Subversus Fitness Center City

These are two sides of the same coin.

Opposites, at either end of the same spectrum.

Let’s break them down: You injured your back and we’re given the advice of never lifting anything heavier than 25 pounds.

Sounds arbitrary and impractical right?

That’s because it is.

Many daily activities require lifting more than 25 pounds, are you going to hire a butler?

What about…
Carrying groceries?
Getting a bag of dog food or kitty litter?
Lugging your baggage through the airport?
Doing even minimal yard work?

There’s no practical way to live while abiding by the 25 pound rule.

It certainly doesn’t come from a place of malice, but it limits a bigger discussion which many health care professionals don’t believe the fitness industry has the capacity to solve.

How about the opposite end of the spectrum?

What does a 65 year old stand to to gain from testing a 1 rep max deadlift?

Absolutely nothing that can’t be gained by testing a 5 rep max.

The question here is whether or not the risk is worth the reward?

For those without significant training experience it’s not worth it.

Does this mean you can’t lift heavy when you get older?

Absolutely not.

Our intention is simply to encourage you to think about why you do the things you do in the gym and make intentional decisions based upon your goals.

“What do we offer?”

A path for you to answer the question. “What if you could..”

You deserve a bigger life. One not limited by fear, pain or frustration. Let’s help you make sure that what you do in the gym maximizes that time.

Stop modifying a workout.

Start building the life you want.

What does Mentorship mean?

We used to consider what we did to be Coaching. By that we mean, leading clients through training, helping them go from point A to point B in fitness.

Encouragement, support and effective programming are all necessary in Coaching. However, we found that too often - that was incomplete and that our clients needed a better solution.

We needed to explain the why and create space for clients to learn skills that specifically related to actions they can take in their own lives.

That requires more than coaching.

That requires mentorship and we’re proud to offer it to our clients.

If you’re stressed at work, do you know how to use the breathing techniques from the training the gym to alleviate that? Our clients do.

If you develop tightness after an activity, do you know how to assess your body relative to if you’re injured or tight? Do you know what to do next? Do you have the right vocabulary to communicate how you feel? Our clients do.

This is mentorship.

Using the experience of our Professionals to empower you to achieve autonomy of your body and live your fullest life possible - through fitness, education and mentorship. If that’s what you’re seeking - we’d love to book a discovery call and learn more.

Yesterday in a session, a current client shared this with us after we finished.

He’s been told that joint replacement surgery is inevitable. He’s been told arthritis will just get worse. He’s been told it’s reasonable to accept levels of pain.

We disagree.

Can joint replacement be necessary? Absolutely. Should surgery be avoided at all possible costs ahead of time? Also, absolutely.

Our goal is to help people just like this individual live full, active lives where pain and frustration are not the norm or driving factor in daily activities.

No one wakes up in the morning hoping they’ll have less opportunities and less capacity to live their lives in the way they see fit.

Yet that’s the status quo we’re trained to accept.

“After you hit 30 it’s all downhill.”

The only reason that’s the status quo is because it’s the path of least resistance.

It was either that or live the life of a competitive athlete until you die.

Neither of those options are appealing to most people.

We’re here to tell you there’s a third option.

You can get out of pain, you can reclaim your active lifestyle, you can remodel your life and yourself.

“It hurts when I..”

One cornerstone of training with us is educating our clients on what they’re experiencing so that we can appropriately and confidently progress movements.

These definitions and rules are massive, because they accomplish two things:

First, being hurt can be scary - there’s uncertainty.

“Will I lift again?”

“Can I play with my kids?”

“Will I have to miss work?”

These are all very real situations. Giving clients the tools to answer them are critical to our goal of body autonomy.

Next, these definitions help us understand the level of stress necessary for progression and improvement. Stress and irritation is essential to improving movement, however - it cannot overload the available capacity of your system.

Once we establish capacity combined with this language to empower clients - they can begin to see that terms like pain and injury are not life-ending situations, but rather things to understand and act accordingly.

Helpful? Save this or send this to a friend who is experiencing these feelings.

Ready for this level of education in your training? Message us and learn why our Professionals are different.

Got into the Broad Street Run? Great!

Worried that your painful knee might derail your run? Let’s talk.

Many people believe that pain is simply part of running (or other activities). It’s not and it doesn’t have to be that way.

We’ve helped hundreds of people reclaim active lifestyles where painful activities aren’t part of the equation. Your life outside the gym should be big, fun and challenging - let’s talk about how a custom training plan for your body can make that possible.

Message us to start a conversation

Breathing is our most basic movement pattern. We breathe 20,000+ times a day, and each breath affects us and has the opportunity to change our experience.

The mouth is for eating, speaking, singing, and, if you’re living right, kissing. Breathing
through the mouth is akin to drinking pond water. Every single contaminant in the air
will make it to your lungs – health and performance will suffer.

Mouth breathing is meant for emergencies and top-end exertion. When you breathe through your mouth, your body will respond accordingly. If you’re not in a state of emergency or top-end exertion, you’ve just knocked your nervous system out of sync with your environment and performance will suffer.

The nose is for breathing; it was built for it. The nose contains the hardware to
condition air coming into the body to be optimized. It filters, cools/warms, and
humidifies/dries the air. This is important because of the relative fragility of the lungs.

If those things aren’t taken care of, both health and performance are at risk.

Nasal breathing also gives the body an opportunity to optimize cardiovascular
circulation as well. This is because the sinuses’ lining creates more endogenous nitric oxide (a potent vasodilator) than any other tissue in the body. However, the production is stimulated by the exhale and will be significantly decreased if one assumes a nasal/mouth breathing pattern.

Nitric oxide is also an antimicrobial. Not only does it assist in the transport of resources via improved vasodynamics, it also acts as one of our first lines of defense against respiratory infections. In a post-pandemic world, this is an important fact that
can’t be overstated.

Finally, nasal breathing helps to maintain a parasympathetic tone. As alluded to earlier, mouth breathing shifts you into a sympathetic (fight or flight) mode, which
has its time and place and should be relatively rare compared to the amount of
parasympathetic stimulation required for health and recovery.

Want to learn more? Message us!

“I just need harder workouts”

Ever said this? Heard others say it? Here’s why more intensity won’t solve a high intensity training program not getting you what you need.

When you start a new program, the novelty and response from it can deliver quick results and success (hooray!). We call these the newbie gains and they’re amazing. They come from both physiological development (muscle fiber growth for example) and from neurological development (think balance and coordination improvements).

The issue is that over time, that same approach will stop working. Why? Because you changed. Often, folks will want to go back to that magical time and program where the newbie gains flowed like the salmon of Capistrano - only to be further frustrated when it’s ineffective. Worse, a doubling down can happen - doing MORE training, MORE intensity because that worked previously.

The actual answer lies in understanding your body and your needs now. Is your job different than before? How about your stress? How much older are you? What’s your diet and sleep look like? These are critical factors in understanding what your program should look like now to be effective.

Spoiler, slowing down, being more intentional and deliberate can actually yield better results at that point in your life than intensity. You’ll feel better, do movements that enhance your mobility and stop just equating tired and sore with training.

If you’re ready to learn what that can feel like for you. DM us to learn more.

What’s the value of working one on one with our team?

Do you have goals. You also have a limited amount of time per day to devote to being in the gym. That means that you deserve to know that you’re doing exactly what you need to be doing, and have a professional to help you get started.

However, here is what makes us different. That same professional’s relationship to you should change with time. Our goal is for you to be autonomous. For you to be in control of your training. You may want to work with us, but you wouldn’t need to in order to have achieved your goal.

Sessions with us are structured from day, one to working towards that end goal. If you’re tired of plans that don’t work for you, have left you stalled out with no progress, or even worse, end injured. It’s time for something better, message us to learn more .

We’re not for everyone, but we might be just what you’ve been searching to find.

If..you’ve been told scaling around an injury is the solution, but you’re still in pain.

If…you’ve been told basic human movements aren’t for you any more.

If…you’ve stopped seeing results from group classes.

If…you’ve missed out on physical activities like playing with kids or sports you used to enjoy.

If any of those situations are yours, we’d love to chat because we can help you solve that and create a path for your success. Group fitness can be a great starting point to build exposure and connect with others, but at a point - you’ll need more specific solutions, that’s where we’re different.

Every gym will tell you that they have “great Coaching and a great community”, we offer something more than that; assessment, programming and follow up along a specific path for your body to get there. If that’s what you’re seeking - we’d love to chat. DM us to start a conversation today.

What is Tempo and why use it?

We have three types of muscle contractions and training each of them differently can yield great results!

The first is when your muscle lengthens or stretches (think of lowering into a squat, or coming into the bottom of a pull up). For you nerds - that’s the eccentric phase.

Then there’s a turnaround, that pause or hold can be super useful and is called the isometric.

Next comes the shortening or contraction (again, nerds - concentric). Lastly there is another hold before the next rep begins.

Why does this matter?

Deliberately focusing on the lengthening or hold portions allows for newer athletes (and everyone!) to get a potent response without having to move a ton of weight. This can create a safer training environment as well.

Focusing on the concentric can improve explosiveness and power production. Holds create stability and movement integrity.

Who benefits?

Everyone! However, especially if you’re either newer to training or coming back after a lay off. Also, those recovering from tendon issues. Tendons need increased blood flow to feel better and LOVE time under tension.

For some with chronic tendon issues, we’ll use a specific protocol called “Heavy, Slow, Resistance” where clients spend 3-4s in both the eccentric and concentric phases.

Not sure if you need more tempo in your life? Chat with a Professional and we’ll explain more. Educating clients is a critical part of working with us!

For real.

Shoulder pain shouldn’t be a part of training. Pain is a signal that something isn’t working. It doesn’t mean the end of the things you love to do, it just means the plan needs to change.

Some people actually don’t believe that training pain free is possible. Our mission is to help you find peak physical performance without pain or frustration.

All we offer is everything you need and nothing you don’t. If you’re tired of pain being a training partner, it’s time we had a chat and found a plan for you.

(Unless you’re a cowboys fan, we can’t help that pain).

You should be able to roll out of bed and hit 70% of your 1RM.

IMPORTANT: We are NOT advocating that you go and do that.

If you require a long time to get yourself “loose,” and movement before you are “loose” is uncomfortable, it is a sign of some dysfunction (muscles, tendons, or even bony).

If this sounds like you and you need 20 minutes to warm up before each workout, your priority should be on fixing that.

You may have been lead to believe that this is permanent and you are a hopeless case who needs to “get used to it” or “spend more time warming up”; not true.

If this is you, and you were our client, you would likely see and hear a lot of the following from your 1 on 1 coach in your programming:

* Prioritizing a slower down, faster up tempo when under load.
* Increasing your ACTIVE recovery volume to training volume ratio so that recovery represents 25% of your total training time - do this without increasing total training time.
* SLEEP! Begin experimenting on days when you can sleep in. Do not set an alarm, evaluate how long you sleep for when your body does what it needs.
* Making your warmups more intentional.
* Cleaning up strength and movement imbalances

Warming up is important. HAVING to do prolonged warm ups in order to workout is a red flag.

The gym is where you go to build good habits, to learn about yourself, and to build self confidence.

Wasting time sabotages all of those opportunities.

Using an exercise as a starting point to assess the health of an athlete is a complete waste of a time.

Instead of watching someone squat and guess what might be wrong, assess their joints and be able to predict how their movement will suffer.

If movement shape does not suffer, you know that there is a compensation pattern making up for the limited ROM.

This post might seem like it’s aimed at coaches, and in part it is.

It’s also aimed at you, the person who gets coached.

If you haven’t been able to fix your problem (lose 20 #, back pain, tilting forward when you squat, etc), your solutions are not working.

Ask yourself these questions:
* Is it true you haven’t been able to fix your problem?
* How long have You been trying?
* What have You tried?
* Why hasn’t that worked?
* Is fixing this a priority?
* If your coach could solve it one on one, would you pay them to do it?

Then, after you have asked yourself those questions, if the answer leads you to “I need more help”, stop wasting your valuable time, go work with your coach 1 on 1.

If you’ve got a specific problem that you haven’t been able to fix, the best thing to start with is an assessment.

Assess don’t guess.

Modifying movement is a band-aid, not a solution.

Modifying movements in class ISN’T fun.

It’s a reminder of what you CAN’T do.

And the longer it lasts, the more frustrating it is.

We get it.

While modifying when needed is important, it doesn’t fix the problems.

Quality modifications keep you from aches and pains now, but you may still need to modify in a year from now unless we make changes to solve the root cause.

This is why at Subversus Fitness we offer individual design to create a solution.

We know it’s frustrating to go into the gym day after day and have to cherry pick workouts or change movements.

This is why we’re focused on not just modifying, but finding permanent solutions for whatever’s holding you back.

If you want help getting away from modifications, that’s what we’re here for.

It’s starts with assessments and programming that’s specifically written to get you past your limitations.

If you’re sick of modifying, we might be able to help. Message us to chat with one of our Professionals.

Why won’t we let you try a class for free?

Safety.

Safety is our priority. If you are brand new to us, there are too many things we don’t know about you yet to let you join 9 other people in a class.

Things like: prior injury history, current level of fitness, movement limitations and/or restrictions, goals.

What do we do instead? Glad you asked!

Everyone new that comes to us has a free consult.

During your free consult, we are going to talk about you and your goals. We want to make sure that we are actually a good fit to help you reach your goals, whether it’s getting out of pain, improving overall health, or improving performance (and if we’re not - we’ll refer you to competent friends in the industry!).

We will go through a customized assessment with you to determine how many personal training sessions (virtually or in person) you will need before you can join our group classes.

Why do we do a customized number of personal training sessions? Because everyone is unique, so they way you start should be unique too.

During those personal training sessions will be included a movement assessment so we can make sure you are actually doing movements your joints have the capacity for.

Our goal for you once you join the group classes: safe, confident, and competent.

Sound like something you’re interested in?

Shoot us a DM or comment below, we’d love to chat with you!

Today, your feed will be flooded with quotations from Martin Luther King Jr. Sanitized versions of history. We’re choosing to instead focus on Coretta Scott King and her contributions.

Coretta was born in Alabama and at an early age was the victim of racist violence when her father’s sawmill was burned to the ground after he wouldn’t sell to white men. She would attend Antioch College and in Boston meet Martin Luther King Jr as he attended Boston University. She would refuse to use the word “obey” in their marriage vows.

She is credited with both educating Martin on issues and driving him forward. Before he took a firm stance against the Vietnam War, Coretta was speaking against it. She would not only have her own international career in Civil Rights advocacy, but also raise their four children. Only days after Martin was killed, she would stand in his place, pushing for justice.

Coretta would also go on to include LGBTQ+ rights into Civil Rights later in her life. In 2001, she would highlight the impact of AIDS on the Black community. She was also an accomplished singer.

Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy has been sanitized over time, choosing to quote him rather than acknowledge the danger and pain he faced. The role that Coretta played in making his legacy possible is seldom shared, yet incredibly important.

At the time of his death, over 75% of Americans disagreed with King’s stance and actions. He and Coretta were under surveillance by the FBI. Since his death, his legacy has been made comfortable, palatable - when his actions in life were against such comfort.

So today, we’re choosing to highlight the role of Black women everywhere, often overlooked, but critical in the continuing fight for justice.

How would if feel to…

…be able to run and play with your dog without having to stop.

… be in better shape now than you were in high school.

… be able to increase the likelihood of your chances of having kids, and when you have them, to increase the chances of it being a smooth process with less recovery time.

… set a good example for your kids and be around for a long time to watch them grow.

… be able to find yourself and be the person you wish to be.

Every day we help our clients do all of those things.

It isn't about exercise. It's about instilling confidence. It's about longevity. It's about waking up each day, looking in the mirror, and being happy.

What would you pay for that?

If one of these goals resonate with you, hit the link in our bio to schedule your free coaching call. We want to help you get there, and it all starts with that call.

We all know that sleep is critical to your success in fitness and life. But many people struggle to either get enough sleep or to make sure that the sleep they get is QUALITY sleep.

Here are a few sleep hygiene tips to help you get a better night's rest consistently.

Sunlight when you wake up ☀️
We need to set a strong circadian rhythm that starts in the morning. Try to get 2-5 minutes of direct low-angle sunlight within a half hour of waking in the morning. This will have a massive impact on your coming night's rest.

Sunlight before bed ☀️ 🌙
Just like the first tip, we want to control our circadian rhythm as well as possible. Capping the night off by watching the sunset can help prep you physiologically for sleep.

Avoid screen times at night 📱
As much as possible, avoid screen time or direct overhead lights between 10 pm and waking. Try to begin dimming these lights down a few hours before going to bed for the best sleep possible.

Make the room you sleep in cool and as dark as possible ❄️
Seriously, try some blackout shades to get the room as dark as possible. It makes a HUGE difference

Give these sleep hygiene tips a try and let us know how they go after a week or so.

New Coach! Welcome Jason!

We’re excited to welcome a new member of our Coaching staff - Jason Wassum! Jason comes to us with several years of training experience in both group and personal programming. He’s passionate about fitness, helping people achieve the goals and find meaning in that process.

You’ll find him on the schedule Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Wednesday mornings. Welcome, Jason!

1/1/23

We’ve all heard the advice before “just ease into it” for starting or re-starting training. What does that actually mean?

Everything we do at Subversus is based on assessment and data. We don’t do vague or ran-dumb workouts. You shouldn’t either because your body is unique and deserves a plan. Here’s how we bring folks back and into a new routine.

Start with the average amount of training you’ve done in the past 4 weeks - we call this your protective workload (we’ll use running as an example here). Let’s say a runner has been running 4 miles a day over 5 days per week in the past month for 20 miles/week.

The amount that you train in a given week is your acute workload - in this example, it’s 20 miles/week over 5 sessions.

When increasing/re-starting training, your acute workload cannot exceed 1.5x your current protective workload per week. So for this runner, 30 miles in a week is a recipe for burnout and injury because we’re exceeding the ability of your body to recover.

Questions like these are part of what we cover when we start working with new clients because it’s critical to building an effective plan.

This year, don’t burn out by February - chat with one of our professional Coaches and begin a custom plan for your peak performance.

How to be sure we’re the right space for you…

When someone is interested in joining Subversus Fitness, we make sure we don’t leave any stone unturned.

We want to make sure with extreme certainty that we can help you.

We also want YOU to make sure that being a client of Subversus Fitness is 100% what you want.

The first step for anyone looking to get started begins with a free consultation. We will sit down for however long it takes to get all of the information we need. This typically takes 45 minutes to an hour.

We will talk about past exercise history, past injuries, current aches and pains, specific goals, the “whys” behind those goals, how much of a priority it is to accomplish these goals, what it would mean if you reached those goals in 6 months from now, and more.

If you’re looking to join a space that focuses truly on YOU, we might be a good fit. If we aren’t, our responsibility is to refer you to another gym or trainer elsewhere who we trust to meet your goals.

Starting with the consult is the first step so we can make sure.

Send us a message or click the link in bio to schedule your free consult.

You feel overlooked.

Frustrated.

You’ve been given general programs, platitudes, and scales for your specific and unique needs. They haven’t worked.

We see you.

We provide custom programs precisely tailored to your wants and needs. And we take a considerable amount of time determining just what those wants and needs are.

We know you value…
Physical freedom and freedom of time; you don’t want to spend all of your time in a gym.

Your life experiences take precedence over gym experiences. You want your time in an exercise program to enhance your life outside of that program.

You respect the culture of a space and choose where you spend your time accordingly.

You’ll invest in yourself for the results you want, and the method that matters most is the one that works. 

Simple and methodical are superior to intricate and flashy. 

What if…
..you finally had peace of mind exercising
…you could be active without fear
…you made these the best years of your life
…you felt confident again

What if you could?

If that speaks to you, you’re exactly who we work with and who we help. 

Everyone starts with a free consultation. Book yours by sending us a DM or clicking the link in our BIO.

How to hit your goals even if life looks completely different now >>>

One of the biggest mistakes we see clients making is assuming that the plan they have now is the plan that HAS to work for them forever.

Guess what?

Plans need to be adapted!

Life changes - gets busier, harder, more stressful, different...

Maybe you recently had a baby, added a puppy to the family, bought a fixer-upper, changed jobs, and started working from home 100%...

All of that means you just need to re-evaluate what works FOR YOU.

If you previously had time to work out for an hour 5x a week plus the 30 minutes of driving to and from the gym - that doesn't mean you still need to allow that much time to hit your goals.

There's something to be said for efficiency!

If you previously worked a low-stress job and were kid-free, and now both have changed, you need a low-stress workout program to counter-balance a more stressful work and home life (yes, even though you LOVE your baby and LOVE your new job, it's still STRESS).

If you're suddenly working from home and unable to go into a gym, that doesn't mean you need to hit the road and only run and do burpees for fitness. There are other options!

Caging yourself into the mindset of only one path to hit your goals is an easy way to feel like a failure.

We promise you are not a failure. You just have to find another path. You have to adapt.

Your health was important before, and it's still important now - even if what you do to work on it looks very different!

We love helping people through things like this. Send us a DM to chat.

Guess what?!

You’re not the same as the person next to you.

Even if you have the EXACT same goals, your path to get there is going to be very different.

Why? Because there are SO many factors that make you, YOU!

Let’s take getting stronger for example. So many people come to us and want to get stronger.

Can’t argue with that, there are many benefits to having stronger muscles and bones.

Let’s take Mary, a mother of 2 that works a full-time job, and has a history of mostly running and some hamstring issues.

Does it make sense that her path to getting strong should look exactly the same as John who is 65 years old and about to retire and was generally very sedentary prior?

No, we know that. That’s obvious to many.

But what if we take Mary and compare her to Jane who ALSO was a runner, also has 2 kids, also has a full-time job, and also wants to get stronger.

On paper they sound pretty similar, but what happens if we take a look at their flexibility and mobility joint by joint?

What happens when we take a look at their muscular strength balance across joints?

What happens when we look at how Mary is handling work stress, sleep, nutrition, and recovery vs Jane.

Now we start to see two seemingly similar individuals who may not be so similar at all, and if they are following the same exact plan to get “stronger”, who is the plan actually written for?

This is why having an individualized program is so important.

There are so many things that make you, you. And these factors change day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year.

A general program or random workouts don’t take anything about you into consideration.

If you’re serious about your health and serious about reaching goals, an individualized program is the absolute best path to get there.

If you’re ready for something that’s written for YOU, send us a message or click the link in bio to schedule a free consult.

If we are a fit to help you reach your goals, we want to.

🤯🤯🤯

And how can you find this out?

A simple, but effective, front rack step-up test will do the trick - if and only if you truly max out.

This means while maintaining proper form, you go until you can't physically step up.

It does not mean contorting yourself until you can't make it on top of the box.

This is one of the many reasons we love the Step-Up as a tool in our movement toolbox.

It helps us spotlight issues we may not see if we only do bilateral (both leg) squatting for strength!

Plus, it's super functional! Who wants to be able to climb the stairs themselves for the rest of their lives? Show of hands.

Um, yes, me. I do!

Ways to vary the step-up?

Load it in suitcase, goblet, front rack, dual KB rack, overhead, back rack, with DB / KB / Barbells or Sandbags.

Execute low and fast, tall and slow, medium and heavy, laterally, and any variation in between.

What's your favorite way to step up? Or do you haaaate them? 😜