Shred Blog

No doubt becoming a parent is one of the most joyful gifts in life, it is special and enlightening and provides a feeling to us that compares to nothing else we experience as humans and adults. However parenthood also comes with it’s own challenges and hurdles that we must all face as we become a parent. These challenges are always changing and adapting and we are constantly learning as our children age along with us, and as we develop as a family. But one of the biggest things that we face as a parent is losing our individual identity, we can no longer be selfish and we can no longer blindly chase our own goals and our own careers as we now have a little human that is entirely dependant on us. Some of us have partners in this and some of us super brave humans go it alone and raise children solo due to what ever circumstances. One of the most important sayings in parenthood I believe is, “it takes a village to raise a child”. Why? Because I truly believe we cannot do it alone, and we shouldn’t try to do it alone. Many people around us are willing to help out, they know the struggle and they want to assist you in raising this miracle that is your child and for our sanity we should allow this to happen and not feel bad about it. To raise this child we must be in healthy state of mind to do our absolute best in bringing this child through life, which is why I believe it is ok to still some what be selfish when we become a parent, within the acceptable limits. We cannot allow our self to completely lose your identity to parenthood and the reason I say this is if we completely allow our self to do this we cannot raise this child in a healthy state of mind, our children reflect who we are as a parent and person so much and if we are not in a healthy state of mind we are passing that onto our children more than we think. It is important for us to chase our own identity and our own story and path through life and seek assistance in doing this. It is important for us to be in a healthy state of mind and in a healthy physical state so that we can perform at our best as a parent. One of the most effective ways for us to be in this state is utilising exercise as a tool to better our selves both physically and mentally, so do yourself a favour and your family a favour and allow yourself and your partner if you have one to be a little bit selfish time to time to spend on health both physically and mentally so that you can be the best version of yourself. View exercise and health as highly as we view making money to support our family and you will go along way, make time and take steps to better your health so you can have the energy and positive mindset required to raise another human. Most of us understand the importance of dopamine and serotonin (and if we don’t we should start reading about it) and how these chemicals and reactions play with our state of mind, we should also understand how exercise helps improve the production of these chemicals and how our brain craves these activities that help us produce these chemical reactions (even though consciously and in mentally instable times we hate exercise) as well as the importance of having these feelings run through our brain and body so that we can be a happier healthier parent. So to think your being selfish in creating the time in your day to help improve your mindset, mental health and physical health in my mind is ludicrous. In in fact it is selfish to not want to be the best version of yourself so that you can become a better parent, reduce anxiety and so that you can have more energy and improve the chances of being around longer for your family. Not to mention becoming a better role model for your young ones, instilling good healthy habits from diet right down to exercise and give your children every fighting chance to be a happier healthier being. The science is there in writing, we all know what it is that we need to do but unfortunately far too often we are allowing ourselves to fall into this trap of bad eating habits, working longer and longer hours for the company and using the excuse of “providing for my family” as the reason for not taking care of our selves, when in fact we really need to sit back and assess what it actually means to look after your family. As a matter of fact I would prefer a circumstance where I have a parent or parents who have the energy to take me places and run around with me, the time to be there to help stimulate my growth through activity and health than a parent with all the money in the world who is miserable and too tired or time poor to even be present. I understand the pressures of modern society and financial stress are always a factor but I truly believe that if we were to organise our priorities better and set better goals we would head in the right direction and as humans always do we would find a way to make it happen. It all starts with a goal, the right mindset and the will to want to be better and more efficient in what ever it is that we are doing. Remember time on this earth is too short to not be there in the right way for our family, we only get one shot so choose how you want to take that shot. Part of my decision to become a coach I truly believe may have come from my own upbringing and wanting to change the way that I view what is important in life. Desire for Knowledge in health and performance lead me to the career path that I am and that evolved into wanting to do more to guide and help people in the right direction so that hopefully I can do the same for my family and my children. If you take anything from what I am writing at least take away this: Think about how you view what is important, assess what it means to you to be a parent, and relate that to what it means to you to be healthy and let everything else you do revolve around satisfying those thoughts. Make a positive impact on those around you by being the best version of your self and that starts with understanding what it means to be healthy which I truly believe will help you be the best parent you can be for your children, NOT a selfish one. Next time your in a place where you are down on motivation or you are struggling to make your health your priority, remember why it is that you want to be on this earth and as a parent your children are more than likely that main reason. Well do it for them, do it so that you can be the positive impact on their upbringing, do it so that you can be around longer for them and do it so that your time with them is quality time. Remember a healthier person is a happier person when ever you need to remind yourself why your slugging it out in the gym, remember your doing it so you can be the best parent you can be. Coach Yannick

Accessories in the gym should be applied to supplement the big lifts you do in the gym & to help you get the most out of your bodies performance in your sport. All sports have an element of repetition the require the athlete to perform the same movement over and over again which can lead to over use and imbalance within the athletes muscle development and body which can lead to injury & lack of potential performance. Most athletes would be familiar with the big lifts performed in the gym i.e Squat, Deadlift, Bench, Clean, Snatch, Jerk. While all these movements are excellent for developing a stronger, faster athlete, these alone are not enough to build the complete athlete and we should be looking at working on some of the assistant muscle groups that are not isolated enough while performing these movements. Lack of strength in some of these groups will lead to weak areas in the body which will lead to higher risk of injury, lack of range of movements and leaving the athlete short in their performance. I have put together a list of my favourite accessories that I program for my athletes to help increase performance, maximise their time in the gym, minimise injury and to help them move more efficiently in their sport. Most of these accessory movements are unilateral movements as most athletes perform bi lateral movements often within the gym, especially Weightlifters & Powerlifters. So here it is: UPPER BODY - z- press ( both unilateral and bi lateral) - tricep extensions - dips - Lu Flys - one arm rows - pendlay row - seated row - pull ups - reverse flys LOWER BODY - bulgarian split squats - glute bridge (unilateral and bi lateral ) - elevated lunges - elevated squats - pallof press - single side leg extensions - single leg RDL - single leg hamstring curl - barbell good morning Implement these into your program along side your your major lifts to help you improve your strength, performance and injury prevention so you can stay on the field, court or platform longer healthier, stronger and faster. Coach Yannick

Sooo I was going to go for a run this morning, but I didn't Because I was scared I was going to turn into an OLYMPIC SPRINTER. SOUNDS RIDICULOUS RIGHT???? because it is! and that right there is how ridiculous you sounds when you say " oh I don't want to do weights because I don't want to get bulky and look like a man!" and if I hear one more time "oh but i put on muscle really easily as soon as I lift Weights and I get massive and look like a man" im going to snap. Because unless your taking cocktails of stanazolol or have some sort of hidden gene that turns you to a muscle building mutant because you have 5x the amount of testosterone flowing through your body than the average male then your lying to me and yourself. Iv'e been lifting for 10 years+ and still struggle to look bigger than a pre- pubescent teenager who has stepped foot in the gym for the first time 2 weeks ago and thinks they are now in the running for mr.olympia. So if you did try weights once and found you were putting on weight really fast, let me tell you what was going on. You were probably living a sedentary life that required you to eat bugger all calories, then you decided to take up training with weights, so now your body required more calories, higher protein for muscle recovery and higher carbohydrate for energy levels, BUT you didn't fulfil your bodies needs for this calorie ¯ro intake so you probably were in a caloric deficit and you began losing weight until your body couldn't take it anymore and started increasing your cravings to force you to support your new calorie requirement. BUT you did not know how to handle the cravings and meet half way so you began eating like a dickhead! NOW you have put on 8kg's ..... and NO that wasn't 8kg of muscle .... it probably was not even 0.8g of muscle, it was made up of fat from your calorie surplus & water & what ever else. SOO you decided to quit and tell everyone that weights made you huge, and you convinced yourself weights are the devil, and only roid munching meat heads should do weights or people that want to burn in the firey depths of hell. BUT here i am to save the day for weights, why don't you stop listening to crap know it all but actually know nothing insta influenzers and try this. Find your self a coach, one that does't program squats in the smith machine, superset with donkey kicks that must be filmed from behind so we can see the "technique & movement of your GLUTES", one that has respect for their clients and them self. Then follow a well balanced diet that helps you maintain a sensible caloric deficit, (if you want to lose fat) or a caloric surplus if gains is where your head is at, Focus on good movement and performance, focus on the long term results of both your physical and mental health, stop stepping on the scales and start measuring your success with how you feel, how you look, and most importantly what your new and improved fancy body can do! & may be a community that supports you and makes training fun because that is what it should be for most people, and that will help you train more consistently and get you better results. Training is not complicated, it is made complicated by the billion dollar industry that feeds off your insecurities to make money. So stop buying into quick fixes, fake insta coaches and booty teas and find some one that is real, will tell you want you need to hear and who actually cares about you! If you need guidance on how to train, we have Online programming & in person options available just see the rest of our website for options, if not find some one else who makes you happy, and gets you the results your looking for, some one who is not afraid to educate you along the path of your journey, knowledge is power and a good coach will not be afraid of helping you find that ;). yours truly, ANGRY FRUSTRATED COACH YANNICK p.s but also with a little bit of love.

You know what? I feel there is too much seriousness in today's day and age, and we all just need to remember to have fun! I see too much pressure being put on people by themselves to be something that they are not, or something that they want to be and not enough time spent on sitting back and enjoying what we are.... HUMAN! Too much pressure on results, too much pressure on your career and not enough time spent being young again! Don't get me wrong, i'm probably one of the hardest working people. I probably put more pressure on myself to succeed than most, i work ridiculous hours, still train ridiculous hours, i'm a father and soon to be father of two, got married by 25 and owned our own home by 26. So this might sound like the pot calling the kettle black here but i'm pretty confident to say i find a pretty happy medium of being a driven Athlete and businessman, Coach, DAD while still bringing out that little kid in me every now and then. Some one not too long said to me, "i see you were at the skate park, being a little kid again?" WELL you know what? that is just it. That is exactly why, because i feel it was time for me to unwind and be a little kid again, and the biggest impact on me doing this was my son. My playful, happy and joyful 3 year old son who has brought out the little kid in me again and i could't be happier. I'm not backing away from my responsibilities as a father, a coach and a business owner, nor am i losing my drive to be a successful athlete, but who said we have to grow up? who said we are not allowed to have fun anymore? You can be a CEO and still get out and play on the weekends. I believe that is healthy, bring out your youth and have fun again, do things out of the norm against societies rules and be a kid again. It doesn't mean you need to become lazy and unsuccessful or a bad parent all of a sudden, in fact it may make you a better parent, a happier employee or employer and just more of a pleasure to be around. Training makes me feel young, and getting out and doing the things that i use to as a kid makes me feel even younger, the best part is training has helped me keep the ability to be able to skate & surf and run around like again with out feeling like a broken old man. So i send this email hoping it touches some of you feeling a little trapped by the responsibilities of becoming a parent, an adult and i hope this email helps you realise you can still have fun, you don't need to conform to the norms of society, BE YOU AND ENJOY WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES YOU, YOU!

I had this discussion with two friends yesterday Andy & Verity while training, and what sparked this blog was a few hours after our conversation we see coach Travis Mash post the exact same thing with the exact same view of what i said that day regarding fit shaming. So i decided to write this as for me it is a real problem, and to see other coaches discuss the same thing with the same passion i see it must be a much wider issue then just what i am seeing. The interesting part to this is that i see females as the biggest culprits to the problem, given that insecurity is already quite wide spread issue, I would like to think that more females would be better understand and sensitive to the issue, but it seems it helps them mentally guard themselves from their own insecurities from being around someone who looks much fitter than them? Let me pose this question to you! Would you walk up to an obese individual, and comment "jeez your legs are huge!!" "gosh your arms are massive!" WELL i would say 95% of you have just said no, and the other 5% are talking shit cause you wouldn't do it. Now what makes you think that because a female trains hard, eats well and takes care of their body that all of a sudden you can do it to them? you realise training doesn't make you emotionless right? Training doesn't automatically remove your feelings and insecurity! So my point is, NO it is not ok to walking up to a female who takes pride in her strength achievements to bring them down just so you don't feel so weak and worthless around them and tell them their "QUADS LOOK HUGE in that dress" or that their "ARMS ARE SO MANLY". Guess what, yes they are proud of their hard work and what it has done to their body but those comments still hurt, and still make them insecure about how they look. For so long, it was not ok for women to train, and compete, and get strong, they had to stay home and do the washing and the cooking and do stereotypical female things. We have evolved into a world where we are now seeing females bring out their true athletic and strength potential, more female sport participation and more female gym participation then ever before. Strong female individuals, and a more excepting community of women breaking the norms, yet so many females are bringing them selves down when you should be banding together! YES, males are a big problem too! We all need to stop thinking it is ok to fit shame some one even if it is innocent. You wouldn't tell an obese person they look massive, or they shouldn't be eating that. So let's stop making it ok for individuals who decide to take care of them selves, get strong and feel healthy and confident in their body! STOP telling ladies they look " masculine", "they look MASSIVE", "their legs are HUGE", that they are "allowed to eat some cake every now and then and relax on the chicken and vegetables". Stop telling females, "don't you think thats enough before you become too manly" The fact f the matter is, every time you do so your just being an ASSHOLE, exposing you own insecurities and guess what, you have no damn right to think you can have an opinion on what some one else does with their body and how they look SIMPLE!. I think it's time for females who are a victim of these comments, to stand up and remind people how it feels to have people make comments about them. Remind people that no matter how confident you are, putting shit om someones hard work and exposing to people in public your thoughts on how they look is wrong and hurtful! I would love you to share this blog especially if your a victim of these and just remind your friends and family on social media that you don't appreciate and that it is not ok!!! We need more people to see this and change this bullshit! Coach Yannick!!! continuing to make females stronger than weak insecure society!

Where do i start? This past weekend we had 8 women competing on the sunny Gold Coast for the masters Oceania, Commonwealth and Pacific Rim Weightlifting Championships, A feat alone that i am very proud of and something that makes our club so special. Of course i travelled up with them to ensure all our training and hard work went to plan on the platform and on pretty much every occasion it did, minus a few speed bumps, BUT it wouldn't be a competition without some. Our girls lifted, PB'd, Won medals, Learnt valuable lessons on competing, Grew as a group, Laughed, Cried but most of all made memories. I am not here to talk about individual performances as i am proud of each and every one of our lifters but rather to talk about the experience in itself. I sit here writing this reflecting on the weekend and all i can feel is absolute pride in our lifters, pride in our club, and pride in the community that we have. We represented Shred with professionalism, comradery & displayed exactly what this club is all about. The fact that we had 8 female lifters representing our club really makes me smile. I read a post from one of our lifters today and one of the things that really caught my attention was the line " Shred is a safe place for us to do what we love & feel confident & strong while dealing with the outside noise of judgemental comments regarding our bodies, our defined muscles and rough hands". This made me feel an incredible sense of achievement reading this as an owner and coach of the gym as this represents exactly what i set out to achieve when growing this gym. Creating a place that removes the negative stigma of gyms, the negative stigma of lifting weights and being strong, building a place that is encouraging for both men and women to express them selves through strength. The fact that we have some incredibly strong beastly males in our gym and i can still read such amazing comments like this just leaves such an amazing feeling in my heart. The fact that i can feel like i have created a gym where both men and women can train, perform and encourage each other in every day with out the negative bullshit that goes on in other gyms is a good feeling. As a coach the fact that i can continue to let these women express them selves with the barbell, let them build and express them selves in a sport of strength and build enough confidence in them to deal with the bullshit that goes on in the fitness industry and the world itself that is constantly bringing down strong women every day and making anyone that isn't a size 8 or lower feel like shit is an amazing feeling. I mean this is the type of people we have in our club. We found ourselves in a weird situation where we were watching a street performer in cavil avenue when all of a sudden two alpha douche bags high and drunk turn up in the crowd and try to destroy this amazing performers act by intimidating him, swearing at him. To the point that he had to stop his show, i love that our women were the first to stand up and build a human wall around this man so that these alpha douche bags couldn't get near him while we all help him get on with the show! This competition like every other brought out exactly the feeling that i chase as a coach. The sense of accomplishment for my athletes as they battle trial and tribulation and always come out on top no matter the outcome because you either win or you learn, there is no failing. You can always get better at something and competition reminds you of that every single time. Running between two platforms that were operating at the same time while i had 4 lifters separated amongst the 2 platforms brought out a challenge in itself but i can truly say i learnt plenty from this, i know i will be ready for anything next competition! Competition bring our something special in people, something that cannot be replicated, so if you are reading this and have never competed in anything i urge you to find something you love and challenge yourself, put yourself out there and see what you are made of. It is not about being a champion but about the self growth, learning more about yourself then you ever will, something that you should experience and see for yourself what it is all about. If you are reading this i just want to thank all of my lifters for the hard work you dedicated to getting ready for this, it is only the beginning for you all! I would like to appreciate all of the other lifters that came out to the comp, the coaches and the organisers for building such a great event. We will continue to push, continue to grow, and continue to become a force in weightlifting and all sports as our hunger and drive is strong amongst this amazing community of athletes. Until the next one! Ciao Coach Yannick.