym, finding time to workout is hard.” Agree. Isolate: “Now Sally, the cost of this membership is not too much? The location of the facility isn’t too far from where you live? Your husband is excited that you want to start working out and supports your efforts? Do the childcare hours work for you? Okay, thanks, so the only reason that you wouldn’t be able to workout is that it’s hard for you to find the time to workout?” Isolate. Overcome: “Sally, you give time to everyone around you, your husband, your children, let’s work on your schedule for a minute and find what times you could squeeze a quick workout, if you’d like once we do figure out when works, let’s get you a couple of 1/2 sessions with a trainer to get you going quick, sound good?” Overcome. Re-close: “Sally, now that we’ve got that schedule figured out, let’s go ahead and get everything filled out and signed up!”
See that process? Agree, Isolate, Overcome, Reclose. Ice to Eskimos people. Try this sometime, just keep throwing out a different “objection”, I don’t have time, it costs too much, I’ve got to ask my spouse, I’ve got get more in shape first etc. See what they say, it’ll be canned, I promise.

Processing Fee: This is the mack-daddy of “Fee’s” this is the unwaivable corporate fee, the sales person cannot “hook you up” on this one. What does this pay for? $60 Processing Fee, does that really mean that for your membership card (they come in boxes of 100), and for someone to enter the information from the sheet into the database is $60!? Wow. We charge $16.43, and yes that off sets the cost of billing (so you get frequent flyer miles) and Deidra’s time to input it into our database. $60 I don’t think so.

Now, my ire is piqued. We charge zero joining fee, ever. We have a beginners course called On Ramp, that is $195 for 12 sessions ($195/12 = $16.25 each) which could double as a joining fee, EXCEPT, you don’t pay monthly dues when you’re taking On Ramp (subtract $35). Our minuscule processing fee is there to ensure our paperwork gets done well, and that we don’t lose money processing people’s cards. Crazy I know, ours is 1/4 the competition. We have a $45 dollar program if you choose not to do On Ramp which get you TWO hours ($22.50 per session) with a trainer to make sure you have no questions about equipment or movements so that you can use this gym safely. Obviously we recommend that everyone does classes and On Ramp, but we know that it’s tough. Monthly classes are the next step. We teach fitness! $120 + $35 gets you unlimited sessions of training (let’s go 5 days each week, or 20 sessions each month), that means that you’re paying $7.75 each workout. Seven and three quarter dollars for the most innovative fitness program ever, the revolution that is taking over the globe one garage gym at a time.

Know anyone who’s getting absolutely ripped off by a big box?

Clan Cheiftan Out.

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com

The article is written for Triathletes but it definitely is applicable to all athletes especially CrossFitters. The jist of the article is if I asked you “Why do you train?” you may respond back with something trite like “To lower my blood cholesterol”, or “to pass my PT test”, or because you’re edgy and crass, “So I look better naked.”

Ben is right, these all ring hollow. I’m mentally preparing for when the dudes are 4 or so and they start asking me “Why?” after everything, even when I’ve already answered it 15 times.

So here it goes: ask yourself why you train, answer with whatever; here’s the interesting part – ask “why” to yourself about that answer, and then again, and then again. About the time you start to get frustrated with this exercise you’re probably getting close to the gut wrenching truth as to why you really train. For me it was powerful, revealing and previously unknown.

I highly suggest this exercise in discovering your internal motivation. See you this weekend…

Clan Cheiftan

Halloween’s Special WOD. Now. The calendar says for the 31st. Here’s the catch, that’s a Saturday. Sadly I’ll be gone – not good. SO, we’re gonna run the “special thematic workout” on both Friday and Saturday that week just to make sure that we’ve all done enough work to merit a small increase in “poor” carbohydrate blocks on Saturday night.

Things to wet your appetite:

Facts regarding the Headless Horseman:
1. 18th Century Hessian Soldier
2. Killed by a cannonball to the head
3. One of 548 killed in the battle for Chatterton Hill
4. Hessians were a German conscription to the British Army who fought against the Rebels (us) during the Revolutionary War
5. Known for horse riding, jack o’ lantern tossing, being spooky as hell, actually dangerous (unlike most poltergeists and lesser ghosts), and really hating Ichabod Crane
6. A possible reason for this hatred is Ichabod’s (apparently smoking hot) wife Katerina van Tassel (sounds smoking hot) whom the Headless Horseman (possibly names Brom Bones) was in love with until his untimely decapitation, or astounding lack of awareness of the second rule of DodgeBall as purported by Patches O’Houlihan known simply as “duck”.

Get ready people 🙂

Special Quote of the Day: (This may turn into a new thing for our website)
General George S. Patton, speech to the Third Army on the eve of the Allied Invasion of France in 1944.

“I don’t want to get any messages saying, “I am holding my position.” We are not holding a goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly, and we are not interested in holding onto anything except the enemies’ balls… Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose.”