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As the summer has started to make its way out, it was only fitting that our theme this month was to Savor Summer. We really focused on finding rhythms and routines, and truly appreciating the little things as fall approaches, and we shift into a new season. Also in August, we got to rock a fun 4-day challenge and met some new Inspirers who got a little taste of what Fitness Inspired is all about. Without further adieu, let's see what August was all about! Won't you get hip to this timely trip? It turns out the song, "Get your Kicks on Route 66" doesn't have the most extensive lyrics besides listing cities, so I am running out of some tag lines. Anyway, let's take a look at who joined up on this hip trip. Hitting Route 66 this month full speed ahead was Michelle R, Angie R and Cynthia T! Last time I checked, we had 17 drivers cruising on our Route and that number is only going to increase! It's gonna be Prong! People have been getting their prongs like mad, and soon we will be crowning even more FI royalty! After this month, we saw Leanne F, Laura G, Angie R, Jim H and Cynthia T each earn their prong for their crown. Not only that, we had another Fitness Inspirer who earned her fifth prong this year, meaning she got her crown!! Congrats Terri H on joining the FI royalty!! With a few months left in the year, there is still time for people to get their 5 prongs to make that crown! Savoring Summer August can be a bittersweet month as it signals the winding down of summer. While the weather can still be brutally hot, August is usually a time where people try and get their last vacations as they see their "break time" coming to a close. This is why it was so important that we truly savored our workouts and appreciate the hard work we put in. While the weather did not always cooperate, we had some great outdoor workouts and of course some challenging online workouts as well. I hear Steve Harvey even made an appearance at one of our games workouts.
Our homework this month directly correlated with our physical testing as we pushed ourselves with Angel Wall sits, Perfect Planks, Tricep Pushups and Wall Presses. While we almost had some confusion at post testing with the tricep pushups and wall presses, what wasn't confusing was the improvements everyone had! Add to this, at the results party, something called an Angel Plank may have been created so beware for that as well ;) Let's check some highlights!
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July is definitely the month of the birthdays as not only do we celebrate America's birthday, but Kiersten's and Ethan's as well. I mean come on, when the birthdays are 3rd, 4th and 5th, that is definitely a reason to keep a celebration going. Speaking of celebrating, July was a great month to celebrate all our Fitness Inspirers as everyone did a spectacular job of getting Fired Up and Spreading Sunshine! Now on to the highlights for this month! Cruisin down Route 66 Let's just say that traffic is getting a little heavy on Route 66 now that we are officially (more than) halfway through the year. Following this month's workouts, we now have three more drivers feeding their need for speed as Jenny C, Elizabeth S and Megan M have merged on to Route 66! People better be checking their rear and side view mirrors as we officially have traffic on our infamous Route 66! Where my Prongs at? July was technically a slightly shorter month as we started our programming following all the birthdays, but that didn't stop Fitness Inspirers from getting their workouts in! Currently, we have had four Fitness Inspirers earn their crowns so far this year, and we have a few more who are getting so close to getting all five prongs. This month, we saw Terri H, Cynthia T, Elizabeth S, Leanne F and Angie R get their prongs. There will definitely be a lot more Fitness Inspired royalty coming real soon ;) Bling Bling! Fired Up and Spreading Sunshine The temperature this month kept getting hotter and so we got even more Fired Up! This month we focused on inspiring ourselves to push our limits even further, while, at the same time, spreading sunshine both inward and outward. Inspirers were loving the surfing themed workouts, loving some lunges, and of course, our live in-person workouts in both State College and Grand Rapids. It has been so good to get outside and work out (socially distant of course), that we are Fired up for more. Our homework was no joke this month, and I think we can all say we may shudder when we hear the word ladder again. Between the flying lunge ladders, the plank/knee to tri ladder and our Superman extension ladders, I think we can all agree we may want to keep both feet on the ground at all times next month ;) While it was tough, it certainly got us ready for our post testing, so let's check some highlights!
Top Achiever Leaderboard Weight % Improvement
Woot Woot! Congrats on a great month of July to all our Fitness Inspirers! Now let's go get August! The thick of summer is upon us and we did not slow down this month! In the spirit of competition, we split our Fitness Inspirers into three teams, Team Pennsylvania, Team Michigan and Team World, and we let the games begin! The team atmosphere kicked up our competitiveness and camaraderie and even helped push ourselves a little harder. A great new feature this month was setting our weekly goals for number of workouts to complete which only helped our accountability. Now let's see what happened! Need for Speed While 2020 has certainly been a different year to say the least, what has been most encouraging and inspiring is the speed in which people are getting on to Route 66. Prior to the beginning of June, we already had 8 Fitness Inspirers speeding along having already accumulated 66 or more workouts for the year! Now, this month, we had three new drivers join them, so give it up for Leigh D, Megan S, and Cindy E! That Prong Life So far this year, we have really seen people push themselves, getting more workouts in and doing more of what we set out to do. This can definitely be seen as Inspirers strive to get their prongs. We already have three people who have completed their crowns, and now we can add one more! Suzy S completed her fifth prong in six months earning her the Fitness Inspired crown! Woooooooot! To add to that, we had eight other Inspirers make their way to earning their crown as Jenny C, Leigh D, Jim H, Terri H, Marcy M (who already has her crown to boot!), Elizabeth S, Megan S, and Cynthia T get their prongs this month! Way to crush June! Beachy Team We decided to add a little friendly competition this month to spice up our beach experience. It was a regional throw down as Michigan, Pennsylvania and the World went at it to see who would achieve the most Fun, Accountability, & Results! (R) Even though there was a team winner (which can be found below) I'd say we all won based on the numbers :) To get us ready for the beach, our homework really got us in to gear. Planks on boats on planks, sprinkled in with pushups, double leg stretches, and rocky abs had our bodies feeling that good sore, and that was just the HW! This month we also saw the return to some live in-person classes, which was incredibly refreshing, and saw casino games make us look at a deck of cards in a completely different way... Now on to the results!
Team Leader Board The scoring for the teams were broken down into Fun, Accountability and Results. Fun was a spirit/enthusiasm/effort point which our Instructors awarded at the end of each workout; accountability was how well each team member was able to stick to their goals for their weekly workouts; and Results was the average number of workouts for the month for the team, along with weight/inch/physical testing percentage improvement. Here was the breakdown:
FUN:
Average Team Workouts for the month:
And our Team Winner for the month of June......TEAM WORLD!!! Give June's Fitness Inspirers some shout-outs, congrats, and encouragement in the comments :) This month, we continued to rock out our virtual workouts. We have seen our community grow, as we embrace the season we are in, and people are loving getting super sweaty from some intense classes! Let's just say I will never look at playing the card game war ever again....dang spades and atomic pushups. Getting our kicks.... Let's take a check in and see who is getting their kicks on Route 66 this month. Crossing over the 66 workout milestone for 2020 this month were Abbey C, Jim H and Jamie T! Just in time for summer to be hitting that highway, congrats new '66ers! Looking in the rear view mirror, I see a few more drivers speeding up to get on our Route next month! Let me see that Proooonnnnggg No one mentioned what song I referenced last month, so I am continuing with it this month. People continued to ride the momentum they have been building and we had some great numbers of people getting their prongs this month. In May, Abbey C, Leigh D, Terri H, Jim H, Michelle R, Jenny C, Cindy E, Megan M, and Megan S each added to their prong totals. Then, with May being the 5th month of the year, we had two Fitness Inspirers go 5 for 5 in getting their prongs and have officially completed their crowns!! Congrats to Katie B, Karen L, and Marcy M!! Your swag will be coming soon!! We are MAYde for this! May was a great month for us all to really get everything in gear, and ramp things up. While April proved to us that we are healthy and strong, and adaptable to whatever is thrown at us, May proved that we truly were made to achieve during difficult times and could thrive as well. This month we really kicked it up a notch as our homework seemed like full workouts in themselves! I mean come on....40 or fail in atomics, wall presses, burpees and double leg stretches were no joke! However, while that HW was brutal, it definitely got us prepped for our physical testing as we saw some crazy results! Here are just a few of the highlights from May:
Top Achiever Leaderboard Weight % Improvement
May was such a great month and it really showed us what we were MAYde of. Now we look forward to June with our Team Beach theme, representing Team Michigan, Team Pennsylvania and Team World! Let's go!!
Fitness Inspired made history this month as we offered and ran our first ALL Virtual signature program and it was spectacular! While the season we are in is different, we have adapted and committed to staying Healthy and Strong no matter what circumstance we are in. It was certainly new having everything done online, but there were many exciting aspects to it, and we loved seeing those zoom screens fill up with people! You all came out and showed why the Fitness Inspired community is so great at helping each other stay accountable, be encouraged, and marvel at what we are all capable of doing! Increased traffic on Route 66 Despite the best efforts of the stay at home orders, we have more traffic merging on to Route 66! Just four months in to 2020, we have added Terri H, Marcy M, and Suzy S to the Route to go along with drivers Katie B and Karen L who made it last month. Don't expect traffic to lighten up any time soon as we have a couple more drivers ready to get on. That Prong, Prong, Prong, Prong Prooooong Yes, I just channeled the year 1999 for that reference, let's see who gets it. Back to business. April proved to be a very strong month for people showing up and staying accountable! This can be seen as we had 5 people get 20 or more workouts this month, with three of them being new additions to receiving a prong! First time prong'ers (yup made that word up) this month were Leigh D, Jenny C, Terri H, Susan G, and Megan S, and joining them in April were Suzy S, Abbey C, Karen L, and Marcy M. Healthy and Strong During this crazy time, it can be difficult to handle all the changes and roadblocks that have been thrown our way. Crises like these mess up our routines, make us take on new roles, and really stretches our time thin. However, what was so great and evident this month, was that we made our health and wellness a top priority, in order to make sure we could handle anything that was thrown at us! It truly was a month that made us Healthy and Strong! This month had us going back to the basics with our homework and physical testing, but by no way did that mean it was easy! Negative pushups, rocky abs and sky divers truly got our bodies ready for our physical testing, and the results showed it! We have lots of highlights from this month so buckle up and let's check em out!
Top Achiever Leaderboard Weight % Improvement
Once again we were able to celebrate these great results for this month at our Virtual Results Party/Game night. It was a great time and for those who couldn't make it, you were missed! April was great, and now we are looking forward to see what we are "May-de" of!   Well, what else can be said about the month of March, other than it was something else? What started as a normal month turned into a huge adjustment for everyone. While it was (and continues to be) an uncertain time, we were able to adapt and continue on our fitness journeys in new ways. After the first week of March, everything moved to virtual, and we welcomed a new location to the Fitness Inspired community with the starting of our inaugural group in Grand Rapids, MI! Fitness Inspired is all about the community we create and we are happy and excited to grow that community even more! Route 66 is now open! Well that didn't take long! 3 months in and we already have a couple of drivers hopping on to Route 66 on their fitness journey in 2020! Look as Katie B and Karen L already achieved 66 workouts in 2020 and we are only a quarter of the way through the year! Expect to see some more traffic soon... What about that crown? Getting 20 workouts in during one calendar month is definitely a difficult, yet achievable goal. Getting that goal gets you one prong on your crown and let's see where we are at. So far, we have 7 different people who have at least one prong of their crown. Going a perfect 3 for 3 so far this year are Katie B, Karen L and Suzy S! March, The Luck Makery While it may not seem like we were very lucky this month with everything going on around us, it is important to focus on what we can control and what does make us lucky. We are lucky that we are able to maintain our Fitness Inspired community during this time and we are lucky that we are able to adjust and adapt by moving everything to virtual programming. It is incredible what we are able to accomplish when we are faced with a challenge, and this month was no different in that aspect.
We had some challenging homework and physical testing this month that really had our muscles (especially upper body!) screaming. We were brave in our belief, language and actions, did some insane pushup combinations, and of course did everyone's favorite - burpees. Let's check out some physical testing highlights:
Those we some great results, and we had a great time celebrating them at our Virtual Results Party/Game night! It may have to be a new tradition even when social distancing is in our past. A great way to finish out this month, and now we are starting April with a fresh start, a chance to adapt to our new temporary reality and attack it head on. Here is to April being Healthy and Strong! 2020 already started with a bang, and add to the fact that this year the month of February had 29 days and you have total craziness! There was a lot going on this month with some new faces, team competition, and of course, the Annual Party! We definitely took advantage of having an extra day this month and we saw great results because of it. So let's get to it because we have a lot to talk about! Route 66 update Since we are only in our second month of the year, it is still not possible for anyone to be on Route 66 yet, but we have people who have already traveled pretty far to this point, that they are getting close! The highways better watch out because Fitness Inspirers like Karen L, Katie B, Suzy S and Marcy M could potentially put their blinker on and start merging by the end of next month! Getting that Crown update The "Strive for Five" is up and running and we have some Fitness Inspirers who are already 2 for 2 getting 20 workouts in for the first two months already! So far, Katie B, Karen L, Suzy S, and Marcy M have already earned 2 prongs on their crowns! Earning a prong this month was Abbey C. and combine her with Cindy E and Jamie T who earned a prong last month and that is 7 Inspirers who already have at least one prong! Great job! Love What Gets You There When dealing with our Fitness, it truly is a journey. It can be hard at times, but the payoff is so rewarding! Sometimes we need to stop and remember that while we love the results, we also need to love what gets us there and enjoy the journey. February is of course a month of love, so why not love the path? We had some intense Homework and Physical testing which pushed us to our limits. I mean those hovers with your leg up or back?! Come on.... While we knew our HW and testing would be hard, Chris, Nicole and Samantha pushed us so we could maximize our results at the end of the month. Here are just a few highlights:
-Abbey C lost just over 5 total inches! -Karen L lost just under 5 pounds! -Becky C tripled her Hover/Plank time! (200% improvement!) -Becky F lost just over 6 pounds! -Nicole H lost 3 total inches! -Melissa M improved her hovers w/a leg up or back by an average of 175%! Since this was a team inspired month, there was no Top Achiever, but of course there was a team champion! The scoring was based on team weight % improvement, inches % improvement, physical testing % improvement and attendance. What was crazy is that each team came in first in one category which is awesome! Then the scoring came down to the wire as the results were tight. In the end, team separation was only between a couple percentage points and there was a tie between the Blue and Yellow team! However, you know Kiersten can't have ties, so at the Annual Party there was a minute to win it tie breaker with YELLOW unraveling his streamers the fastest! Congratulations to YELLOW consisting of Abbey C, Michael C, Michele S and Jamie T! Time to ring in the new year!! With that being said, our theme for this month, and the start of the decade no less, was "New Year. Better You". You are already amazing so no need to make a new one of you! Now is the time to pledge to ourselves to make improvements and look ahead to what we can be. January can be tough as we come off our holiday season, but it can also be empowering as we start fresh with the beginning of a new year, and the creation of new goals and milestones. As we begin 2020, we have set our sights on some great and challenging milestones for the year. We are continuing on the path to Route 66 in 2020 as it is still a great indicator of forming powerful, life changing habits. Along with this, we have added the "Strive for Five" where we look to get 5 workouts a week in (20 workouts for the month) for 5 months of the year. This is replacing the 199 workout milestone as our new challenge really pushes us to keep our momentum going from week to week and then translating to month to month! Also exciting as we begin the new year is moving in to the new studio and welcoming two new instructors (to complement our already amazing Chris)! January introduced us to the new studio space at 140 Kelly Alley, which is the Movements Arts Studio and we are loving it so far. Nicole G and Samantha S were also welcomed to the instructing group and they have already challenged us with some great workouts. Finally, as we finish the first month of 2020, one goodbye we have to say is to our favorite host Logan. Logan recently got married and will be moving away with her husband as they start their new lives together! Thank you Logan for all that you did for Fitness Inspired and all the lives you help improve! Start preparing to merge on to Route 66 Since our month (and year) just started, no one is one Route 66 just yet. However, with our additional milestone of "Strive for Five" we have already seen a great number of people reach new heights in number of workouts in just one month! Let's keep it going! Get that Crown  New this year is the Strive for Five milestone which calls on Fitness Inspirers to reach for 5 workouts a week (for 20 workouts during the month) for 5 months in 2020. Each month that an FI'er achieves that, they earn a prong of their FI crown. So far, after one month, we have already had 6 Fitness Inspirers earn their first prong! Great job Katie B, Cindy E, Karen L, Suzy S, Marcy M and Jamie T! New Year. Better You. As we started the new year, we really wanted to challenge ourselves as we returned from a small hiatus following the holiday season. This was evident as we began to do band burn outs at the end of each workout, and truly pushed outselves with the physical testing of pushups in one minute, band squats in one minute, and banded rows in one minute. Chris had us working at the top of our window with his core circuit and resisted run to name a couple, and we were introduced to the great energy and intensity of High Fitness with Nicole, and Tabata with Samantha. Here a just a few highlights that we saw this month: -Karen L improved her Band Squats by 76%! -Marcy M improved her Pushups by 56%! -Cindy E lost 3 total inches! -Suzy S lost 2 total inches! -Ray L improved his banded rows by 40%! Top Achiever Leaderboard Weight % Improvement
It's everyone's favorite time of year again! No, not the Holiday season, but the 12 Days of Fitness season! The month of December can be a difficult month for those trying to maintain results or continue on their fitness journey as it is very easy to fall to temptation with all the holiday parties, libations and seasonal treats that are readily available. With this being said, the point of the 12 Days of Fitness is to help maintain your momentum you have had all year by trying to improve but most importantly, maintain. It was an incredibly fun 12 Days with great innovative workouts, incredible energy, and the wonderful camaraderie that comes with representing Green, Bling or Red! 12 Days came to a rousing end with a celebration in the new studio space (Movement Arts Studio located 140 Kelley Alley), and was capped off with an inspiring Adopt-a-Family workout lunging through the aisles! What a great way to end 2019 with an exciting anticipation for 2020! Route 66 Update As 2019 comes to a close, we had a great number of Fitness Inspirers reach the 66 workout achievement! As we near the end, there is still time for a few of us to even reach 199! It has been an incredible journey so far so let's speed to the finish line (without getting a ticket of course ;)) 12 Days of Fitness Breakdown The 12 Days of Fitness program is easily one of our favorites. It is a great opportunity to commit for 12 fun workouts in an effort to battle the December/holiday splurge season. Along with this, it is an added bonus that we are in teams to amp up the accountability even more. Red, Bling and Green really rocked it this month! Invigorating our workouts even more, and giving us a chance to really improve our physical testing numbers was our homework. 12 sets of hover planks, anti jellies, superman, rocky abs etc. really got us working and on the right path to results. Speaking of, now on to the results! The scoring for 12 Days was broken down into categories of attendance, enthusiasm and improvements/maintenance in weight, inches, and the physical testing categories. Green crushed it for attendance rocking both the live and online options and Red was great with the energy, enthusiasm and effort during classes. Bling had great results with their improvements and overall it was a tight race! It came down to the wire and at the end there was a tie between Green and Bling! At the results party there was an intense tie breaker and our champion for the 2019 12 Days of Fitness was the Green team! Congrats to everyone on a great month and we look forward to 2020! 
If October was the month where the weather started to get crisper, then November it really hit home! While the temperatures dropped, the energy and focus during workouts this month certainly didn't! We all gave thanks that, we had two hills once again, Chris, Logan and Bre, all rocked it out, and Kiersten was live for a week as well! Other than the workouts, a big highlight was our Friendsgiving celebration which once again showed what a great community of Fitness Inspirers there are! It was a time to come together and appreciate our journeys, as well as those around us who lift us up. New Traffic this month It didn't take long this month as Cindy E reached 66 workouts the very first workout of the month! Along with this, we do have a good number of Fitness Inspirers who are getting ever so closer to the 199 mark! Keep rocking the workouts and you can do it! FI. Happy. Thanks. Giving. November is always a great time to give thanks, not only for what we have, but also for what we have the capability to do. It can be easy to fall (pun unintended) into a workout funk as the weather gets colder, but when we appreciate what we are capable of, and give thanks for the accountability of other Fitness Inspirers, it pushes us to go farther. Here are just a few of some great November feasts...I mean feats: -Terri H lost 1.5 inches from her waist! -Jim H lost a combined 5 inches! -Marcy M lost 4 pounds! -Michael C increased his TRX Mountain climbers by 109%! -Terri H increased her TRX Hamstring Curl by 56% Top Achiever LeaderboardWeight % Improvement
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You Rock!
Thank you for lifting each other up and cheering each other on every step of the way! I am so proud of the progress I see in you from month to month. I hope the progress in mindset, physical challenges, adherence, and measurements motivates you as it does me. Archives
August 2020
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