Mt Airy Exercise

Succeed In Your Fitness Journey with Support

Have you ever felt a little overwhelmed when you started on a fitness or nutrition program? Especially if you’re going at it alone…

 

I know I have. I’ve always done my best when I’ve worked out with a friend or coach on a regular basis. I’ve also always done my best with nutrition when my husband is eating the same things I am eating or if I have an accountability coach checking in and making tweaks to what I’m doing.

 

Both of these; exercise and nutrition seem to have the same results for me when I have a support system. Many of clients have experienced this as well! That’s why I still workout with our groups at Urban Athlete 🙂

 

It’s not easy work but when you have others working toward the same goal alongside of you it feels more attainable and you have someone or a group of people to lean on when it starts to feel really hard.

 

It might be hard for you to wake up at 5:30am for a 6:00am workout but if you’re meeting some friends who expect you to show, you’re more likely be there, possibly even with a smile on!

 

I think our community at Urban Athlete is really solid is this aspect. I always hear our members talking about when they will see someone next and which workouts they plan to attend this week.

 

If this is something that you believe will help add that spark to your current plan or keep you committed longer than you usually are, I’d like to invite you in for a two week trial on us to test it out.

 

Sound interesting?

 

Here’s the only stipulation. All I ask is that you commit to at least 3 workouts a week for two weeks in a row. If you can do this, we’d love to see you. Simply give us a call, 215-248-2130 to let us know when you’ll be in for your first workout. You can even leave us message with your name, phone and the time/day you’ll be in.

 

Here’s a link to our schedule so you can decide when to come in: Urban Athlete Group Training


Post Holiday Habit Challenge

In just 21 days you can make small changes with a BIG impact!

Habits are the foundation of everything we do, good and bad. It takes at least 21 days to build a good habit, sometimes longer to break a bad one. In the post holiday HIIT habit challenge we’re going to be talking about habits with an additional focus on nutritional wellness and making supportive decisions.

Challenges are daunting. Often full of wondering if you can actually complete them successfully. That’s why this 21 day challenge is all about habits and building a strong foundation for you to succeed this year. Whether you’ve already built a foundation or need to do a little demo work and start new, this challenge will be simple enough to make long lasting positive impacts.

Here’s what to expect:
  1. We will start small with habits and build up.
  2. Think of what you get to add vs what you might take away or change.
  3. Mindset is crucial.
  4. There will be a focus on daily movement and meditation.
  5. We will set goals.
The challenge begins on Monday, January 22, 2018 and will run 21 days,
finishing up on Sunday, February 11, 2018.
During the challenge you’ll:
  • Accumulate healthy habits, possibly re-inforcing ones you already do.
  • Have a short daily movement routine.
  • Review your goals.
  • Incorporate the re-name game to shift your mindset.
  • Follow a weekly plan that changes each each of the challenge.
  • Practice short bits of meditation.
This seems like it might be a lot, but it’s broken down into small steps to set you up for success. It’s very simple to register, simply click on the link below to begin:

ENROLL BELOW

21 Day Habit Challenge

If you’re feeling like you want to kick things up a notch and incorporate some high intensity strength training with some strength training into this journey, you can include unlimited group training for the 21 days or you can chose to include six (6) personal training sessions for the 21 days.
Or, you can have your workouts personalized:

We’re Hiring!!

If You Have A Great Attitude, A Passion for Learning New Things, and a Few Basic Skills, I Have a $15+/hr, Fun, and Fulfilling Job Just for You!

From: Pamela MacElree, Owner

Dear Prospective Employee,

Thanks for taking the time to visit this site! You should have arrived here because you saw my employment posting on Indeed/Craigslist or were directed here by a friend/colleague of mine. It’s my hope that you are exactly the person I am looking for so I can take this page down immediately and offer you the fun and rewarding job I have available.

So, let me tell you a little about our company and the job.

My name is Pamela MacElree, and I run a fitness community, that helps people achieve their goals without the pressure of having to ‘look’ a certain way or being pushed to only lose weight. Our fitness facility is called Urban Athlete and we’re located at 7112 Germantown Avenue, Rear, Philadelphia, PA 19119.

Our business is dedicated to helping men, women, and competitive athletes achieve their health, fitness, and performance goals. We currently offer group and personal training with a focus on helping clients reach their goals.

We’re looking for an enthusiastic, motivated, hard working, and energetic person to work with clients as a part-time coach and handle some administrative and sales duties.

If you are hired for this job, the first 90 days on the job will be on a trial period. During this time period, you will be working M/T between the hours of 6am and 12pm and W/TH 4pm to 8:30pm as needed for on the job training. Once you become permanent you will have a static schedule that is agreed upon working up to 20 hours a week. You will have the opportunity to gain more experience and grow within the company as well as progress to full time employment!

Tasks We Need You to Perform

  • Making great first impressions: You will be the first point of contact for all prospective clients. Whether you are greeting someone at the door or answering or returning phone calls, you’ll be responsible for making sure prospects both get the information they need and feel at home from the moment they first interact with us.
  • Deliver the highest quality service and value every single day: Our clients come to us to reach goals and feel good about themselves while they are on their journey. You will be responsible for delivering coaching sessions energetically with the client’s best interest in mind.
  • Understanding the Sales Process: We have a unique schedule and there will be times that require you to meet with prospective clients, deliver a success session and be able to speak confidently about our program and offerings.
  • Some administrative tasks: Each position within our company requires some administrative tasks be complete. It is crucial that these tasks happen in a timely fashion in order to be able to deliver the highest quality service and value.

Prerequisite Skills and Attitude 

These are the skills and the attitude you must already have in order to qualify for this position:

  • Microsoft Word: You must be very comfortable using Microsoft Word  and have basic Excel skills- you won’t have to do anything advanced in Excel, but you should be comfortable with it where you can manage spreadsheets
  • A “Servant Hood” Mentality: You will be taking care of our clients and prospects. They are all VERY important, so you must be comfortable conversing on the phone, in person, and through email. You must be relentless in finding solutions for them. We’ll teach you the basics of what to say and do, but we can’t teach you how to have a great attitude and a strong desire to help people.
  • Desire to learn and grow: I’m serious about this! I want a person who is motivated to get better every day and who isn’t shy about suggesting ideas on how we can improve the business. I do not want a robot that simply follows a checklist, I want someone who learns and grows with our company.
  • Organized and Attentive to Detail: This is a must! You will need to catch the little things from scheduling, to wording, numbers, cleaning, etc.

Bonus Skills

If you have these additional skills, your resume will go right to the top of the stack (but if you don’t have these skills, you should still apply because these are not mandatory).

  • Adobe Creative Suite/Graphic Design: We publish a monthly newsletter and special announcement flyers in publisher, and you’ll need to be able to go in and make edits/changes to the file when necessary and get it ready to print
  • Editing and Cropping Pictures: We take photos to be used as social proof and testimonials for our company.

How to Apply

We’re looking to hire the right person as soon as possible. So if this job sounds good to you, follow these instructions precisely. Failure to follow these instructions will result in your resume going in the circular file. This is your first test, okay?

Here’s what I want from you

  • Write a resume that includes your education, ALL prior work experience (yes, I even want to know if you mowed lawns when you were 14), and any skills you have.
  • Write me a 100-200 word (we will count) cover letter explaining why you are the perfect person to fill this position. Include full contact information (name, address, phone, email) on this cover letter.
  • On a separate sheet of paper list at least three references with phone numbers and what your relationship is with the references (i.e. – previous employer, college professor, etc).
  • Write me an additional hand-written note, 50 words maximum, re-iterating why you feel I should choose you for the job.
  • Put the cover letter on top of your resume and the reference sheet underneath your resume, staple together in the top left corner. Add your hand-written note on top.
  • Mail to: Urban Athlete – 7112 Germantown Avenue, Rear, Philadelphia, PA 19119

Next Steps

If you followed the instructions properly, we will review your application. If we feel you’re a good prospect, we’ll call or email you to set up a personal interview. If we feel you aren’t qualified, we’ll send you a courtesy email to thank you for your time. If you do not hear from us at all, it means you did not follow the instructions properly.

The sooner we get your application, the better. This will not be a long, drawn out process. I believe in taking action quickly. So get your application in pronto! I look forward to reviewing it and hopefully meeting you personally.

Again, thanks very much for your interest.

In health,

Pamela MacElree

P.S. – This is not a corporate type of structure job.  I am an entrepreneurial small business owner.  I move quickly to capitalize on opportunities.  This is not the type of job where just showing up is enough.  Urban Athlete is everything to me.  If you perform, you will be rewarded.  I want nothing more than to find a person who takes real interest in doing good work and contributing to the growth of the business. If that’s you, I promise that $15/hour is only the starting point. I recognize and reward performance!

With all that said, enthusiasm and a positive attitude go long way in my book.  I’m a very positive, upbeat person and appreciate those qualities in others.  As long as you have the basic skills I mentioned,and a great attitude, you’re definitely a candidate!  So send us your resume today!

If you have any questions, please contact us at:

215-248-2130

UrbanAthlete.tv


How To Reach Your Goals?

We all want wellness or at the very least fitness. We can probably even narrow it down further from here to say we all just want to feel good and look good in our own bodies.

I fully understand that ‘good’ is relative. My definition of good might be extremely different than yours and that’s ok. The main focus however is, we should all want to be on a plan that makes us feel good and look good in our own bodies, healthily.

How do you do this, reach your goals?

The simplest answer is diligent consistency.

Consistency is the key to almost every endeavor that you want to be better at. Take your job for example, or a musical instrument you learned to play. You got good at those skills because you learned them and practiced them.

If you apply the same theory of consistent learning to exercise and nutrition, you’ll also become really good at it and in turn reach your goals. But, you have to be consistent AND realistic.

I think this is where many of us get caught up in the moment, especially at this time of year. It’s not realistic for you to commit to working out 7 days a week, with 3 of those days being two a day workouts. It’s also not practical and you’ll likely set yourself up with an injury or over-training but that’s a different topic.

Most of us, even those with the best of intentions, won’t be able to sustain 10 workouts a week very long.

However, committing to working out 4 days a week, is a significantly more realistic goal that also sets you up for doing some form of exercise more than half the days of the week! That’s a great step in the right direction to reaching your goals, and one that is likely to stick with you for awhile.

Getting consistent is simple in theory but can be challenging in practice. Start with scheduling your workouts each week. Consider it an appointment you simply cannot miss. If work starts at 8:30am, you get to work by 8:30am. So be it, if your workout starts at 6:00pm, you get to your workout by 6:00pm.

Breaking the habit of cancelling or rescheduling appointments is where this habit will be challenging for some of us but it’s the best step toward reaching your goals. “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” If you do, there’s a high likelihood it won’t happen.

Schedule a success session with us today in Mt Airy, Philadelphia so you can reach your goals tomorrow, 215-248-2130.


Does Your Gym Do This?

We’re all drawn to different types of environments for a variety of reasons. This especially holds true to a gym environment.

You have to feel comfortable at the gym or you won’t go. The whole point of having a gym is to go there, right?

There are many things that set Urban Athlete apart from the typical gym, ranging from the community, to the workouts, to our approach of lifestyle based coaching.

One of the other things that really stands out to me is our belief in giving back. Philanthropy is a large part of what we do in and out of the gym.

  • Burpees & Burgers
  • Bonus workshops
  • Row-A-Thons
  • Outdoor workouts
  • Food & Toy drives

And the list can go on. Additionally some of our coaches volunteer their time to local organizations and/or run on charity bibs for endurance sports. Our clients are also participating in their own efforts.

It’s part of who we are.

If that’s something that speaks to you, come check us out!

We will be launching a new program at the start of the new year that allows organizations with proof of a 501c3 to do Workout Fundraisers. Stay tuned on more details about that, we’re pretty excited about it.


Don’t Be Afraid, Squashing The Dogma

Even after re-doing our website, I still get comments from people I meet that they are afraid or intimidated by the workouts at Urban Athlete.

Two things I hear frequently are:

1 – I have to get in shape before I can go there.

2 – Only really serious people workout there, right?

 

I hope I can answer those comments for you here.

1 – You don’t have to be in shape before you come to us.

In fact, a good number of our community aren’t in shape when they walk through our door. They expect us to get them in shape. Some of our clients never worked out a day in their life before starting with us. Some used to be athletes but have had life happen and let fitness and health take a back seat. Others are familiar with the types of workouts we do.

I take a great deal of pride in our program and community for many reasons. One of the main reasons is from the stand-point that we can, will and do modify our group workouts to get you started or back on track with your fitness journey. Meeting you where you are is very important to us. We want fitness to be a part of your lifestyle.

If group workouts aren’t your thing or you’d feel more comfortable easing your way in we also offer personal training. This can be something that you do for a few weeks to get you ‘ready’ for a group setting, training that you do to reach really specific goals or training to best accommodate your schedule.

The options and the flexibility can be very personalized.

 

2 – Yes, only really serious people workout with us.

Let me be clear with this one. Serious, as in, our community shows up to their workouts on a regular and consistent basis. Although it exists, very few people sign up with us and don’t attend.

The intensity level is different from person to person, as is each person’s strength, skill and capability. The level of “seriousness” comes solely from their individual commitment level.

I think we can all take a page out of that book, wouldn’t you agree?

 

 

In short, we don’t want you to be intimidated by Urban Athlete. We know we aren’t for everyone but I’m certain that if you give us a try you won’t be disappointed and at the very least you won’t be intimidated.


How Do I Choose A Place To Workout?

Choosing an exercise program can be a challenging decision to make. You have to take into consideration a variety of factors.

We’d like to help you address those factors here.  This for any gym but especially holds true for gyms, like ours, that offer group and personal training – times when you’re always working out with a coach.

Location:

Location is a big deal. Like, a really big deal. The place you workout has to be convenient or there’s a high likelihood you won’t attend. Start looking for a place that is either close to home, close to work or on the direct route between those two places.

Importance Value on a scale of 1 – 5: 4

 

Schedule:

If the hours don’t work with your schedule, and you’re not making stipulations for things just to have an excuse, then the place isn’t for you. You might also consider flexibility of the scheduling; are various times available to you, do morning and evening exist, can you adjust your schedule weekly?

Importance Value on a scale of 1 – 5: 5

 

Community / Atmosphere:

Once you get committed to a place the difference between community and atmosphere will become clear but until then they might seem like the same thing.

What to look for in a solid gym atmosphere:

    • Is everything orderly and kept in seemingly the right place?
    • Is the facility clean?
    • Does it have a good vibe when you walk in and when you’re working out?

What to look for in a solid gym community:

    • Do you get greeted at the door by your name?
    • Are the people you meet friendly and supportive even though they don’t know you?
    • Is the business connected with the physical community it is a part of?
    • Do you get the ‘feel’ that the people who attend enjoy the precious time they spend there?

Importance Value on a scale of 1 – 5: 5

 

Scalability:

Not everyone moves the same way. Not everyone has the same goals. Occasionally, we all need modifications to exercises to make them easier to accomplish and sometimes we need certain exercises to be more challenging.

Be sure to find a workout place that offers you the ability to scale up or down for what ever reason. Don’t feel like you always need to be doing exactly what everyone else is doing. We all have our own strengths!

Importance Value on a scale of 1 – 5: 5

 

These are just some of the factors to consider but the ones we think are the most important, especially since most of them are ranked with a 5!

Please reach out to us if you have any questions about our programs or if we can assist you in your health and fitness journey!


The Beauty of Habit Consistency

All things in life that are good for us, can be even better for us if done with consistency. Case in point, if your nutrition is solid during the day but you snack from 9pm-11pm you don’t have the same positive impact. Similarly exercising 3-4 days a week is ideal, but spread out over the week is more impactful than 3 days in a row and taking 4 days off.
Let’s compare those examples to something more simple like brushing your teeth. You want to brush your teeth, every day, twice a day to prevent cavities, gingivitis and to have fresh breath, right? Of course you do. I’m certain that 98% of the time you don’t falter from this consistently pattern/habit. What if you only brushed your teeth once every three days? Exactly…

Even more so, here’s the real beauty of habit consistency; you don’t have to guess when the next  (fill in the blank) will be. You know because you’ve already planned it, it’s already been scheduled or better yet it’s what you already do.

That’s the basis behind our Lifestyle Challenges, creating habit consistency with exercise and nutrition to live a better, healthier life that is able to be maintained.

Wednesday – Sunday this week we are scheduling 20 minutes sessions, to goal plan, take initial measurements and do performance testing for the upcoming 6 weeks to summer lifestyle challenge. You may still register for the 6 week challenge through this Sunday.

Here’s a recap of the 6 week challenge and what to expect: 6 Weeks to Summer Challenge


Working Out for the Weekend

STRENGTH

Stability

Toughness

Resilience

Endure

Next level

Go-get ’em

Tenacity

Hardwork

 

1a – Band Pull Aparts 5 x 8

1b – Bottoms Ups Goblet Squat with Static Hold 5 x 5

1c – Lateral Band Woodchoppers 5 x 8/8

1d – TRX Rows 5 x 8


2a – Overhead Plate Reverse Lunges 5 x 5/5

2b – Bent Over Rows 5 x 5/5

2c – Hanging Straight Leg Raise 5 x 8/8

2d – Weighted Lateral Step Up 5 x 5/5


TRX Thursday

The beauty of interval training is the vast variability you have in structuring a workout. Of course there are considerations to make, such as you wouldn’t want to do :15 intervals of Turkish get ups…you’d never get in a full rep! Conversely it would be challenging to do a :90 interval of pull ups, not impossible but challenge nevertheless. Certain work/rest time intervals are better for different training goals.

For today’s Kettlebell workout you’ll notice there are three time intervals of essentially the same movements. This is a descending work/rest time ladder. As the time interval decreases, aim to use heavier weights.

1 – :40 of work / :20 of rest x 3 rounds of:

  • Hip Bridges
  • Power Ropes
  • Threaded Lunges

2 – :30 of work / :15 of rest x 3 rounds of:

  • Kettlebell High Pulls
  • Power Ropes
  • Threaded Lunges

3 – :20 of work / :10 of rest x 3 rounds of:

  • Hand to Hand Swings
  • Power Ropes
  • Threaded Lunges

4 – TRX Pikes 1 x 40

 

Urban Athletics:

Complete :30 of work / :15 of rest x 4 rounds. Complete all rounds of one exercise before moving on to the next.

  1. Power Ropes
  2. Snatches
  3. Slam Ball
  4. Push Press
  5. Jumping Lunges
  6. Backward Band Resisted Running

Finish up with a 2000m partner row, in 100m sprint intervals.