by Alexa Ferri

 
 

Alexa’s Super Interesting Meal

 
 

 
 

Ok, this is not a crazy elaborate meal, but it has been my staple for several weeks. If you walk in during lunch time you will find me guzzling this down at the front desk. Lindsey also loves when I microwave it during her fasting hours…

BUT it is lovely and here are a few reasons why this is my go-to: it is quick and easy to prepare. Check. I eat it for lunch and it fills me up (difficult to accomplish). Check. Potatoes are a great “faster” digesting carbohydrate for my post-training meal. Check. And I love potatoes. Check.

Ingredients:

-4.5oz Chicken Breast

-200 grams Honey Gold Potatoes

-30 grams Spinach

-40-50 grams Bell Peppers

 
 

 
 

The potatoes are actually what makes this. Chicken, spinach, and peppers are great, but the potatoes are delightful. Ok, how to make the potatoes:

 
 

1. Grab a bowl, cut the baby honey gold potatoes in half.
2. Pour in some avocado oil
3. Season with sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, and that is all.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
5. Broil for 8-10 minutes
6. Done. Simple. How I like to live.

Bring on the sunshine!!!

The sun is fighting through the clouds and cold temperatures. The birds are starting to sing and the trees and flowers are ready to bloom. We’re shaking off the rust by getting classes outdoors as the weather permits. In the meantime, see what our community has been up to all winter…

 
To follow along with our core values, here is a link to our website:

About

UF values- EPIC: Education—Passion—Integrity—Community

Education

Welcome Cayt Neff! She has joined us as a personal trainer, and will be offering massages once she completes her certification at the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy. If you haven’t met her yet, she struggles to not hold a smile on her face 24/7. She’ll also be stepping in to help our coaches in both the Strength Lab and Cardio Lab.

I will be attending the EliteFTS Strong(er) Sports Training Success Summit. Better yet- Cayt, CJ, and Keenan are joining me! The presenter list is stacked- Alwyn Cosgrove, JL Holdsworth, Buddy Morris, Dr. Eric Serrano, Dr. Ken Kinaki, and more. There will be plenty to learn in every facet of training- business, health, recovery, rehab, technique. We’ll report back next quarter!

Passion

Lynette Bauer is our April Member of the Month! She has been a member since way back in May of 2017 when she was quietly plugging away, building a strength and fitness base in the Fitness Center.  This January she decided to take a chance and up her fitness game by joining the 2019 Strength Project. In those two months, she’s realized some amazing strength gains, has gotten comfortable in yoga, and really pushes herself in the Cardio Lab. We are super proud of the effort and consistency she’s shown, and excited to see her continue making progress as a UF Unlimited member! Proving how much there is to gain by getting out of your comfort zone (see: routine).

Integrity (the state of being whole, undivided)

The 2019 Strength Project included 33 members of Union Fitness. Their goals ranged from losing weight, gaining weight, gaining strength, learning new techniques, maintaining accountability, etc. They all gained ground on some if not all of their goals. The result- 31 of them will continue their strength journey with Strength Lab and Cardio Lab classes. The integrity piece comes in because both morning and evening groups found new friends, new training partners, and new inspiration. I’m proud of our staff for the leadership, motivation, and creativity that they provided over the eight week project. We’re looking forward to creating new and different challenges like the Strength Project, so keep throwing ideas our way and we’ll work on this together!

Community

Sometimes life throws unwelcome hardships in our direction and, unfortunately, we have a few members that have had a rough winter. Please stay tuned for classes and other events that we’ll be hosting in an attempt to support those within our community that could use a hand.

On a lighter note, we have a big surprise to announce coming in the fall. More details coming soon!

Thank you all. I look forward to enjoying the summer at Union Fitness!

-Casey

Training Log: March

I love to joke during my training sessions that I can’t (code for: too lazy) do something because I just had a baby. It’s been 10 long months but in the grand scheme of body healing and altering body composition it’s really not that long. I tell all my clients, friends and anyone else that will listen that a woman gets a WHOLE year after giving birth to say, “I just had a baby”. In truth, it takes that long (sometimes even longer) to begin to feel like “yourself” again. Let’s be honest though, you’ll never really feel like the same person you were before you had a(nother) baby. If you asked me 10 months ago if that was a good or bad thing I would assuredly say it’s a terrible thing—there’s more skin sagging, stretch marks and a little (ok a LOT) of extra jiggling in places that previously never jiggled. But with a little training and a little hindsight, I’ve come to realize that I’ve only become stronger and more badass with each pregnancy and child.

Nearly 10 months postpartum means Archie is now nearly 10 months old—which for those without kids or those who blocked those sleepless nights from your memory banks that means he’s becoming ever increasingly crazy & adorably wild. There’s couch cruising, attempted dive bombs off the bed and the stuffing of every edible and inedible item in his mouth. It also means I’m only 2-ish months away from my goal of pumping breast milk for a year. Hormonally my body is still in milk-making drive not get strong AF drive. Yet despite that, I’ve still managed somehow to mentally feel strong AF even if my muscles haven’t quite caught up yet.

I wrote a blog back in September about some of my postpartum training frustrations, so I thought this would be as good a time as any for a little check in. These were my major setbacks/frustrations and what/how I’m currently doing in these departments:

Grossly under eating
I’m reeeeally trying to work on this knowing that my numbers are consistently coming in low. I’ve been concentrating on eating nutrient dense foods and beginning to relearn to appreciate the art of cooking.
 
Thinking I’m never doing enough
My TP (Training Partner) has played a huge role in helping me see things for how they really are. I was and am doing a-plenty. The last couple of months have been spent learning how to appreciate quality movements over quantity.
 
Expecting progress overnight
Hindsight is a beautiful thing, people. It’s given me the opportunity to see this postpartum period in a larger sense. I have made a ton of progress. I will continue to get better, stronger, faster, leaner. I am.
 
Weighing myself too often (and obsessing about the number) 
Now that I’m officially back at my pre-pregnancy weight it seems so silly to me that I fixated on my scale for so long even though I knew better. Hormones, stress and lack of sleep really do a number on your mental clarity sometimes.

Not sleeping enough
Unfortunately, not too much has changed in this department. Still chronically sleep deprived over here. SEND HELP.

Dogging (or plain avoiding) my cardio workouts
Well some things never change, I guess.
 

By Ryan McUmber:

The food that I eat is nothing exciting. I primarily use the old rule of 80 percent of my calories are healthy foods such as lean meats, quality plant based carbohydrates, and green cruciferous vegetables. The other 20 percent of my calories are foods that I enjoy. This can be some chips or these s’more cookies that I might be officially addicted to. Since I am trying to gain some weight I will let the numbers slide just a little bit to about 70% healthy foods and 30% not so healthy foods especially if I have those cookies.

But I don’t want to do this all the time. Mostly for the goal to keep my gut healthy. I know that eating a poor diet is not the best for physical appearance but more importantly it can affect my overall gut health.

With that being said, I have two favorite meals that I cycle through. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait for my next food blog to find out what the other one is.

The first one is sweet potato and steak. I know this is one of the more boring healthy meals but it does offer a lot of extremely valuable nutrition. The steak offers Iron, which most people are not getting enough of, especially women, as well B-12 vitamins. The sweet potato offers a fair amount of vitamin A to keep my immune system healthy. I also consume the skin of the potato which some people find disgusting but it offers extra fiber to aid in healthy digestion.

You might find this meal ‘boring,’ but eating it knowing that you’re fueling your body and aiding in recovery, digestion, and long term health can make the basics much more appealing.

By Team UF, compiled by Casey Williams

In a recent staff meeting I asked our team, “If you could coach our clients on ‘how to be better at taking coaching, meaning how to get more out of each session, what would you tell them?” I loved their insight and I think it’s worthwhile to share because it will make us all better.

Alison
-Be on time. But also be patient if we can’t start early. 
-Use that early arrival to warm up at your pace, addressing anything in particular that might be a problem area (don’t know? Ask and have a plan for next time!)
-Set realistic expectations 
-Put what we do into practice: Sometimes “the work” is what you need to do outside of the gym- nutrition and recovery.

Ryan
-Ask questions to gain an understanding of why (proven that when the mind is engaged or bought in, you’ll get better results)
-Try to understand the process (why we’re doing what we’re doing, when and how we’re going to do it)
-Communicate during the session (was it too easy or too difficult, what about the particular exercise was easy or difficult, did -you love it or hate it)
-The more mental effort you put into the session the more we can help 

Alexa, the novelist
Ask why we are doing a particular exercise- having intention is beneficial for the mind/body connection. It also shows investment. It shows that they care. When clients show up and go through the motions they typically don’t see the same results.
Don’t solely rely on our training sessions. Talk with your trainer, come up with a plan, and get in here on your own. Report back with what you did and we’ll keep up your progress!
Understand that your results are not only coming from training, what you eat is 80% of it.
Have patience for the process.
Be concerned with not only aesthetics but your actual health and wellness.
Those that rely on extrinsic motivators typically see short term success. Having a stronger ‘why’ can lead to a better result in the long term (I want to be able to pick my grandkids up off the floor).
Those that are just training for particular event (i.e. a wedding) tend to yo-yo instead of create sustainable habits.

Ethan
-being on time
-being ready
-accountability when you’re on you’re own
-being positive

Cayt
-Trust your trainer
-Believe in yourself
-Take pride in what you’re doing
-There are 168 hours in every week. Take ownership of your role outside of your training session.
-Know why you are here and communicate that why.
-Make small changes- the snowflake doesn’t realize it’s part of the avalanche- Make it a goal to cook dinner if you’re eating every meal out. Start with one session per week if you’re not training at all right now. Be consistent and the results will come.

That’s a lot of constructive criticism coming from experienced individuals who live it everyday. To be succinct, I see three take aways from their feedback (along with my two cents).

If you want to get the most out of your personal training sessions…

BE PREPARED
Have your body here five minutes early and make sure your brain isn’t far behind. Life gets hectic, but it’s a bad habit to carry that with you. If you’ve committed to personal training, you have goals, and those goals center around making you a better you. Give yourself some love when you show up by leaving life at the door and challenging your mind and body for the next hour. The mental effort you add to your physical effort will pay dividends.

BE ENGAGED
How many times have you thought to yourself, “am I doing this right” but never uttered a word to your trainer? The old cliche applies- HELP US HELP YOU. At a bare minimum we need to know how you are feeling from the time you walk in to the time you leave. We can use some indicators- bags under the eyes, bad posture, sluggish OR upbeat, smiles, cracking jokes- to gauge where you are at on a particular day. But if a trainer has you doing something that just doesn’t feel right, ASK! We love teaching- that’s why we do this. And we’ll love it even more if you ask WHY we have you doing something. It lets us know that you’re thinking about it- and that you’re ready to take the next step in whatever progression your trainer has lined up for you.

BE ACCOUNTABLE
If you didn’t sleep well the last few nights, let your trainer know. If you had a bad weekend of nutrition, let your trainer know. We’re not here to make you feel bad, but we are here to hold you accountable. I know from experience that the vast majority of pro athletes can’t put 100% of their focus on training, nutrition, and recovery. They have families, contract negotiations, ego, and other frustrations that distract them. The ones that have success surround themselves with experts that hold them accountable. You don’t have to be a pro athlete to be accountable- you just need to be honest with your trainer and honest with yourself. We don’t expect perfection. You shouldn’t either. We’re in this together.

Training Log
Ryan McUmber

This past Saturday was a good day.

The whole UF team came together for a training session while doing a photoshoot. It got me amped up to squat heavy. Luckily these hips were feeling good.

I believe some of our team has made this clear but I want to hammer this in. A solid warm up will set up your workout. This means take your time and do exactly what you need to do. Don’t rush through it because you feel like you have to do a warm-up. The more effort you put into the warm up the more effort you will be able to put into your actual working sets.

Here is my lower body warm-up:
3x times through

• Single leg glute bridge with 2 sec pause at the top x5
• RKC planks 3 sets of 10 seconds
• Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) leg raises x8 each leg
• Banded Air squats x5
• Also sometimes some Box jumps: FOR HEIGHT not endurance
• So 3 sets of 3-5 reps

The goal of the day was to hit 3 sets of 1 at 425 on the Safety squat Bar (the bar of death). Well with everything feeling so damn good, I went for a triple on the last set and it went way better than I expected. Finally feeling out some heavy weight again got me excited about lifting and I plan to ride this wave.

I want to make a point that I am extremely grateful for the support that I have at Union. All the members have been encouraging and caring on how my training has been going. Thank you.

UF Eats: Travel Edition

by Lindsey Pogson

 

Last weekend I took a (very) quick trip home to Philadelphia, and figured what better topic for my first food blog than how I handle my nutrition while traveling!

 

I take this trip somewhat frequently, but this was my first time driving it by myself. I was nervous, but everything went just fine. I could stop as often as I wanted and listen to whatever I wanted the whole time, so no complaints! It also made the eating part a whole lot easier.

 

I wouldn’t say that I throw all caution to the wind when it comes to food while on trips like this, but I do try to lighten up a bit. With my meal prep habit, I normally tend to eat the same foods each day, but I let that go when I visit home. I really only have two guidelines that I follow loosely:

1.  Add veggies and fruits whenever possible.

2.  Indulge, but only when it’s really worth it.

 

So how does that look? I start with what I’m eating on the road. I generally don’t think the kind of fast food on offer at the Turnpike rest stops are worth it (with one exception that I’ll come back to later), so I pack my own food. Pro tip: every rest stop on the Turnpike has a microwave in the gas station store, and anyone can use it. I always do. On my trip out, I prepped some snacks (veggies and guacamole, some fruit) and a normal meal:

Odds and Ends Breakfast Hash:

• Two handfuls of red or yellow potatoes, diced.
• 2 slices of thick bacon
• 1/4 onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Cooking spray (I like avocado oil)
• 2 eggs
• Whatever veggies, herbs, and toppings that needed to be eaten yesterday, diced

1. In a pot, par-boil the potatoes until you can pierce them with a fork.
2. In a large pan, fry the bacon until just before crispy. Let it drain on a towel, then dice.
3. Turn the pan heat to medium-low and cook the onions until translucent. Then add garlic and any hardier herbs you’re using (I did rosemary here).
4. When that all smells really, really good, add your other hardy veggies (I used asparagus). If you’re using leafy greens, save for the end.
5. Cook the veggies for 2-3 minutes, then add the par-boiled potatoes.
6. Cover to cook until eggs are finished. Remember to shake or stir every once in awhile, but really give those potatoes a few minutes to crisp up on the bottom!
7. Spray another, small pan with your cooking oil and let it warm up. Then fry your two eggs however you like them!
8. Once the eggs are done, throw your hash in a bowl, top with the eggs and whatever other toppings you have (those are micro greens on mine), and enjoy!

I didn’t eat all of this by any stretch, so I was able to still snack on the fruits and veggies at my parents’ house.

 

Between my family and friends, we always eat out a ton when I’m home, and for that reason I pick and choose when to indulge and when to order some more typical foods. For example, I went to brunch with one of my best friends and took that opportunity to get this AMAZING almond croissant filled with Bavarian cream and enjoyed every last second of it. But when we went out for a quick lunch at a local chain, I stuck with salmon, rice, and veggies. It was still delicious, but helped me get those veggies in.

 

And just as I settled in, it was time to drive back to Pittsburgh! Because I didn’t have a ton of time to prep food, I relied on some of my favorite convenience options, salad in a bag and pre-cooked chicken slices. Take a big container and mix it all when you’re hungry for an easy, healthy meal.

 

And finally, there is one rest stop indulgence I like to make room for. This one normally comes as a surprise, but no regrets: it’s Pizza Hut breadsticks, and yes, they were 100000% worth it.

By: Alexa Ferri

Barbara goes to the gym. Barbara never warms up. Don’t be like Barbara.
If you are like most people, and myself, you tend to fly through your warm-ups. Maybe you don’t know why you are warming up or how it is a major piece to your goal puzzle. My aim in this blog is to give you the whys.



Why warm-up?
A few reasons to warm-up:
-injury prevention
-increase core temperature
-increase neuromuscular activation
-allow our muscles to adapt before the all intent effort

…these changes are a result of general and specific warm-ups.

A general warm-up is used to increase overall body temperature and prime your sympathetic nervous system (your fight or flight system). Whereas, the specific warm-up is used to elicit a specific adaptation to the area you are training for that day (Think a greater intention with a specific warm-up).

With a general warm-up, we are priming our body to become efficient at improving oxygen availability by dissociating oxygen from hemoglobin, increasing muscular blood flow by opening blood capillaries, and improving neuromuscular communication by increasing the speed of nerve impulses.

With a specific warm-up, we are prepping the group of muscles being trained and its surrounding tissues and joints. The specificity is useful in gearing your motor skills, muscle and joint plasticity, and ensuring adequate muscle fiber recruitment.

Aside from the aforementioned benefits, mental preparation is another important variable to a successful training day. The focus and mental preparedness will carry over into your technique, mind-muscle connection, skill, coordination, and just overall enjoyment.

Full disclaimer: these recommendations are intended for general and preventative measures, using weight training as our focus. Now if you are a person with a particular injury or have an area needing special attention, then specific drills and stretches should be prescribed on a per individual/diagnosis basis by a doctor or coach.

General Warm-Up:
We want to increase overall body temperature and not necessarily hone in on any specific area, hence “general.” We will get to the details later. A general warm-up is typically performed for 10-20 minutes. The duration is going to vary depending on your cardiovascular level of fitness. Within your general warm-up you can include some dynamic stretching/mobility as well. This can be specific to your day’s focus. Your intention here is to get your body acclimated to feeling warm, moving in a mimicry motion for your intention of the day, and beginning to activate the sympathetic nervous system.

Examples of General Warm-Ups:
Walking on the treadmill
Light jogging
Elliptical
Biking
Rowing
Burpees
Dancing (fav)
Examples of General-Dynamic Lower Body Warm-Ups:
Hip CARs
Quadruped Hydrants
Leg Swings
Inchworms
Spiderman Reaches
90/90 Hips Stretches
Box Jumps
Examples of General-Dynamic Upper Body Warm-Ups:
Band Pull Apart
IYT’s
Scapular Retraction/Protraction
Internal/External rotations
PVC Pipe Pass Through
Arm Circles

Specific Warm-Up:
Specific warm-ups are ones that compliment or mimic the activity or movement you are training for that day. With the intention of specificity, we are attempting to increase the speed at which nerve impulses travel and the sensitivity of our receptors in that particular focal point. This is helping us gain control as to what we want our body to do or how we want our body to perform. Whether your goal is strength, hypertrophy, sports, etc., we want to increase our muscle fiber recruitment efficiency. Try adding unilateral exercises to your warm-up. It is important to have both sides firing and to work on asymmetries that could potentially retard progress.

Make your warm-ups slow and controlled. The intensity of a specific warm-up should gradually progress from low to moderate intensity, before beginning our working sets. We typically do this for squat, bench, and deadlift by pyramiding our way up. Our purpose for the specific warm-up? To prime the muscles, increase joint range of motion, and increase psychological readiness.

Examples of Specific Warm-ups:
-Squat specific warm-up drills: banded air squats, lateral banded walks, banded monster walks, goblet squats, light leg press. After the specific drills, you will begin with the bar and gradually move up your percentages while decreasing reps (remember this is a warm-up not your working sets, so do not exhaust yourself, but at the same time it is critical to prime our body in this manner)

-Deadlift warm-up drills: KB swings, light RDL’s, lateral banded walks, glute bridges, glute focused back extensions, banded/cable lat pull overs, etc. Again, progress in weight and start with the bar as you did the squat.

-Bench warm-up drills: Band pull aparts, light dumbbell bench, light banded tricep ext. And of course, don’t forget your bar pyramid.

Cool-down…BUT WHY?
First, we want to take our raised heart rate down to a relatively normal resting heart rate. We also want to promote recovery, and return our bodies to a parasympathetic drive (hopefully this is a familiar return and not something that is new…)

When we train, we create a very stressful process within. Muscles fibers develop micro tears, tendons and ligaments get worn and stressed, and waste builds. We also experience blood pooling. A process that occurs when your working muscles require attention from the heart, eating up the oxygen and nutrients that blood delivers. This is a quick drive by, then back to the heart for more. Once exercise stops, so does the pressure of blood to the heart. After training, blood and waste products hang out in our muscles, this is typically characterized by mild swelling and burning.

So, this is all fine and dandy, but how does a cool-down help? The cool-down will help recirculate the blood, which also helps bring fresh groceries aka oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, ligaments, and tendons to begin repair.

Also, remember how cool-downs can help increase parasympathetic activity (rest and digest)? Well, here are some techniques to gaining back some control and relaxing. Breath work! Try lying on your back either with your feet flat on the ground or with your legs elevated up against a wall. Breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth, this can be very efficacious to shutting down that fight or flight drive. If this does not appeal to you, here are some other tips to redistribute blood and begin the recovery process; relax in pigeon pose for 2-3 minutes per leg or another favorite stretch, foam roll, or just hop on a bike or treadmill and go easy. Last, BUT not least…HYDRATE.

By Casey Williams

My training sessions have been few and far between as of late due to my current health. I just started Entyvio in place of Humira, and it’s going to take awhile for it to kick in. Long story short, my body is just generally achy and inflamed and I’m run down. Realizing that I’m not Superman, and the cost/benefit of training just is in the red, I’ve been taking it easy.

Most days involve at least one mile of walking at various paces and inclines.

Saturday (the day of our photo shoot)

Box squats with the SSB up to 405×5

• this was the most weight I’ve had on my back in months, and it didn’t kill me

Some box jumps and push ups

KB rows, single arm

At this point I was whooped, so that was the end of my training session.

Thursday

I made a concerted effort to have some structured training on this day.

I went through my shoulder warm up, then…

SSB front squats 135 3×10

Push ups 4×20 x 60 sec rest

Landmine presses 2×8

And then I fell asleep sitting down. It sucks, but that’s the nature of the beast. I left the gym and went to bed early that night.

I’m at a point where I have committed to taking what’s there. If I don’t want to train, I don’t. If I have the itch, I will do something. What is irrelevant. Just picking something up and putting it down is enough. The goal is to feel better physically, not feel better mentally about ‘getting something done.’

 

I come from a long line of excellent chefs. As a child, my grandparents owned a Chinese restaurant in Mt. Lebanon and lived above it. My siblings, parents and I were literally always there. My grandfather was the head chef, having avoided the front lines of WWII because his commanders found out about his extraordinary cooking skills. My grandmother, bedridden, was the designated babysitter of my brother, two sisters and my wild youngest sibling self. My great Uncle was the prep chef and we would often escape to the basement to help him peel shrimp and roll wontons. My mother waited tables in between managing her own business called “Diane’s Delightful Desserts” (now you know where I get my love of alliteration from). My father manned the massive woks in the kitchen where we would sneak in for tastes of whatever was cooking. Suffice it to say I had a great childhood (and yes, I can still roll a mean wonton). But I think my grandparents would roll over in their graves to see my slacking cooking skills as of late. Every week when I’m meal prepping or thinking about what I’m going to cook for the week I ask myself one question: What is going to be the easiest?

Since the baby was born, I rely almost exclusively on my crockpot. My go-to breakfast is some version of steel cut oats. This week’s delicacy:

¼ cup dry Steel Cut Oats
1 cup Unsweetened Coconut Milk
1 scoop Vega Salted Caramel Protein & Greens Powder
1 cup Blueberries
1/8 cup Goji Berries
1/8 cup Almonds
Nutrition Facts: Protein 31.0, Carbs 57.2, Fat 16.0, Calories 497

My lunches usually consist of some sort of protein that I can cook in the crockpot. Typically I throw a huge beef roast in but I’m attempting to scale back on my red meat intake so this week I did chicken. Ever since my pregnancy though, I cannot stand the taste, smell or texture of chicken. So I attempted to disguise it by making Shredded Buffalo Chicken & Asparagus:

5 oz Chicken Breast
Crapton of Frank’s Red Hot
1 tbsp Blue Cheese Crumbles
90 grams Asparagus Spears
Nutrition Facts: Protein 35.5, Carbs 3.2, Fat 8.4 Calories 225

Maybe one day I’ll make my family proud again by honing in on my hereditary cooking skills but for now it’s crockpot, crockpot and more crockpot. If you’re struggling with healthy meals, try dusting off your crockpot and get creative. Share your recipes with me because I think my kids might spit at me if I feed them oatmeal one more time.

By Alison Yee