Training with Pain #18: Your Saturday Conditioning Class Is Now Free

Back into the swing of things and I'm loving being back in our strength classes.

I've been training for the last 20 years in a lot of different environments, all with different pros and cons. What I love most about our gym is the individual journey everyone is on, without a single bit of ego involved.

Those who are a little further into their training are inspiring the newer members with their strength, mobility and technique rather than seeing it as competition. Everyone is at a different stage, everyone has different goals and everyone has their own things they're working on.

To our recent influx of new members, I've been so impressed with how you've approached your training. You're embracing what we're teaching you, asking questions and getting stuck in. Keep it going. It can be daunting walking into a new gym, particularly if strength training is completely new to you, but you'll be amazed at what you're capable of after a few months of consistent work.

For anyone reading this who has been sitting on the fence about joining our gym, if you want a supported and friendly environment to improve your strength, health and fitness, we'd love to help you.

Just reply to this email and we'll get you booked in for a chat, or book a gym consultation here.

Wednesday's Squat Session

I'm currently hitting four strength sessions per week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, running Thursday and Sunday, and doing our conditioning class on Saturday.

My favourite session of the week at the moment is Wednesday.

Nothing quite like seeing strength and mobility gains in your legs and Wednesday's session hits that perfectly.

This week we had low volume squats with only four reps per set, but each rep had a two second lowering phase followed by a beautiful two second pause in the bottom position.

That changes the exercise quite a bit.

Slowing the descent means we have to control the weight as the muscles lengthen rather than just dropping quickly into the bottom of the squat. Then the two second pause takes away a lot of the momentum and stretch reflex we would normally use to help us change direction.

This means we reduce the help we get from the stretch reflex at the bottom, we have to produce more force to get ourselves moving again from a paused position, we work on strength out of the bottom of the squat which is where many people struggle, we have to own the bottom position (if your positioning is poor, two seconds down there feels like a very long time), and it's a really useful way of getting a strong training stimulus without needing to constantly add more weight to the bar.

I love variations like this because progression in the gym shouldn't always mean adding another 5kg. Sometimes making the same weight harder through tempo, pauses, range of motion or better technique is exactly what we need.

We then moved onto plenty of volume through hip thrusts, curtsy squats and calf raises before finishing with some midline work.

What's not to love about that?

Grand Final Weekend

Friday 25th is a public holiday and you'll notice we have modified class times.

Please get yourself booked in early. If the classes fill and we need to put another one on, it gives us enough time to organise it.

Conditioning Class — Now Free!

I cannot tell you how much I'm enjoying Saturday mornings at the moment.

Fitness work, albeit tough, is so much fun and I've really enjoyed getting involved in these classes myself. They're designed to push us out of our comfort zone and build our engine, but everything is still scalable to the person in front of us.

When we think about staying physically capable as we get older, three things we care a lot about are strength, muscle mass and aerobic fitness.

We cover the strength and muscle side extensively throughout our weekly strength programme. The question then becomes, what are you doing to challenge your heart and lungs?

That's where Saturday comes in.

One of the measures we talk about is VO₂ max, which is essentially the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use during hard exercise. A higher VO₂ max generally means you've got a better aerobic engine, and cardiorespiratory fitness is strongly associated with long term health as well as making everyday physical tasks feel easier.

So how do we improve it?

We need to give the cardiovascular system a reason to adapt. That can come from easier aerobic work where we accumulate plenty of time moving, but we also need periods where the intensity gets higher and the heart and lungs are properly challenged. Intervals using running, bikes, rowers, SkiErgs and other conditioning work are all ways we can do that.

You don't need to destroy yourself every session either. Like strength, fitness is something we build progressively.

Now for the exciting bit.

I want more of you involved in this.

I know some of you feel intimidated by the fitness side of training. You see running on the screen or someone hammering away on the bike and immediately think the class isn't for you.

But our method is exactly the same as it is in the strength classes. We meet you at your level.

If running isn't appropriate for you yet, we might have you walking quickly. If a particular machine or movement isn't suitable, we change it. You still get the benefit of working your cardiovascular system without needing to do exactly the same thing as the person next to you.

We also understand that the strength component of our programme is incredibly important and we want your weekly membership credits being used predominantly for that.

So we've made a decision.

Our Saturday conditioning class is now FREE for everyone on a paid membership.

Your 3-5 weekly credits can therefore be used on your strength sessions throughout the week and Saturday conditioning is an extra session if you want it.

Again, I want to see more of you there.

You already know how good it feels when something that used to feel heavy starts feeling lighter. Fitness is exactly the same. The run that used to cook you becomes manageable, you recover quicker between efforts and suddenly you're capable of doing things you couldn't do a few months earlier.

LET'S GO!

Christmas BBQ

Save the date: Saturday 19th December, 10:30am.

This year we're going to wrap things up with a little Christmas BBQ after our conditioning class.

Nothing complicated. We'll train, hang out afterwards, have some food and hopefully Melbourne gives us some decent summer weather.

Save the date and book on via 'Courses' in the app.

Future IAC Workshop Insights

Every few months we aim to put on a workshop that helps us all move towards feeling a bit better, healthier and happier.

At our last workshop we brought in Dr Samina Kausar, who was brilliant at improving our understanding of all things menopause. We want to follow that up with another useful workshop, but rather than us guessing what you want to hear about, we want you to tell us.

We've put together a super short survey to find out what topics you'd be interested in.

It genuinely won't take you more than a minute and it will help us tremendously. Please complete it here.

Nick & Sam

I've got some team news to share this week.

Nick will be finishing up with IAC on 9th October as he takes his career in a different direction. He'll be moving on to work with an insurance company where he'll be able to use his medical knowledge in a different setting, working within medical claims.

We're genuinely very sad to be losing such a fantastic osteopath. Nick has been brilliant since joining us in May 2025 and he'll be a massive loss to IAC.

Nick, thank you for all of your hard work and everything you've brought to the clinic and our team. We wish you all the best with the next chapter.

On a different note, congratulations to Sam who has been accepted into a Master of Physiotherapy, starting in January 2027. We want to keep him coaching with us throughout his studies, so we're just working through what his hours will look like — more info to come.

With these changes, we'll be bringing on another osteopath/physio as well as a strength coach/exercise scientist to the team, so keep an eye out for some new faces around the gym soon.

As I said last week, we want to keep building this place and making it better for all of you. Plenty happening behind the scenes.

Chat next week,
Craig