Category Archives: Life Health

Outdoor Training, Online Classes, and Trying to Do What We Can

Fitness, Life Health, , , ,

Now that we have had a weekend to fully grasp the new orders from our state government I would like to give everyone an update as to what we are doing. Our goal is to follow all rules and regulations,  while doing the best we can to serve each and everyone of you. I have listed here how we are trying to do this in these unique times.

 

  1. We are offering outdoor activities to the best of our abilities for all of our members. Our turf area is mostly covered and we are going to do our best to keep it warm and snow free.
  2. We are offering online classes for free via instagram. We decided against using zoom as we don’t want to charge anyone for this service. So please log on and do some training with us. We have broken the classes into four categories. 1. Bodyweight class. 2. Class with weights. 3. Educational class (this will be more lecture based).      4. Yoga. Please feel free to sign up for any of these.
  3. We are loaning equipment up until the week that we will be permitted to re-open.
  4. We are spending this time reviewing our classes and schedules to best serve our members.
  5. We are also moving and cleaning under, over, and around all equipment. When we re-open we hope to be the cleanest gym on earth.
  6. While operating our normal hours we will be closing the outdoor training area from 6-7 AM&PM for powerful class. Anyone who is interested in taking this class we will upgrade you for the next 3 weeks free of charge.
  7. We are offering a 25 dollar 3 week membership to anyone who belongs to another gym. The one condition is that you keep your gyms membership. We do not want to take members. We understand that we are very fortunate to have our outdoor space, and want to offer people a place to train if they currently don’t have one.

 

This is our list as of now. As with everything we do we are always open to hear what you have to say. If there is anyway that we can serve you during this shut down please reach out. As stated early we will follow all the state rules and regulations, and will still do what we can to offer you a great place to train.

Catering for the Pandemic Nurses at AGH

Life Health, , ,

Hello Good People of Union Fitness,

 

The UF staff wants to give a huge THANK YOU to all of you that have donated and/or contributed to all of our charities and events we  have had in 2020!  None of the impact that we have made, would be possible without the generous help from you!

 

We are asking for your help one last time in 2020.  We are starting a GoFundMe page to raise money to provide lunch for the first responders at AGH. (Allegheny General Hospital).  During these times we MUST not forget about the people that are putting their lives and their loved ones lives at risk to serve our sick.  

 

We here at UF want to show our support and let the first responders know, that our community is behind them in all their efforts in fighting this pandemic.  We will be using Erin’s Deli to do the catering for us.  Erin’s Deli located in the bottom of the K&L building in downtown Pittsburgh has been effected by the pandemic and we want to help her out as well.

 

We are ALL in this together.  We must continue to support our friends, our community, and our neighborhood.  We must show them that, they’re people that cherish their hardwork and sacrifice.  Supplying them a lunch is minimal but, it means a great deal to them.  

 

So let’s end this dreadful year with some positivity by showing our gratitude to the people that are doing their best to make people feel better.  We owe them a piece of joy during this holiday season!

 

Matt Grayson

Holiday Tunes to Get Bumpy to

Life Health, ,

It’s time to crank up the volume to 11 with these 10 songs to get you in the Holiday spirit, while you smack some iron around!

 

“CeJ’s Top 10 Holiday Tunes to Get Bumpy To”

 

1) O Come All Ye Faithful- off of Bad Religon’s Christmas Songs Album. Punk rock and holiday jams really speeds things up.

 

2) Carol Of The Bells- off of August Burns Red Sleddin Hill,  A Holiday Album. Tune the guitars to drop D and get to shredding. They just dropped a new Holiday album, go check it out.

 

3) You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch- By Small Town Titans. The Grinch + Metal = Bumps.

 

4) The Hanukkah Song- Adam Sandler rocks this live version.

 

5) Things I Want- Jack Black, Tenacious D & Sum 41 join forces to melt your merry faces off.

 

6) The Season’s Upon Us- off of Dropkick Murphys Signed & Sealed in Blood. This song will make you sway back and forth with some nog in hand and family in a headlock.

 

7) Sock It To Me Santa- By Bob Seger & The Last Heard. If this song doesn’t get you moving, you might be a mean one Mr. Grinch.

 

8) All I Want For Christmas Is You-  By My Chemical Romance off of The 20 Songs that Keep Giving Album.

 

9) Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)-  By The Darkness. We’ve all hit the high note in ” I Believe In A Thing Called Love”, now let’s belt out some cheer here.

 

10) Making Christmas- By Rise Against is a cover from Danny Elfman’s (From Oingo Boingo) Nightmare Before Christmas score.

 

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

x) Run Rudolph Run-Lemmy

x) What Christmas Means To Me- Stevie Wonder

x) Happy Holidays, You B- Blink 182

x) I Saw 3 Ships- B.E. Taylor

x) Christmas Christmas- Cheap Trick

 

 

Let me know some of your favorite Holiday songs to Get Bumpy to and drop them in the comments. Hope you enjoyed this list and found some new bangers.

 

 

Happy Holidays,

 

 

CeJ

Top Ten List: Dumb Things Lifters Do

Fitness, Life Health, Training, , , , , ,

For this Monday’s blog we are taking a humorous look at weird things we all do as lifters.

 

  1. Bug squasher squats. For the last few years I have noticed many lifters who unrack the bar and then do the bug squasher dance. Not sure when this began yet it makes zero sense and is funny to me (special shout out to Daniel McKim for the name).
  2. Slamming warm up sets. We all know that your 135 and 225 warm ups felt light. What we don’t need is a new divot in the deadlift platform because of your slam dunk warm up.
  3. While on deadlifts let’s talk about your set up. Barking at the bar while raising your arms to the heaven will not help you lift the weight. Settle down and lift the weight.
  4. Living on “pre-workout.” We all need a pick me up at times, yet if you cannot lift without one maybe you need more sleep, not more chemicals.
  5. Over-concerning yourself with records. We have all been to a holiday party (well before 2020) and heard, “my cousin’s friend is a world record holder.” Our “sport” has a record for everything so just get a PR and have fun.
  6. Making fun of CrossFit. Yes, it is an easy target yet if you can’t walk a flight of stairs maybe some CrossFit could help your GPP.
  7. Acting like bodybuilders are ego maniacs while we are humble. Sorry, reality check time. We all have egos and began lifting to feed that ego. It’s okay, and we can learn from those guys and gals in their string tank tops.
  8. RPE scales. Too often I see a video when the lifter says “RPE 8.5.” C’mon! First off, do we really need decimals? Secondly, when you miss your second rep the RPE is a 10. All joking aside with this one, be humble. It is fine to say that your set was really much harder than it should have been.
  9. Instafamous. Yes, we all know that you lifted today, and social media is a great way to learn from those around you. If you spend more time editing your videos than you did training then did you train?
  10. Missing life because of lifting. After these last 9 light-hearted comments this one is serious. Lifting is a lot of fun. Take it from a guy who has competed in more than 20 events. I have had some of the best lifers come up and offer to help me without me even asking. I have also seen people helping those who they are competing against. What I am begging of you is to live your life. See your family. If you miss a lift, it will be okay. If you have to shorten a lift to go see friends and family then do it. If 2020 taught us anything it is that none of us are islands. When I get my vaccine I will stop my lift early to buy any and all of you a coffee or beer.

 

Todd Hamer

 

Meet Recap and Reflecting Back

Fitness, Life Health, Training, , , , , , , , ,

I recently competed in my 15th full powerlifting meet. My goal for this meet was to step on the platform healthy and achieve a 2000lb total. This is a goal that I have been working towards for a very long time, and with the help of a great support system, I was able to do just that. It didn’t go exactly as planned (although it never really does), but I was able to stay focused and under control, and managed to walk away with a 804lb squat, a 430lb bench press, and a 766lb deadlift. As I sit and reflect, I can’t help but think about the journey and how I got to this point.

 

April of 2013 was my first powerlifting meet. I totaled 1310lbs at 190lbs bodyweight. To some, that isn’t a lot. To others it is. To me, it was neither. It was simply a starting point for my journey going forward. Even though the sport of powerlifting is judged off of how much weight you can lift, for me, it has never been just about that. Each time I walked into the gym, my only goal was to be better. Yes, sometimes this meant lifting more weight. Sometimes it meant learning something new about my technique. Other times it meant failing. But even when we fail, we have the ability to grow and become better if we have the right perspective. In my eyes, even a setback or a failure was a victory, because I learned something. I knew that if I kept this mindset and continued to accumulate the small wins, then I was progressing towards my goals and continuing to grow as an individual. Small wins over the period of weeks, months, and years add up into very big victories. 

 

This doesn’t just hold true for me, but for anyone. With the same mindset, any goal is attainable. The important thing to remember is that progress is never linear, whether it’s lifting weights or in life. There will always be setbacks, let downs, failures and achievements, road blocks and detours, but the most important thing is that you never give up. Could we do things more efficiently and be smarter with some of our decisions? Of course. But every single decision we make and experience we have leads us to this point where we are at this very moment. That’s living, and that’s how we grow. 

 

It’s hard to put into words exactly what this meet and this achievement means to me. All I can say is that every time I grab a barbell or walk into a gym, I am extremely grateful to be healthy and to have the opportunity to do something that I love. Having my wife there to experience it with me along with some of my closest friends was legitimately a dream come true and something that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Powerlifting has given me more than I could ever give back. It has taught me lessons, helped me grow and mature, and has introduced me to some of the best people I’ve ever known. For that, I am forever grateful. 

3 Pup’s Hidden Holiday Movie Gems

Life Health

Happy Holidays to my Merry friends at Union,

 

With the winter weather blowing and covid keeping us a little more hibernated this holiday season, the pups and I have debated and compiled an entertaining drop down of movies that are sure to put you in the spirit…of something.

 

We all know the holiday movie bangers, Jim Carrey’s Grinch, Will Ferrell’s Elf, Christmas Vacation and of course The Nightmare Before Christmas but let’s bust out some deep cuts.

 

Top 5 Hidden Holiday Gems; Movie Edition 

 

1) Jingle All The Way(1996): Arnold Schwarzenegger is a workaholic dad who has continuously let his son down and promises this Christmas, that he will get him the Turbo-Man action figure, the most coveted toy of the holiday. Arnie has to battle Santa, evil villains and even Sinbad for the toy.

 

2) Scrooged (1988): Bill Murry takes on a Charles Dickens rendition of A Christmas Carol. A cynical TV executive lives out a wild variation of the 1843 classic and is visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve to help him find his Christmas spirit.

 

3) Die Hard (1988): Bruce Willis battles terrorists at a Christmas Eve work party and saves the Holidays. “Ho Ho Ho, he has a machine gun).

 

4) The Night Before (2015): Seth Rogan and his 3 lifelong amigos spend the night in pursuit of the ultimate holy grail of holiday parties. They immediately remember that they aren’t as young as they used to be.

 

5) Gremlins (1984): An 80s gift gone wrong. Feed them after midnight of a mischievous holiday tale.

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

Batman Returns (1992): Micheal Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer & Christopher Walken star in this gothic action-packed holiday thriller.

 

The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992): Jim Henson, Michael Caine, Kermet and the gang take on Charles Dickens.

 

Extra Slice of Pie:

 

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987): John Candy & Steve Martian star in this hilarious Thanksgiving holiday classic as they battle holiday travel to get home to their loved ones.

 

Shout out and comment some of your favorite holiday movies, deep cut or not so others can enjoy some of your go-tos.

 

Cheers my frosty friends!

 

-CeJ

Monthly Challenge

Fitness, Life Health, Training, , , , , , ,

For the month of December we are offering all of our members a chance to challenge yourself, as well as us here at UF. There will be 4 different options and scoring sheets are hanging outside of our cardio lab. With these challenges you can complete them in the gym or tag us on instagram and we will put your score up for you. The winner of each challenge will receive a free massage. For those of you who are not ready to come back to the gym we can save your massage for a later date. Here are the challenges.

 

Challenge 1, Erg 2k Challenge.

 

For this challenge the goal is to do as many 2K’s on the Erg (rower) as you can during the month. The rules are simple. Row 2000 meters and that is 1 point. Row 4000 that is 2 points  etc. If you row 3000 today and 3000 tomorrow that is still only 2, 2 k’s. So please be honest as we are on the honor system.

 

Challenge 2, Bike 3 mile Challenge. 

 

For this challenge you just have to ride 3 miles on an airdyne bike. Similar to the first challenge you will just be asked to do the ride, then record it. Also, similar to the first challenge this must be done in 3 mile increments.

 

Challenge 3, Ski Erg 2k Challenge.

 

Read challenge one and do the same thing on a ski erg.

 

Challenge 4 Pull Up Challenge.

 

This is the simplest challenge. The goal is to hit as many pull ups as you can in the month of Dec. These can be done anytime and anywhere. Just record how many you have done.

 

As I stated earlier the scoring sheets are posted in front of the cardio lab. Some of our staff will participate in these challenges as well. If you do any of these challenges at home just tag Union Fitness and we will add your score in for you. If you do anything here just record it on our score sheets.

 

Now let’s get back to training!

 

 

 

 

 

Thankful

Life Health

Happy Thanksgiving and holiday season to all of you. This year I find it important to review what we are thankful for even more than ever. So here is my Top Ten list of things I am thankful for.

 

  1. Health and Family. Without my wife and child I couldn’t be who I am or do what I do. Everyday I remind myself that we have a wonderful family with good health.
  2. UF and each of you (members and employees). Without each of you, UF would and could not have success. Our employees have been rock stars during this strange year. Our members have been great as well. I thank you all for being vigilant and respecting each other in our facility.
  3. All the companies that supply UF with the best equipment for lifting. If you are not aware we use equipment from Eliftefts, Rogue, as well as Sorinex. Each of these companies have been great to deal with, and I am very thankful for these relationships.
  4. Books. I am an avid reader, and we have now started a mini library at UF. Come by and leave a book or take a book. All we ask is that you read more!
  5. Coffee and all of our awesome local coffee shops. CommonPlace, Adesso Cafe, and all the other coffee shops that keep blocking our adenosine receptor sites!
  6. Pittsburgh. Throughout my life I have been lucky enough to live in 7 different cities (and yes I’m being a yinzer here), but none are as welcoming and friendly as the people in this city. Our walking meetings through the Northside always remind me of why I love living here.
  7. Bike paths and our local parks. Having the ability to jump onto one of many bike paths in and around the city is amazing. Also, visiting the local parks is always a highlight of my week. Special shout out to Frick Park, Montour Woods, Sewickley Heights Park and North Park.
  8. Adversity. 2020 has been filled with adversity, but adversity is a time for growth. We all train by breaking down our muscles so they can grow back stronger. Let’s do the same for our minds and hearts. Overcome adversity, and let’s all come out of 2020 stronger, smarter, wiser, and more empathic.
  9. UF Classes. Classes are back, and I am thankful for the community that they create here at UF. We do all we can to ensure a clean and safe training environment for each class attendee and will continue to offer outdoor space for our members.
  10. Time. My father once said time is both infinite and finite at the same time. There is always more time, so in that sense it is infinite. However, all we have at any one time is the present, so it is finite in that sense. Don’t waste time. Invest and spend time wisely. Train, read, and rest. Investing your time wisely into these three things will always be wise.

 

Let’s take on December with eyes wide open and ready to deal with the challenges before us.

 

Union Fitness Labs Presents, The Virtual Bumpy Turkey Bowl & Burn

Fitness, Life Health, Training, , , , , ,

Gobble Gobble to all of our Thanksgiving Bumpy Battalions!

 

With everything going on we had to call a hot route into a Red 7 audible…if you don’t follow that one, then you should take a quick peek at Wedding Crashers backyard football scene to hype yourself up and “would you just go stand on the other side please?”

 

Sometime during your Thanksgiving feast, Macy’s Day Parade balloon critique, Foosball cheering, Planes Trains & Automobiles marathon & mid-day nap, come jump on our Instagram and sweat the gravy train out with our Virtual Bumpy Turkey Bowl & Burn workout. We will have it posted in the morning so you have all day to get the deal done.

 

If you haven’t checked it out yet, please click on our Thanksgiving donation blog. The proceeds will go to a local business and our first responders.

 

We are thankful for all of you and the amazing things you do!

 

Come catch me on the flippity flop and let’s get bumpy on Thanksgiving.

 

Cheers,

 

CeJ

Nutrition Tips For Thanksgiving

Clean Eating, Diet, Fitness, Life Health, Nutrition, , ,

The holidays give a lot of people anxiety when it comes to eating, being fearful of overindulging, not being able to control their intake, or for some, not sure how to approach any holiday while still enjoying the foods they love. My simplest piece of advice that I can offer always reigns true for anything in love, eat mindfully but allow your space to indulge without guilt, how do we do this? Well if you keep following along you’ll find out.

 

Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite holidays, mainly because I get two in one year. As a Canadian we celebrate Thanksgiving in October however also being American, we celebrate this holiday but in November. From the pie to the stuffing to the gravy, this holiday is all about the food and I’m here for it (sometimes I end up in a food coma, actually let’s be honest, I always end up in a food coma around Thanksgiving).

 

As always, my tips are just suggestions and in no way do you need to follow them head-on. I’m simply sharing what I share with clients who struggle with this holiday and want to also stay on track with their goals while enjoying all the amazing food that sits in front of them.

 

Fasting for Thanksgiving is a big no-no, you do not need to fast for this festivity unless you are someone who already follows an intermittent fasting schedule. Instead, let us look at the day this way:

 

  1. Enjoy a high protein, low carb, and fat breakfast
  2. If your Thanksgiving dinner sits in the early afternoon, instead of having lunch, make yourself a high protein, low carb/low fat snack.

 

          • If anything, people struggle with getting enough protein in on this day so having 1-2 meals or one meal and one snack that is high in protein will set you up for success.

 

      3. For your Thanksgiving meal, the following is a suggestion:

 

          • 1/4 protein, 1/2 carb, 1/2 vegetable, 1/4 fat (can be included in protein/carb). Within this structure, you’re still hitting all your core groups and you can visually see on your plate where each macronutrient sits.
          • For dessert, if there are many different kinds sometimes I’ll opt for smaller portions to allow more space for a variation or if I’m more prone to want just apple pie, 1-2 slices is the perfect amount for me (I’ll never skip dessert, it’s the best part).

 

Remember, these are just suggestions to get the most out of your holiday without feeling like you overindulged. However, if you’re someone who doesn’t struggle with these feelings then please disregard my suggestions or follow them if you want to also stay mindful of your goals. Everyone is different and we all have different relationships with food, that is why what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for the next person.

 

If anyone needs any extra advice or wants to reach out to speak on the holiday, feel free to DM me on my personal Instagram. I’m always available for a little chat, especially since I’ll be spending the Holiday virtually with my family.

 

Have a great Thanksgiving Union Fam, much love,

 

Jocelyn