Tag Archives: Wellness

Weekly Wrap Up

Life Health, State of the Union, ,

Welcome BACK!!!!

 

Now that we are officially open for business again we are happy to have you all back and wish to thank each of you for supporting us. I am just going to touch on a few things going on here at UF.

 

  1. Our fundraiser to feed covid first responders at AGH is wrapping up. We will shut down the go fund me site this weekend. If you want to help out we appreciate it.
  2. We are offering a special that any member can upgrade to UF Unlimited membership this month for a 20 dollar add on to your current membership. If you ever wanted to try classes now is your chance.
  3. We have a few new employees bouncing around. Anthony is our newest intern and you may see him. Also, Gillian will be working the front desk as well as teaching some cardio lab classes. Please introduce yourself if you see some new faces.
  4. Finally, we have some great plans coming up. Our idea man himself CeJ wrote a blog about our plans earlier in the week so check that out. We also have tentative dates for our next meets so stay tuned for when we can release that information.

 

Thank you and 2020 was a wild year and 2021 is starting just as wild. I do ask that we spend some time daily on not just improving ourselves but improving society. Keep us in the loop as to how we can not only help you but how we can help the world.

 

Peace and Love.

 

Todd Hamer

Alcohol, Fitness, Life Health, State of the Union, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2021 is going to be FUN!

 

Hold on to your butts, we have more cool things coming your way and here are a few of the new things you’ll see at UF in 2021.

 

On Site at Union:

Charity/Fundraiser Super Group & Marathon Classes

Comedy, Coffee & Competition

Athlete & Agility

Metal/Rock N Roll Yoga

Movement & Mobility

Strongwoman/Strongman Conditioning

Battle of The Gyms

Health, Wellness & Training Education

Hands on Training Seminars

Monthly Challenges

Blood Drives

Toy/School Supply Drives

And More…

 

Union Fitness Adventure Series:

Mobile Pop-Up Bootcamps

Pittsburgh Stair Climb Tour

Bike Pittsburgh to D.C.

Hike Pittsburgh

Run Pittsburgh

Brewery & Bootcamps

And More…

 

Union, let us hear your voices! Tell us your ideas you may have and any interest in the above-mentioned events. For any event we would love to partner with local North Side or Pittsburgh area small business to support local and highlight those businesses. Send in those ideas and let’s rock n roll all over 2021.

 

Cheers,

 

CeJ

End of 2020 Update

State of the Union, , , , , , , , , ,

Here we are at the end of 2020. Nothing new can be said about this year so I won’t try. Yet I can give everyone an update as to where we are and where we are heading as a gym.

 

2021 Bootcamp with LEG1ON! 

We are starting 2021 off by doing a bootcamp with our friends from LEG1ON. This will happen Jan. 1, 2021 from 11-12 (maybe 12:30). This class will be free to everyone, so bring a friend and let’s have some outdoor fun! Sign up on MindBody.

 

Equipment Loan Program

For those of you who borrowed equipment over the last few weeks, please return the equipment by Saturday, Jan 2, 2021. When you return the equipment, please check in so we can check you off the list.

 

Return to Normal Schedule

UF will return to its normal schedule on Jan 4, 2021. This includes classes as well as all other gym operations. We will be requiring masks at all times. Please be respectful of those around you and continue to follow the mask protocol.For the rest of this week, our schedule is Dec. 31, 9AM-4PM, Jan 1, 9AM-4PM (we will be closed due to bootcamp from 10:30-12:30). Jan. 2 and 3 are regular weekend hours 9-4.

 

Plans for 2021.

One of our most popular programs in the past has been The Strength Project. We decided this year it was not appropriate to run this program. We are hoping to bring it back in late spring as a kick off to summer. We will continue doing smaller challenges until then. Our December challenge is wrapping up and we will post winners in our Newsletter.

 

This will be the final blog of 2020 and I want to thank everyone who is reading this. We all know it has been a strange year and we are proud of what we have done to try to help everyone get through this time. We will continue to try to do what we can to make the world a stronger, healthier, and smarter place as we move into 2021. Below is a list of organizations that we worked with this year. We will continue to look for partners in the region that make the world a better place.

 

Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh

Allegheny General Hospital

NorthSide Food Pantry

UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

Wounded Warrior

Urban Impact

 

We have some big plans in 2021 and have some big partners ready to join us, so stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

New Year, New Strength, New Friends

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

UF and LEG1ON Training are excited to host our first ever combined bootcamp. On January 1st, 2021 UF and LEG1ON will come together on the UF outdoor turf to host a bootcamp that is free to all.

 

We have been trying to reach out and work with other local training facilities to offer Pittsburgh a better fitness and strength community. LEG1ON opened in 2020, and immediately gave us a gym that was open to working with us. Due to this relationship, we will be having more joint offerings in the future. The details of the bootcamp are below.

 

Time and Date: Jan 1st, 2020. 11 AM-Noon.

Location: Union Fitness, 100 South Commons, Pittsburgh PA, 15212

How do I sign up? Sign up on MindBody.

Is there a cost? This class is free to everyone.

What can I expect? You can expect two of the best gyms in Pittsburgh coming together with their best instructors, to give you a great workout to start the new year.

Will it be safe? Our outdoors space at UF is big, and we require masks at all times when on the premises.

 

We hope to see you here on Jan 1st to meet some new friends and have some fun.

 

Todd Hamer

 

Weekly Wrap Up

State of the Union, , , , , ,

We must begin this wrap up with a HUGE THANK YOU to all of our members. We understand that 2020 hasn’t been an easy year. We have also been doing the best we can to keep everyone training and safe.

 

This week we have moved all training to our outdoor space. We will continue to follow all of the governors orders, while still giving you a safe place to train. In addition we are also offering 2 in person classes per day Monday-Friday as well as 2-3 virtual classes per day. These classes are a little different, we will offer three different types of classes. The first class is a traditional bodyweight class, the second will be with weights and the final will be an educational class.

 

In addition to all of these measures we are still loaning out equipment. Please come by and grab some equipment to keep your body moving during this holiday season.

 

Finally I personally want to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanza and Happy New Year! This is the last week prior to Christmas and if you eat too many cookies, drink too much egg nog or don’t exercise as much as you should over the next few weeks, it’s ok. Enjoy the season and unless you are preparing for a show then you can stop counting your macros this week and just be in the moment.

 

Hours of operation for the next two weeks.

Dec 20th-Dec 23rd normal hours.

Dec 24th 9AM-4PM.

Dec 25th Closed.

Dec 26-Dec 30th normal hours.

Dec 31st & Jan 1st 9AM-4PM.

 

 

 

 

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

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

KISS in the Age of HIT

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

KISS is it. No not the band. I know CeJ looks like he could be a member of the band circa 1977, yet let’s be honest here, they only have one good song. Now that I have alienated most of the Yinzers who love KISS, let’s talk about training. KISS is an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid. This is one of the best things I did as a strength coach to improve my coaching and my athletes.

 

How many periodization models can you name? Conjugate, concurrent, western, tri-phasic, block or even 531. The confusion in training can be too much for many people. I know I often made this mistake. I was speaking to our own Cody Miller the other day about how often I have over-complicated my programming (for myself and my athletes). While I have never been a huge fan of HIT training as a year-round training style, I do believe we can learn a lot from these people. Look at Marty Gallagher, Dr. Ken Leistner, Mike Mentzer or even Arthur Jones.

 

HIT

 

For those of you unfamiliar with this style of training, it is simple, short, and hard. Even the great Dorian Yates used many of HIT’s methods to build his impressive physique. Dorian was known for having one of the best backs in the history of bodybuilding. Yet his secret to training was simplicity. HIT stands for High Intensity Training (in their case intensity is used as a mindset not % of 1 rep max). HIT training sessions are generally short with low total sets and most sets being taken to concentric failure or beyond. Training can be done as often as 5 times a week but generally, it is done 2-4 times per week.

 

I am not advocating to change your regimen to entirely HIT training, but I am claiming that too many overthink their training and do more thinking than working. I even look at Dr. Micheal Yessis’s 1×20 program as a continuation of HIT training. The difference is Yessis doesn’t train the athlete to fail. Yet it’s still one hard set of work and then moves on to the next exercise. This style of training does have its place in the gym and should not be ignored.

 

Moral of the story

 

When in doubt, train harder. Over my two decades in the iron game, I have seen too many people searching for the answer when the answer is more hard work. Build some sweat equity and push yourself to somewhere you have never been. I know I don’t have the answer yet I know hard work is never wrong.

 

– Todd Hamer

Movemember & Men’s Health

Life Health, , , , , , , , ,

The votes have been counted, and we have declared Movember the winner for this month’s education and charity event.  What do you think of my stache? Pretty cool, huh?!? Below is a little reminder of what Movmeber is all about.

 

Movember is an annual event where all partaking grow mustaches during the month of November. This is done to raise awareness of men’s health issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, and men’s suicide. The Movember Foundation runs the Movember charity event, housed at Movember.com. The goal of Movember is to “change the face of men’s health.”

 

By encouraging men (whom the charity refers to as “Mo Bros”) to get involved, Movember aims to increase early cancer detection, diagnosis, and effective treatments, and ultimately reduce the number of preventable deaths. Besides annual check-ups, the Movember Foundation encourages men to be aware of their family history of cancer and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Using the mustache as the driving symbol of the movement, Movember focuses on the three key areas of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health/suicide prevention.

 

Now gents, I’m asking you to let the hairy caterpillar blossom and promote awareness for men’s health. Remember that we men are stubborn about mental health and think we are too tough to get sick. It’s time to change the narrative here and educate men on how to indicate early and prevent these issues. We have people who love us and want to see us live long and strong lives. Ladies, you’re in this one, too! You have fathers, brothers, sons, and friends who need your support and a kick in the ass at times to take care of their health. This month I will do a few more blogs on this topic. This one is just for you to help me bring attention to this issue, so tell me about some topics you’d like to hear about.

 

Click here you can go and donate to promote Men’s health awareness. 

 

CeJ

How You Move Through Struggle Matters

Fitness, Life Health, , , , , , ,

If you read my training log last week you would know that I’ve been working on mindset,  in regards to how I am talking to myself during training. I’m a big believer in self-love and I practice this every day with my morning routine, listening to my body and prioritizing my mental health above all things.

 

I’ve been having a rough go at it recently, and honestly this last week felt like it would never end, I didn’t even want to go to training on Sunday because I hadn’t been eating. I was beyond exhausted and felt like I had absolutely no energy to give to a training session. But, I ended up going and for that, I am thankful because 2/3 of my training pieces were mentally stimulating and I pushed myself past the point at which I thought I would’ve failed.

 

My main training piece looked like this:

 

2 Rope Climbs

10 Clean + Jerks @ 125#

2 Rope Climbs

8 Clean + Jerks @ 135#

2 Rope Climbs

6 Clean + Jerks @ 145#

2 Rope Climbs

4 Clean + Jerks @ 155#

2 Rope Climbs

2 Clean + Jerks @ 165#

 

Let’s break this down a little bit, the rope climbs were just there and a minor formality to get to the barbell. The clean and jerks themselves were what I was struggling with mentally, after not fueling myself for at least a week I was feeling weak and just not prepared to lift heavy weight under fatigue. I was thinking all these things in my head during my warm-up sets and I only touched the 135# bar once before the workout.

 

Going into the workout I wasn’t confident but I lead with confidence, that’s where the difference lies. I would jog from the bar to the rope and walk to the bar from the rope, this was a strategic plan to keep my heart rate consistent and from skyrocketing. I knew I didn’t need to worry about the rope climbs but that I wanted to keep myself from failing any clean and jerks because having to hit that lift again after failing is soul-crushing (especially at a high percentage).

 

As the workout went on I still didn’t feel confident but I kept leading with an attacking mindset and staying calm. One of my training partners even mentioned after the workout that I looked like I was going to have a panic attack before the workout but he was proud that I kept myself collected throughout. As I move through workouts like this I’m starting to learn myself a little bit more and it’s crazy even after six years of CrossFit there is still so much I am realizing about my capabilities.

 

I was never once negative during this workout, I didn’t feel great but I also didn’t allow myself the space to dwell on the way my body felt. I trusted my training and what I had prepared for up until this point and I was not disappointed. I’d say this workout was a struggle for me, even if you visually couldn’t see it, it’s the mentality that takes the wheel regardless if you’re not feeling 100%.

 

I’m proud of how I performed in this workout and it was truly a test of what I have been working on endlessly in my training. Next time you’re having an off day in regards to your training (or simply life in general because I feel anything in the gym can be related to real-life in one-way shape or form) remember, how you move matters. Even if you don’t feel your best, be confident in yourself that you’ve done all the right things to help you push through.