All posts by rnagy

The Road to Injury Recovery Part 2

Fitness, Life Health

After a few weeks of doctor appointments, x-rays, and an MRI scan, I finally have my shoulder injury diagnosis… It ended up being a grade two shoulder separation with a bruised collar bone, which I was excited about because that means no surgery and I will have a shorter recovery timeline!

 

As I mentioned in my previous blog, things such as injuries are all a part of the learning process in the sport of life. I’m currently learning how to get back to my normal everyday life while dealing with a nagging shoulder injury (along with the concussion as well).

 

I started physical therapy with my orthopedic doctor’s clinic this past week, and I am already learning a lot about how to build back my strength and how to ease back into powerlifting and biking. My doctor explained the shoulder muscles and possible recovery exercises thoroughly. He said that after about 4 weeks of physical therapy and working hard, I should be good to start lifting again, which is great news because I have missed it these past 6 weeks.

 

My initial assessment with him showed that my range of motion in my injured arm is very little and that I have a winged scapula that was most likely caused by my wreck and lack of muscle stabilization. After about an hour-long session, we established my initial exercise program to be as follows:

 

  • External rotation with band and a towel under the armpit to ensure I am squeezing my arm throughout the movement – 5 sets of 10 reps
  • Band resisted bent over rows – 3 sets of 10 reps
  • Band resisted shoulder extension – 3 sets of 10 reps
  • Band resisted shoulder retraction – 3 sets of 10 reps
  • Shoulder posterior capsule stretch – 1 set of 10 reps (holding for 20seconds at a time)

 

I would still love to hear any injury recovery stories that you all may have. I appreciate those of you who have already shared, and who have been there to listen to my story as well.

 

Stay well my friends,

Toria

Member Spotlight – Jeremy Reynolds

Fitness, State of the Union

Everyone say it together: 

 

F*** the lantern flies. 

 

They’re invasive. They’re irritating. They’re inconvenient.  

 

That said, I have to give them credit for one thing: they’re consistent. They show up every day to band together and put in the work. Their work might be driving us all insane, but that instinctive drive is pretty irrepressible. 

 

I do not have that drive when it comes to fitness. 

 

Lifting is a hobby. I enjoy it as a healthy form of stress relief and because it’s a nice contrast from my more cerebral day-to-day activities (my alter-ego is as professional nerd — I attend concerts and write about classical music as critic for the Post-Gazette and a few national publications), but I didn’t grow up working out or particularly athletic. Shocker, I’m sure. 

 

After a few years of intermittent lifting after college, I tweaked my back on a squat and scared myself into trying a class at Union to work with some coaches to get some advice on technique. I wound up finding an atmosphere with all the right ingredients: a regular group of lifters who are a bit competitive, quite community-minded, and above all, highly consistent. 

 

It’s been a pleasure getting to know classmates and coaches alike, and on the days I pop in to the main gym I’ve never interacted with a friendlier group of gymgoers. In the two-plus years I’ve been coming, I haven’t relapsed or hurt my back once, and thanks to a less scattershot program I’ve seen some real progress in my technique. But, most importantly, it’s become a more integral part of my daily routine than ever before, and slow, steady progress beats intense unsustainable change any day of the week. 

 

I may not have perfect technique, and I’m certainly not pushing the most weight, but I come back for the hit of satisfaction I receive from knowing that this gym has helped self-improvement become a larger feature of my life.  

 

So, my fellow UF attendees, take my word for it: regularity will trump intermittent effort in the long run.  

 

So be regular. Be consistent. Be (sorry) lantern flies. 

 

Just watch out for the vacuum cleaner. : ) 

 

Jeremy Reynolds

Presence

Life Health

I know that I already wrote a blog about presence earlier this year, but it is something that I need to work on and it is something that we could all be a bit better with. Sometimes we get too caught up in the nonsense of it all or the small things in life. We forget to be present and enjoy the ride. In my case, I can tend to take on a lot of responsibilities that can cause me to feel overwhelmed and cause me to not feel present with my everyday life. However, in the short 27 years that I have lived, I have learned two things that help bring me back to the present and may be able to help you if you are ever feeling down and out.

 

The first, which may have been rubbed off on me by CJ and Sky, is to travel and be spontaneous. For those that do not know, my girlfriend and I went to Mount Rainier in Washington over the weekend. It was an absolutely breathtaking experience and because of this trip we set a goal of visiting all the national parks in the United States. We have no idea how long that could take and if we may even be able to go to all the parks, but after this weekend we knew we had to make it a priority to travel more. It was an eye-opening experience that allowed me to take a step back and appreciate everything I have in my life. It felt like I had a full reset of all the stress and anxiety over the year and I am now ready to tackle my next goals.

 

The second, which I found out on my own with some help from my parents who raised me, is to set big goals and give your best effort in achieving them. There is no better feeling in the world then to see all the hard work come to fruition. With this being said, I know that we cannot possibly accomplish every single goal we set and some may come with failure. However, when we do fail then at least we can learn from that failure and gain experiences in the process. Whether we fail or succeed in the goal that we set, and when it is all said and done, we can at least take a step back to appreciate what we have gained in the process and come back to the present.

 

If you are ever feeling like you aren’t yourself or are feeling down about life, adventure could be a great way for you to find yourself again. So, if you’re in that spot then chase a goal that you have always wanted or book that trip that you have always thought about doing. This will allow you to pursue that natural high instead of other things like drugs, alcohol, or that instantaneous satisfaction from your phone. Life is short so this is just a gentle reminder to enjoy it! We only get one.

 

P.S. if you smash any big goals or go any trips recently then please tell me all about it! I’m here for the stories!

 

-Zain

 

Time

Life Health

I was very lucky this weekend as I was able to attend the wedding of a lifelong friend. I was able to see his parents, friends (that I don’t see enough), and just spend some talking to new and old friends. At one point while in the restroom washing my hands I saw the grooms father and I said, “Mr P. I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see your son get married.” Mr P. laughed and said, “You didn’t think you’d live long enough?” Then we went on to have a conversation about my friendship with his son. We talked about friends who are no longer with us, and the ones we can still celebrate with. This led me to thinking about time.

 

Let me take you back to 1994, I was a young high school fella, music and lifting kept me from losing my mind. Back then that is all I knew. One of my favorite bands going to perform at  Three Rivers Stadium. My uncle John (RIP) waited in line to buy me tickets for my birthday, and I can now always say I saw Pink Floyd. I listened to Pink Floyd’s music non-stop during that time. So many of the songs moved me, “Have a Cigar” is a song about the music industry. The line from that song that will never leave is when the CEO of the record label meets Pink Floyd and asked the band, “which one’s pink?” He doesn’t know his people. It is a constant reminder to take care of the people that work with you.

 

The Pink Floyd song that impacted me more than any other is “Time.” Tenzing and I were listening to this song just the other day and discussing the importance of time. I am going to share a few of the lyrics here with you.

 

“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull dayYou fritter and waste the hours in an offhand wayKicking around on a piece of ground in your hometownWaiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshineStaying home to watch the rainAnd you are young and life is longAnd there is time to kill today
And then one day you findTen years have got behind youNo one told you when to runYou missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sunBut it’s sinkingRacing around to come up behind you againThe sun is the same in a relative wayBut you’re olderShorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorterNever seem to find the timePlans that either come to naughtOr half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperationIs the English wayThe time is gone, the song is overThought I’d something more to say.”
“Time” Pink Floyd
This song reminds me of something my dad said to me, “Time is both infinite and finite.” He would explain that there is always more time, it just may not be time that you have. When people say, “I’ll do it later,” sure later will exist, but will that time be yours?
What is the point of all of my rambling today? The point is wake up, do something, do anything. Time is short and moving fast. So get the workout, read the book, go for a hike, or make some art. It is your time, go use it.
Todd Hamer/ with an assist by the one and only Ward.

Building Bigger Gas Tanks with GPP

Fitness, Training

Electric cars are coming in hot and everyone has been looking into them. If I had you choose between two models of electric cars at the same price, one with a 300 mile range and the other with a 600 mile range, which one would you pick? Well of course we want to ride around with bigger mileage capacity. With GPP we can help improve your overall work capacity, essentially increasing your mileage capacity for work. I’m telling you with proper GPP training , you can train longer with more intensity and still have some juice left in the tank. Who wouldn’t want this adaptation?!

 

GPP stands for general physical preparedness. GPP is the general training that helps increase your specific training. GPP will improve your aerobic fitness (work capacity), your recovery between exercises and sessions, your quality of movement and enhancing your ability to handle larger workloads. GPP has a main goal of improving movement patterns and fixing the weak links with more practice with various movements. Some GPP movements include push, pull, hinge , squat and loaded carry/drags. So if you’ve been in Powerful and wondered why we’ve been doing all these different variations of squats, hinges, weighted carries, sled pushes, medicine ball throws and more… well it’s because we’ve been in a “GPP build a bigger gas tank” block. We’ve come a long way this block at improving your overall work capacity and that will pay great dividends to this upcoming strength block. GPP is the foundation building block to SPP aka specific physical preparedness. For most powerlifters this means your squat bench and deadlift, for Olympic lifters it’s your clean & jerk and your snatch, for athletes, your SPP would be your position in your sport.

 

When should you use GPP: the beginning of an offseason, after a long hiatus in training, post injury, deloading and active recovery. GPP is to set you up for the next block of training and level you up while you prepare for the more specific movements of your training and sport. This is a great opportunity to add overall training volume to workout sessions.

 

I hope this was a helpful intro into the importance of GPP and I can’t wait for you to give it a try if you haven’t yet. Let’s rock some GPP to build those bigger gas tanks!

 

Cheers,

CEJ

 

The Road to Injury Recovery

Life Health

I am sure most of you have heard the news that I took a hard tumble on my mountain bike about a week and a half ago. Now I am unfortunately dealing with a concussion, cervical sprain, and a TBD shoulder injury. It was only my second time riding on the trails at Frick Park with Hamer, Brad, and Brian from Faros Properties. Here’s a quick synopsis of what happened in case you’re curious:

 

Picture this: you’re riding along and getting into the groove of the trail, and you notice a large fallen tree with a ramp crossing up ahead. You approach the ramp with only a little bit of confidence, and you aren’t going quite fast enough to be able to get up and over it without a struggle. You lose control of your front wheel at the top and start to fall off to the right side. The fall is broken by your right arm, but you bounce up and hit your head hard enough to black out briefly on the way back down. Then you wake up out of breath since you just got the wind knocked out of you and send a quick text to the others that were with you (way up ahead) to let them know you’re still alive and are trying to survive the walk back to your car. (Shoutout to Hamer, Brian, and Brad for going back onto the trail to check on me and help me out.)

 

As you can probably imagine, this all has taken a huge toll on both my mental and physical health. Mentally, I am starting to struggle with focusing on some of the things that I used to enjoy. It almost feels like I’m dealing with one long terrible hangover. One of the biggest things I am finding difficult to get back into is lifting. I was finishing up my third week of training with coach Curt and looking forward to starting to officially train for a powerlifting meet this winter before this all happened.

 

I know that it’s not all completely down the drain yet as I do not know what exactly the extent of my shoulder injury is. They told me that it could either be a nondisplaced fracture, or a torn rotator cuff. Both injuries have very different recovery routes and timelines. Regardless I am dealing with some sort of a setback. I’m not sure if or when I will hop on a mountain bike trail again, or when I will start to seriously lift again.

 

One thing that I have learned so far in the short time I’ve been injured is that things like this are all a part of the learning process in the sport of life. I plan to use this experience as a huge steppingstone to improvement in the future. For now, I need to focus on getting back to my routine and building more confidence before I decide to go back out on a trail or into the weight room. The long-term goal is to come back and become stronger and better than I was before.

 

There is just as big of a mental component as there is physical to these types of injuries. I plan to update you all every few weeks so we can do a check in and see what progress I make! If any of you have any injury recovery stories, I’d love to hear them. Sometimes it’s helpful to just have someone listen to what you’re going through.

 

Toria

Cheers to Our Employees

Uncategorized

The adage is true, “Days are long and years are short” (Gretchen Rubin). As I age I try to remember to take moments and be thankful for everyone and everything around me. With that in mind today I want to introduce you to a few friends of mine (that you may already know). This is my chance to thank some of the people that keep UF running, and me from working too hard :-).

 

First up is CeJ, also known as CJ or Charles Edward Jasper. What you may not know is that CJ and I have worked together too many times to count. He began interning with us when I was director of strength and conditioning at Robert Morris. He spent years bouncing around as a strength coach with stops at The Ohio State University, The Mets, Morehead State, Youngstown State, as well as a return trip to RMU with yours truly.

 

One thing I can say separates CJ is how he thinks. My running joke is CJ always thinks outside the box, so much so that sometimes I have to pull him back into the box. Due to how he thinks, and works, he always has an idea. Most of the summer events we run are his idea, he also handles all programming for our most popular class (powerful). In addition there is an added bonus with CJ, we also get one Skylyn to hang around the gym and be a positive force.

 

CJ I am thankful for your friendship and the chance to work with you. CJ is a friend and a co-worker for that I am grateful.

 

Next up is Toria Crispin! Tordawg is a two time MVP employee of the U! Toria came to us while working full time at Pitt. She was living in Parkview and wanted to pick up a part time job. Curtis hired her she brought her awesome self here from day 1. She worked here while holding down her full time job, and was awesome stepping up during the Covid time period.

 

She did leave us to take a job at University of Colorado at Denver. When a position opened up she was my first call. I knew she would not only be a great fit for us, but that we would also be a great fit for her. After some arm twisting I convinced her to come back and join us at the U. I can honestly say she keeps me on point most days. Without her at work we would probably or definitely mess up more things than I already do daily.

 

I am thankful for Toria’s friendship and that she is here with us at the U. When you see her pat her on the shoulder (make sure it’s her good shoulder) and thank her for all she does for us.

 

Finally, the new guy, Zain. Zain had some big shoes to fill, he took over after Curtis moved on from the U. If you don’t know his story (because he is humble and rarely tells his story), I will share some of it here. Zain is a veteran. Zain served in the Navy, his 21st b-day was ruined by international battles. He has seen more of the world than most of us.

 

After his service Zain went to Pitt where he competed in bodybuilding and powerlifting. He was on Pitt’s powerlifting team and received his masters at Pitt. Additionally Zain has been working two full time jobs for the last 3 months. In order to finish his masters he needed to do an internship, he did an internship at the UPMC complex in Cranberry while working here full time. He rarely talks about it and shows up everyday ready to work. I respect how he handled this. It also means that he set a high standard so if he gets lazy I can always remind him that his work load is now half of what it was all summer.

 

Zain we are lucky to have you at the U and we appreciate all you do and bring to the U.

 

There are many other people at Union Fitness that make us better everyday. I also want to thank all of our people for what they do. I know I am an imperfect leader, yet I keep trying to learn and grow daily. Our goal is to empower our people so they can empower our members and our community.

 

Thank you for spending time reading about these awesome people!

 

Todd Hamer

 

 

Meet the Staff – Montrell

Fitness, State of the Union, Training

Hello Union Fitness! My name is Montrell Newton Jr, and I will be here as a personal trainer and cardio lab instructor! I am originally from Miami, Florida, born and raised #305. I have my undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and am currently getting my master’s degree in clinical Exercise Physiology. I interned here at Union Fitness in the spring of 2022 and now I am back like I never left!

 

For my area of interest, I want to help people. I want to help educate the masses on health, and how to live a healthy life without making it difficult. I find it rewarding to help people achieve their goals or assist people in various aspects of their lives. While I am not training or working, I enjoy watching TV, playing video games, and listening to music (My playlists are AMAZING). I have Division 1 strength training coaching experience and a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS). I cannot wait to see all your smiling faces throughout the facility. If you see me, please do not hesitate to say hello!

 

Montrell

Keto Diet: What is it and is it effective?

Diet, Life Health, Nutrition

The keto diet is a relatively new fad diet that has been circling around the fitness community for years now. However, I would not say it is short lived because it is still quite popular due its popularity of aiding people in weight loss. For those that do not know, the keto diet is a diet that consists of only fat and proteins with minimal or zero carbohydrates. In short, this means that the person who is on the diet does not ingest sugar, bread, pasta, rice, and other carbohydrates of that nature. Instead, they often will tend to eat more meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, vegetables, or high fat vegetables such as avocados.

 

I will admit that this diet can be effective in losing weight but is it the right choice for you? In my opinion, every person should eat all 3 macronutrients that we have available to us. This means a person should be eating carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. The reason I believe this is because each macronutrient has a specific function in our body. Carbohydrates provide us with energy that is used in our bodily functions and daily activity. Protein aids our bodies in repairing and building tissues that is not just limited to muscle. Lastly, fats help regulate our bodies hormones and can also provide energy. Now when we put our bodies through a keto diet, we are eliminating a whole macronutrient and some of its functions. Yes, fats can be an energy source so in theory fats would take over as the primary energy source instead of carbohydrates but is it the most efficient?

 

This creates a debate that divides the fitness community. Is keto healthy for the average person with the elimination of an entire macronutrient? Researchers on both sides can argue for both points with validity for both but in my own educated opinion, I think there is a better way to lose weight. This can be done without eliminating carbohydrates, losing weight gradually or slowly on a week-by-week reduction in calories, and proper exercise. Our bodies were intended to use all 3 macronutrients. The keto diet eliminates carbohydrates which is why I think there are better ways to lose some lbs.

 

-Gainz

Why Do We Need Protein?

Life Health, Nutrition, Training

Proteins are large, complex molecules that play several critical roles in the body. They do most of the work within our cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs. Some call them the “building blocks of life.”

 

When it comes to protein, there are complete (essential) and incomplete (nonessential) proteins. There are 9 essential amino acids that the body can’t produce by itself. To get these amino acids, we must consume foods that contain all of them, making them complete proteins. Those foods that do not contain one of more of those 9 essential amino acids are considered incomplete proteins. We should strive to receive a majority of our daily protein from whole food sources, but otherwise you can supplement with a good ole reliable protein powder.

 

The standard Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein = 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. To show a quick example, I weigh about 77kg. So, for me: 77kg * 0.8g = roughly 62 grams/day. However, needs will vary depending on activity level and health status. Moderately active individuals may need closer to 1g per kg of body weight. Those who are more intensely active may need more than 1g per kg of body weight, so it all depends.

 

Most of us know and associate protein with building muscle. While this is certainly a key reason as to why we need it, there are several other reasons why we need protein to maintain good health:

 

  • Supports a healthy immune system
    • The amino acids help turn our antibodies and other T/B cells into “germ fighters” that spot and kill harmful cells that enter your body before they can start an infection.

 

  • Builds and maintains muscle
    • Muscle stress caused by exercise will damage the protein filaments in our muscles. As a result, our daily protein intake will help to rebuild those filaments and help the muscles stay functional.

 

  • Can help with weight management
    • Protein takes longer to digest than other types of nutrients, so it can increase satiety and satisfy our hunger for longer periods of time.

 

  • Supports the growth, development, and repair of cells

 

There are many different food sources out there for you to get your daily complete and incomplete proteins in. Some of my favorites include beef, pork, eggs, and poultry for my complete proteins and nuts, beans, rice, and vegetables for my incomplete proteins. What are your favorites?

 

Toria