Today starts a new series for our blog circuit - our areas of expertise. Each week throughout the month of April we will highlight an area of focus that we specialize in. And to start, we'll talk about our bread and butter - getting in shape.
When it comes to getting in shape there are a few important components, but the most important is all about challenging your body. In order to make your body improve, you need to make it do things that cause physical stress. Typically we think about physical stress as things that require effort to do. For example, sitting down and standing up from the couch can cause physical stress for a totally unconditioned person. For a well conditioned person, sitting and standing doesn't require effort, so they need to do a more challenging variation of that movement, such as weighted squats, and they'll need to increase the weight over time to continue to stress the muscles. For the unconditioned athlete, sitting and standing from the couch will create stress and the body will be forced to adapt to this new stress. This is called physical adaptation. After a little while, this unconditioned body will grow muscle to accommodate the sitting and standing. Once the body is adapted and sitting and standing is no longer causing physical stress, it's time to progress to a harder variation so that the body can experience physical stress again and continue to improve.
One issue we see a lot of with individuals who come to us for help getting in shape is that they don't understand this concept of adding stress and allowing the body to adapt and strengthen. Typically what we see is that the person has been doing the exact same routine for a long period of time and their results have plateaued, or they are doing exercise that doesn't require the body to adapt, such as jogging or using stationary machines. You may have experienced this yourself at some point - you start a new program and it seems to work, but then at some point it stops. If you don't understand how to increase the stress so that your body continues to adapt, it will stop progressing.
The primary focus of both our CrossFit and Bootcamp programs are to constantly push your body to adapt. Through various types of different movements and rep schemes, we constantly vary the type and amount of physical stress onto your body so that it will be forced to adapt and improve. CrossFit has grown like wildfire over the past decade because it is the most sophisticated way to get in shape and the method it uses to record scores and efforts ensures that you continue to adapt and improve over time. Our Bootcamp program offers a similar philosophy, however it is not designed for peak performance, it's designed to build healthy, functioning bodies.
Our Anchor program is aimed to create positive adaptation as well, however it is much less intense and does not have the cardio focus that CrossFit and Bootcamp offer. With that being said, the primary benefit of all three of these programs is increased strength and muscle development, through physical stress, that will lead to fat loss over time. And of course, we can accomplish the goal of getting you in shape through our Personal Training and Remote Training services as well.
Another benefit that our programs and services offer is that you get our expertise knowledge and coaching guiding you every step of the way. One reason people plateau (or don't even start in the first place) is because they don't have the knowledge needed for the next step. And there is no shame in that. I don't know anything about my car, so whenever there is an issue I bring it to the professional mechanics. At Harbor Park we are professional body mechanics, and we'll know exactly what your body needs to accomplish the goals you have for yourself.
