Its been interesting for us to watch athletes in both of our gyms be completely overwhelmed by a workout that involves a large volume of work (something involving 5 rounds of 400 meter runs or 50 calories on at the airdyne is a good example of this), while in workouts where we expect an all out effort for a shorter period of time (i.e. a sprint workout lasting under 5 minutes) a large majority of them won’t push themselves hard enough to once again undergo the same psychological examination they naturally experience to when trying to complete the longer workouts. The question is, why not?

The answer is because we, as human beings, are designed to try and work out the easiest way to do something. Its the reason we sit instead of standing and the reason so few people actually understand the value of hard physical work.

What happens at Roark is that there are no short cuts provided to you. The movements are big movements with standards attached to them. The workouts are stressful and designed to tax the parts of your body which would you usually assist you in the movements. So what do people start doing when placed under physical stress with no alternatives available? They create them. They short rep. They don’t go as low on a squat. The relax a little on the rower. They quit.

We’ve spoken before about taking responsibility for your diet, so now we would like to ask you to take responsibility for your movement standards. If you short rep, cheat or quit, there is only one person losing out on what the workout is trying to achieve.

We’re not for one moment saying you shouldn’t think about quitting. I personally think about it all the time during workouts – “just stop, just don’t do the last rep” – but what that shows me is that I’m taking my body to a place it is so uncomfortable, its asking my mind to issue the command to give up.

Each time I don’t quit, what happens is that some weakness in me dies. I kill it. In burying myself completely in a physical challenge, I bury the weakness in me, and with each new challenge I kill more weakness by refusing to give in to the voice that tells me to quit. In doing so, I reinforce this virtue in myself, knowing that I won’t quit when things get tough – and this isn’t limited to gym, it’s transferrable to every aspect you value in your life. But always remember, that the inverse also applies. Now you need to ask yourself what virtues you would like to reinforce in your life.

“If you want to quit and you don’t quit, and then you want to quit again and you don’t quit again, and you get in the habit of not quitting, it carries over to everything else.”

- Mark Twight.

The post Killing the Quitter appeared first on Roark Gyms.

We don’t advocate a ‘paleo lifestyle’ at Roark. It’s impractical, expensive and quite honestly those who practice it seem to suddenly feel the need to impress their eating habits onto yours. We also don’t believe it to be entirely healthy – because health extends to more than your body, it extends to social occasions, training and relationships.

Our theory with diet is ‘do what you want.’ That’s the advise we give to everyone who asks us. The formulae for losing weight hasn’t changed and never will. Neither has the formulae for putting on size. Everyone knows that if they cut out sugar, fruit, starch and alcohol they will lose weight. Conversely, if you add these into your diet along with increased amounts of protein, you will gain size. There’s no way this can come as a surprise to anyone reading this.

So, do what you want. If you love food and a diet becomes something which puts you in a bad mood, leaves you feeling flat during training and spoils social occasions, you’re doing it wrong. Having said that, you cannot then complain if you are carrying a few extra kilograms – at the end of the day, this was your choice.

Diet is almost the single determining factor when it comes to weight loss and weight gain. People talk about about getting bulky from lifting weight, while I can assure you there is enough scientific evidence to show that the only way to gain weight and add muscle mass is through diet (increased carbohydrates and protein) in conjunction with a very specific hypertrophy programme.

So, let me break it down for you like this, and you can make the choice yourself:

To lose weight in a quick but healthy way:

For 28 days allow yourself an 8 hour eating window, and therefore 16 hours without food per day. If you have your first bite at 11am, your last must be at 19:00 am. In this fasting window you can only drink water and black coffee. You are only allowed to eat eggs, meat, avo, salad and vegetables.

To lose weight steadily:

Practice the above for two days per week over an extended period of time. Eat the same diet, but at regular times for the remaining 5 days.

To gain mass:

Eat. A lot. Eat in excess of 4000 calories a day. Eat sandwiches before meals, and increase your protein intake.

To maintain a normal, healthy lifestyle:

Eat protein (meat), fats (avo) and good carbohydrates (potatoes). Stop eating cereal, yogurt and fruit in the morning – replace these with eggs. Stop eating sweets and sugar every day. Allow yourself three cheats per week. Exercise regularly. If you want a drink, have one, just not every night – no matter what someone told you about a glass of red wine being good for you.

To stay exactly as you are now:

Change nothing, and don’t complain.

Don’t punish yourself for eating a cupcake if you want one, just enjoy it, because that’s the decision you made. Its yours and no one else’s. Be an adult and take responsibility for the way you eat. If you don’t put it in your shopping basket, its highly unlikely that it will end up in your cupboard.

The post How To Diet appeared first on Roark Gyms.

Group 1 – 9:00am

Atish Goolab

Brett Roux

Darren Bloemstein

Justin Parker

AB Gazi

Bryan Teare

Daniel Auger

Jared Vorster

Jeremy de Tolly

Marcel Bovijn

Craig Bestall

Group 2 – 9:30am

Liam Shirley

Rod Hunter

Ryan Ferreira

Tom Hopper

Nic Stirton

Nico Stone

Ori Saban

Wian van Bergen

Wes Blackmore

Dinesh Gangen

Graeme Watson

The 12 who make up the final will be the fastest times from the semi finals, so groups at this stage are irrelevant, so there is nothing to be read into them.

The final will start at 10:45 – friends and family are encouraged to come and support you throughout the morning.

We’re looking forward to a great day, and to seeing a new winner of The Roark Games.

The post Roark Games Groups and Start Times appeared first on Roark Gyms.

Over time, this combination will build a lean, sustainable form that will empower you. The fitter you get, the fitter you will get. When you’re fit and healthy, you’re more likely to make choices that will keep you fit and healthy. When you’re experiencing the benefits of physical health – a lean, strong body, a clear mind and the fringe benefits (emotional stability, self-confidence, body appreciation), you’re probably going to make choices that will perpetuate this state of grace.

Ladies who’ve been training with us will be used to the strength part of the program, which we lead every session with. The point of these is to build and maintain base strength. We continue to build on this through every session. The stronger you get, the more proficient you’ll be at what your interval workouts require of you. You’ll be able to pull further in your rows, lift heavier weights more efficiently, and generally put more effort in. And the more effort you put in, the better your results become.

Barring the athletes who require bulk for their sports, the average Roark athlete is lean. This is because the way we train raises your heart rate while burning fat with weight-training. Usually our workouts combine the two in interval weight training workouts. We find this method works extremely well. Training in this way does not build bulk, it increases efficiency. Some of our athletes do require bulk, and achieve this by adding starches and grains to their diets, which is a sure way to put on and maintain extra body weight. Those who wish to remain lean do very well on diets consisting of high protein, high vegetable and a good dose of unsaturated fat.

For those who have previously experienced a ‘plateau’ in their training or maintenance efforts – a level at which the body refuses to change any more – strength training becomes even more valuable. Plateaus in training programmes are only broken through by getting stronger and by pushing up your heart rate, which will allow you to put in more effort later down the line, but you have to be willing to make the investment now, in order to perform better later. To maintain a state of lean fitness, you need to be continually pushing through your plateaus. And this is why we need you to get stronger.

If you still hold the idea that lifting weights builds bulk, and you feel you can report some kind of evidence or anecdote to support this, it’s time to start interrogating your diet. You will never find a bodybuilder who eats lots of vegetables, protein and good fats and doesn’t eat carbohydrates and starch, because the last two are essential for building bulk and size. It stands to reason then that removing them from your diet will eliminate the possibility of you building bulk. By eliminating weight and strength training, however, you eliminate the possibility of being lean.

When you change your ideas of what it means to get stronger, you’ll find you might just start getting the results you’ve always wanted.

The post Why You Need To Get Stronger appeared first on Roark Gyms.

The problem with stopping or slowing down is that the end result is compromised, and often you’re left having finished your workout knowing you could have done more. Gym Jones term this period ‘the negotiation’ where your mind and your body do battle – your body willing you to stop, your mind pushing forward.

Many people ask me how they can better deal with with this ‘negotiation’, and the simplest piece of advice I have for them is something which I myself follow and have found very useful during these mentally grueling periods – just pick up the bar.

What I mean by this, is just wholeheartedly commit to the next repetition. If it involves a barbell just pick it up, if its a burpee just drop your chest to the floor, if its a squat just squat down. Trust yourself enough that you won’t just quit halfway through an individual repetition. Keep reinforcing this in your mind, and keep repeating it to yourself. Don’t focus on the whole workout, just break it down into a series of percentages.

I’m sure you’ve heard the skin crawlingly cheesy phrase “when others are sleeping, I’m working”, but what this basically means is that this person is willing to work hard during a period when others aren’t, and as such will ultimately achieve more than them. The middle portion of any workout is this time.

Anyone can go hard at the beginning of a workout when they’re fresh, and anyone can dig in when they can see the finish line with only a minute to go, but good athletes are built in the middle sections. Be an athlete who doesn’t get lost in this period, who pushes forward when others begin their own negotiations, and one who commits to always picking up the bar.

The post Pick Up The Bar appeared first on Roark Gyms.

I have a friend, Michael Blevins, who is one of the disciples at Gym Jones in Salt Lake City, Utah. While I was there last year he told me the story of when he and his fiancé Erin decided that they would treat themselves to a cheat day after weeks of hard training and strict eating.

Standing in a queue and discussing what kind of chocolate covered waffle they were going to order, a women behind them having overheard their conversation, stated how lucky both Michael and Erin were that they are able to eat anything they want while still looking the way they do.

Michael, who normally has a very even temperament, tells me he completely lost it with this women, telling her that she has absolutely no idea the sacrifices he makes day in and out to deserve to have a meal like the one they were about to indulge in. While I’m sure a lot of his frustration was directed toward the American public as a whole, I understand where he is coming from.

Catch Me If You Can is a movie which features the true story of con artist Frank Abagnale Jnr, who while being tracked by FBI agent Carl Hanratty for many years successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, and an attorney general, while in the process cashing more than $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in 26 countries.

Throughout the film Abagnale uses his looks, charm and street smart to defraud hundreds of people. All the while Hanratty is just behind him, providing the viewers with insight on how Abagnale was able to pull off some of the greatest scams in history. Yet there is one scam which Hanratty is unable to solve, and that is how Abagnale was able to be admitted as an attorney in the state of Louisiana. Not only do you have to have a law degree to do this, but you also have to pass the bar exam, which is process seemingly impossible to circumvent.

At the end of the film when Hanratty has finally cornered Abagnale, and there is nowhere left for him to run he asks him, “How’d you do it, Frank? How’d you pass the bar in Louisiana?”

To which Abagnale replies, “I studied for it, wrote it and passed it.”

Everyone wants the secret formula that leads to success. Well, here it is – hard work. There is no substitute for it, and no way around it.

So, much like Michael in that queue, and like many other people who have had others question them on how they lost so much weight, got so much stronger or performed so much better, we too say that you can try to fake your way to it, or cheat your way around it, but at the end of the day the only thing that will bring you to where you want to be is the sacrifice that comes with hard work, and a willingness to stop making excuses or believing in luck.

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When I was 14 years old I had just started competing in local karting races and was convinced that talent alone would get me through the ranks.

When my father told me that I needed to exercise my response was that I was walking between classes at school. That all changed around the time I turned 15 when a friend of mine convinced my brother and I to start going to gym with him.

By the time we were 16 we were very fit and strong for our age. Then I broke my shoulder in a moment of idiocy on the school field and, until now, struggled to get back to the fitness levels I had experienced previously.

As my brother and my friends went their own way in terms of exercise (martial arts, cycling etc) I found myself alone at the gym and incredibly demotivated. I was doing the same routines over and over and could tell I was making no progress at all.

Eventually I decided it was time to get a personal trainer which I genuinely thought would help me to get over the plateau I had hit in my training. I could not have been more wrong. There was never a programme to follow, I was not being taught good form and I was never pushed to try harder. Not only that, but the routines I had to do were not suited to motorsport at all.

At some point in my mid 20′s, after 3 different trainers, I gave up and took a whole year off. I couldn’t take the early mornings, the lack of progress and having to wake up my own trainer from his slumber.

Then around this time last year my brother told me about a new gym opening called Roark. I decided to give it a try and I still remember the nausea after doing an assessment with a plastic pipe instead of a dumbbell. To say I was out of shape is an understatement.

To be a fast racing driver you need to be quick on your feet, have a good sense of balance and a strong core, while maintaining a low weight and not being overly muscle bound. What I found at Roark was a routine which would improve my explosiveness, make me stronger, sharper and provide me with the power endurance I required to compete at the level I desired.

Before joining Roark I was a terrible long distance runner, I could barely do 20 push ups and 8 pull ups was my limit. I had a decent core strength but everything built around it was terrible.

The programming at Roark changed all of this. I was put on a proper strength programme, while the conditioning sessions have clearly defined goals and objectives. I learned what it was to dig deep and I discovered things about myself physically which I never thought I was capable of. On top of this there is a competitive environment at Roark which can only make you improve as a sportsman. There are few things better than trying to beat the guy next to you in a Daily, or bettering your personal best for a “Roark Run.”

Around the time of joining Roark I had just started racing again. I was, however, in the unique situation where I could do absolutely no practice or testing during the year owing to work commitments. I therefore needed to dedicate my evenings to sweating it out at Roark as a replacement.

The results were phenomenal and something my competitors still struggle to understand. I would arrive at the track on Race Day and compete at the highest level without any signs of fatigue.

Despite not doing a lap of practice the whole year I achieved some of the best results I’ve ever had: 2nd in the Western Province Championship, 3rd in the South African Championship and 2nd in the African Championship. Though I didn’t win any of them, I was the only driver to finish on the podium in all three.

This year my training has been taken up a level – James put me on a diet from hell to lose weight for the new season and once again the results have been incredible. In the space of 4 weeks I lost 6.5kg and surpassed my target weight comfortably, while getting stronger, fitter and more explosive.

This weekend will be one of the most important races of my career. If I win on Sunday I will be invited to the World Championships where I will compete against sixty four of the Worlds finest karters. It is a very satisfying feeling to know that when I arrive at the track there will be no other competitor better prepared for the five gruelling days of testing and racing than me. No one would have trained harder, gone darker or sacrificed what I have – and its all thanks to Roark.

The post Go Karting Champion David Perel Writes About Training At Roark appeared first on Roark Gyms.

If you’ve read our site, you will know that we place a far greater emphasis on performance than aesthetics. We’ve stated many times that if you concentrate on improving your performance numbers, everything else positive will follow. Concentrating on performance is also far more sustainable over a long period of time than just training to look a particular way.

The absence of mirrors in the gym isn’t, however, to avoid our members looking at themselves for aesthetic reasons.

When learning a movement for the first time, such as a deadlift or a squat, it is very important that you don’t learn it by watching yourself. The problems associated with this is that you tend to start ‘self correcting’ based on your reflection, rather than by concentrating on the particular muscle groups you are supposed to be employing to properly complete the movement.

The lack of mirrors also allows our coaches to have the final say with regard to form. Trust between coach and member is imperative to the process of developing proper technique, and therefore members are naturally inclined to listen for instruction rather than trying to solve the problem on their own.

At Roark Women we are trying to make women aware of their bodies in a positive way. We  want our women to leave what they may have previously thought possible, or proper, at the door, and to see what their bodies are capable of. We can assure you that if they trust the movement and your body, you will have the results you desire.

The post Why we don’t have mirrors in our Women’s Gym appeared first on Roark Gyms.

We believe you can put this down to three main reasons – the first is that they’ve become bored. The same ritual and routine has left them feeling uninspired, so they want to try something else. The second, is that they have stopped gaining results and/or enjoyment from what they have been doing. The third is that they have seen someone else try this new thing and experience some sort of positive change which they themselves desire.

These reasons are certainly the case where exercise is involved, as there is perpetually something new on the market which promises to work better and quicker than anything else.. The problem with those who do exercise is that they seldom give anything a chance to really work. This is partly because we, as consumers, are thoroughly spoilt (a good and a bad thing), and mainly because people generally lack the conviction to absolutely commit to a form of exercise as they would a job or a relationship that means a great deal to them.

What often happens is that people commit wholeheartedly to a particular form of exercise, and because its completely new, their body adapts very quickly in an aesthetically and performance pleasing way. But the body is designed to adapt, and once this happens, you will hit a plateau. You often hear people from different walks of exercise talking of how they just aren’t getting what they used to out of the exercise they practice.

This is where good programming and coaching is essential, and the reason there has been such an enormous shift towards exercise in which the sessions are taken by a coach. Unfortunately, very few people know how to programme properly, and as such just try to flatten their athletes day in and out without much thought given to training cycles or fatigue.

If you are working out in a specific way, and are feeling bored, fatigued or that the results you once had are no longer there, you need to consider what type of coaching you are getting, and more specifically what type of programming your coaches are putting together for you.

We believe in equipping our athletes with all of the tools they need to train, and should they need to do so on their own, or move away from our facility, they will still have a great skill set to draw on, no matter where they find themselves in the world.

The relationship between service provider and consumer should, however, still be respected. If you trust the facility you’re considering joining, then commit to it. Don’t shirk your part of the deal, be it based on the duration of a contract or the effort required of you. This is a relationship, one which requires give and take from both parties, and one which should be given time to develop through commitment and trust.

The post What inspires change? appeared first on Roark Gyms.

The Summer Roark Games will be held on the 13th of April 2013, and will follow a similar format to the winter version last year, which worked very well.

In the week of the 8th -12th of April 2013, competitors will have a week to lift a one rep max in the back squat, deadlift and bench press, while they will also be required to perform as many strict chin ups as possible in a once off max effort. Every lift and rep must be supervised by a coach in order to be counted. At the end of this week, competitors will have a total, which must be recorded. This total will serve as part of the entrance requirements to the semi finals.

Instead of two Saturday competitions like last year, we will have two workouts which will be performed in place of the Daily during the one rep max week (8-12th April 2013). A competitor’s placing in the strength portion listed above, together with the results from these two workouts will determine who makes it through to the semi finals.

The semi finals and final will be held on Saturday the 13th of April 2013, starting at 9:30am at the gym. The final will be held later that day at 11am.

Competitors will be put into different categories depending on strength, fitness and experience. These categories will be listed as amateur, intermediate and advanced. These categories will have different rep, weight and time requirements, to ensure fair competition for all competitors.

The costs of entry will be R120 per competitor, which will include a Roark t-shirt. You will have the choice of the traditional t-shirt or a new one which we are having printed at the moment. Pictures will be up on the website soon.

Please inform your coaches should you wish to compete, or email james@roarkgyms.com

Burn the ships.

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