Our community is our main priority, and in order to continue investing in our athletes, we must continually invest in our equipment and facilities. Our current home has served us well, but through the gracious support of our community we are now able to move into a new space, more suited for our activities.
Our new home at 4756 Bardstown Rd. Louisville, KY 40218 is located just 1.5 miles north of our current facility on the corner of Bardstown Rd. and Watterson Trail. The new facility will host a grand opening on Saturday October 31, 2020.
The new facility will boast many new improvements including,
Multiple restrooms with shower facilities
Larger parking areas
Easier access in and out of the facility with dedicated traffic lights
Improved running areas
Air conditioning!
We will be relocating equipment October 23-25, 2020. Class times will be reduced and communicated to all members.
We’ve been in the fitness industry for many, many years and one of the most popular questions we get is this:
How do I lose weight and keep it off for good?
Let’s start by saying there’s no secret diet or magic pill that will get you real results. Our goal at Fern Creek CrossFit is to teach you healthy, sustainable habits that will move you towards your goals each and every day.
Here are 3 of the most common reasons why you may not be shedding those unwanted pounds:
1. You’re over-estimating the amount of calories you’re burning
Virtually every cardio machine in the gym gives an estimate of the number of calories you are burning while working out. If you wear an Apple Watch or a Fitbit (or another similar device) the amount of calories you burn during an activity are being tracked. Unfortunately, studies show that these devices may be inaccurate in these calculations… by quite a bit. For instance, a 2010 study from the UC San Francisco’s Human Performance Center found that the elliptical trainer (who hasn’t been on one of those for 45 minutes of your life that you won’t get back), over estimates the number of calories burned by an average of 19%! Here’s the breakdown:
Treadmill: overestimates by 13%
Stair climber: overestimates by 12%
Elliptical: overestimates by a huge 42% ?
The number on the screen does not give you permission to grab an extra donut.
When you start a new workout program where you’re up and active at least 3-4 days a week, you will be hungrier throughout the day. This is not a bad thing! If you already have unhealthy eating habits, you’re now just eating more food with refined carbohydrates which may stall results or even cause weight gain.
Track what you eat using a tool like MyFitnessPal or MacroStax. The simple task of writing down what you eat will help you eat better foods and get your daily intake to a level supported by your activity. We can help you figure out those numbers. Just let us know.
2. You spend the weekend “un-doing” all of your hard work.
After pushing yourself in the gym all week, it’s easy to give yourself a pass on the weekend to order dessert, eat your favorite snacks, or ask for another bowl of chips to go with that queso. You earned it, right? There’s certainly nothing wrong with treating yourself once in a while to some of your favorite foods. But people oftentimes underestimate how easy it is to “out-eat” the workouts they did. Breaking this habit requires a mindset shift from the idea that you “earn unhealthy food choices” to pursuing a lifestyle of health and nutrition. We want you to properly fuel your body, enjoy a few intentional treats here and there, and rewrite your story to the weight/size/dress/pair of jeans/etc. you’ve been dreaming about for so long. That feeling is the best dessert!
Proper nutritional habits partnered with all the hard work you’re putting in at the gym and proper amounts of rest will do wonders for your body!
3. You’re looking at the wrong number.
The number on the scale doesn’t tell the whole story. Your weight is one single point of data. That’s it. Don’t get so hung up on it in the first place. We don’t worry so much about how many inches tall we are, right? The scale doesn’t define what you’re capable of. It’s an indicator. I can give you a long list of indicators that are just as important:
Skeletal muscle mass in pounds
Body fat percentage
Total daily energy expenditure in calories
Triglycerides and Cholesterol
1 rep max front squat in pounds
Mile run time in minutes and seconds
Max pull-ups in 60 seconds
Max push-ups in 60 seconds
Max plank hold in seconds
3 rep max deadlift in pounds
Time to complete Fran
Time to complete Grace
Time to complete Isabelle
Time to complete Jackie
Time to complete Diane
All of these are indicators that help define who you are an a continuum of wellness and fitness (and happiness). We believe if you can deadlift twice your bodyweight, run a 9-minute mile, and finish Grace is under 5 minutes, your health metrics are good and headed in the right direction.
We’ve seen members gain a few pounds on the scale after 6 months in the gym only to find out that they lost 3% body fat and gained lean muscle mass. The best part was, they lost inches around their waist and fit into clothes they hadn’t worn in years. We have an InBody body composition scanning machine in the gym just for this reason. We can give you a better understanding of what’s going on with your body that the number on the scale cannot.
Bottom Line
Realize where you are now is simply a starting point. The only way to make real progress is to put in the effort each day on a consistent basis. The destination is the journey.
What’s the story you tell yourself? It’s always evolving and changing based on your experiences. The facts about your past can’t change, but the story you tell yourself about them absolutely can.
Rewrite Your Story
Rewriting your story isn’t about denying the bad things that happened or pretending that they’re good things. It’s about finding meaning in the events of your life, to recognize the learning and growth. It’s about how those events made you who you are. It’s about appreciating that person and taking ownership of where you want to go next.
Fitness Leads to Happiness
Fitness sits on a spectrum that starts on the left with sickness, then moves to wellness, next to fitness, and finally to happiness. We’ve experienced it firsthand, both in our own lives and with our members. When people are healthier and fitter, they are happier.
That’s not to say that bad things don’t still happen to us. We’re in the middle of a 100-year pandemic with COVID-19. Not many saw that coming. The world is a rough place. It will knock you down. We just have to keep getting back up. We have to prepare for the fight in whatever form it comes next. Our fitness is the tool that helps us. We need to be stronger than the world is bad.
So what monsters do you face in the story you tell yourself? We know they seem too big to overcome. We once thought ours were too. We can help you start to rewrite your story. Time to exercise your demons – they’ll be doing jumping jacks before you know it!
Who am I?
I want to be healthier and stronger, both physically and emotionally. I want to be a more functional human being and a better version of myself for as many years of my life as I can. I want the same for my family my friends and my community.
I want to embrace the journey and learn from my mistakes. Failure doesn’t define who I am, because it paves the road ahead for me to become better. And I want to be associated with the community that encourages me, supports me, and values my success as much as their own.
I am a member of Fern Creek CrossFit. And this is where I go to get healthier, stronger, and feel great.
After this current pandemic, folks are finding themselves in one of two situations:
You have concerns about going back to your previous gym due to safety concerns.
You haven’t been exercising and this pandemic has shown you how important it is to make your health and fitness a priority in your life.
Our coaches and staff have been involved with exercise, fitness, personal training, and team sports for more than 20 years. We’ll do our best to explain the various options out there for you, in hopes to make your return a safe and positive experience.
And don’t worry, this isn’t going to be us telling you why our gym is the best and everyone should be a member at Fern Creek CrossFit. It’s not for everyone, nor do we want everyone.
Here are 3 types of gym options/memberships:
Globo Gyms Think Planet Fitness, LA Fitness, YMCA or similar. These gyms have low ($10-40/month) “access” fees. They usually involve a lengthy contract and very little help once you join. There are endless rows of cardio equipment and plenty of free weights and machines. Some of these gyms may even include large group classes of 20+ members. If low cost, and little coaching or direction is your “thing”; this may be a good fit for you. That’s not a bad thing, however, this style of gym is usually best suited for a very motivated gym goer who doesn’t require much oversight, help, or accountability.
“Boot Camps” Here is where businesses like Orange Theory, F45, Burn Boot Camp, Fit Body Boot Camp land. These gyms will have a higher price point than Globo Gyms ($99-199/mon). They almost always have an initial offer of 2-4 weeks free, to help get you in the door. They provide high intensity interval training (HIIT) and often include some piece of technology to measure your effort during the workout. You’ll perform mostly bodyweight movements with some additional equipment like sandbags, battle ropes, dumbbells and kettlebells.
The “Wellness” Center There is a growing trend in fitness to collaborate with other health and fitness professionals in effort to offer more to their clientele. At facilities like these, you may see massage therapists, chiropractors, physical therapist, nutrition coaches, fitness coaches and others all working together as a team, to best meet the clients needs.
All in all, these kinds of gyms are super popular and do a good job motivating people to make a change.
The biggest complaints we hear from people that leave these kinds of places and join with us is the classes are too large or there’s not enough individual attention towards the members needs and goals. In other words, they don’t really get coached and there’s a bit of a cookie-cutter feel.
Our Take on Fitness
At our facility, memberships starts with a conversation. We need to learn our member’s individual needs and goals first. From that discussion, we prescribe options for the best way to reach their goals. This may include one on one personal training, individualized nutrition coaching and/or some group classes.
Depending on the individual and their specific needs, each of the options above can be beneficial. The truth is that none of them will work if you cannot show up consistently. The best facilities in the world, with all the top professionals and equipment don’t matter if you’re not willing to show up.
We believe in having coaches and a community to hold you accountable, keep encouraging you to make progress, and have fun along they way.
First, we want to thank our members SO much for making week 1 of reopening a success. We enjoyed seeing you and we are glad you could get into the gym and move in a safe way. We really appreciate the extra work you’ve all done to keep the gym clean and being patient with our coaches while we’re all living with new health guidelines. We’re learning more every week and will continue to listen to you and our public health officials. We’re excited for the weeks and months to come.
Our country is going through a difficult time so far in 2020. Lives have been impacted greatly by the pandemic and historically with racial injustice and discrimination that many are demonstrating against nationally and in our local community. And now, the CrossFit CEO has weighed in, seemingly fanning the flames of both a serious health and social crisis. We wanted to make it clear to you on where we, the owners of FCCF, stand.
Our mission is to be a family friendly organization that promotes health, fitness, and overall prosperity and to provide an inclusive, safe haven from the chaos of everyday life.
Our values are as follows:
People & relationships over head count
Consistency across our services
Celebrate bright spots and successes
Work together to achieve our goals
Committed to a “help first” culture
Be accepting of feedback
We stand against behavior that contradicts our values which includes the commentary expressed by the CrossFit CEO. We don’t believe his comments fall in line with our mission. Therefore, the ownership team decided to end our affiliation with CrossFit, effective immediately.
CrossFit
From the very first day we opened our doors in southeast Louisville, Kentucky, our mantra has been “Drive. Positivity. Community.” We love the fitness methodology that CrossFit is built upon: constantly varied, functional movements, performed safely with relative intensity. This methodology has shown to produce real results and made folks healthier and happier. It’s given us an extended family of people who value each others’ success as much as their own. The words of one CEO won’t change that for us.
Given the current social climate of our nation, and especially in our local community, we want to move forward embracing our own stated values in hopes to bring about meaningful change to the health and wellbeing of everyone in our community. Our name may change, but our purpose will not.
“We’re supporting and trying to help people with health and wellness. Not only are you going to come here and get fit, you’re going to get educated at the same time, on nutrition, on how to move properly, not just with a barbell or trying to do pull-ups or push-ups, but in your everyday life.”
Brian Holmes – Owner & Founder
“Our gym is built on community. That’s our structure. We do everything for the members… There’s a lot of negativity around. We’re all about 100% positivity. We’re here to help everybody and make everybody better as a team.”
Trent Miller – Owner & Coach
“We really care about how people function outside these walls in this gym and we want people to be better, more functional humans for as many years of their lives as we can possibly make them. And we want that for the people they care about, because we feel like it makes the community better.”
We have the secret to get all your gains back. We have the means to catapult your Fran time and Grace time back to what they were years ago.
Except it doesn’t happen quickly. And it’s really not a secret. Here it is:
Mechanics
Consistency
Intensity
(Specifically in that order)
Mechanics refers to technique—your ability to move properly through our core movements (squats, presses, lifts, body weight movements & gymnastics holds). For us, this means moving yourself and external objects in the most efficient, effective and safe manner possible.
Consistency has a two-part application: 1) That you are consistent in performing the mechanics of the movement; and 2) That you are consistent in workouts. Both are necessary! High intensity, functional workouts are very potent medicine; too much too soon and you can severely hurt yourself. Luckily, the body adapts quickly, and before you know it, you will be hitting each workout with maximum personal intensity.
Intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with the rate of return on favorable adaptation. More simply put, intensity brings about all the good results from working out. However, we also have to realize that intensity is relative to our physical and psychological tolerances. This is a process, and one that takes an indeterminate amount of time, so be patient. Elite-level athletes may be ready to ramp up their intensity in a couple of weeks, while de-conditioned athletes can take months or longer.
Our goal is to improve your fitness for life; no one ever got in shape overnight. If you gradually exceed what you have done before, soon enough you will be doing the mainsite workouts “as prescribed.”
All three together: Now that you understand mechanics, consistency and intensity, here’s how they all fit together: While many assume that safety is the main concern with proper mechanics – it is certainly the safest way to train – we can’t emphasize enough that sound technique is the most efficient and effective road to fitness. Proper movements will allow you to lift more weight, perform more repetitions faster, or both. More work in less time means higher average power (force x distance / time = power). Higher average power means higher intensity. Higher intensity means better results. Therefore, proper mechanics are the ideal supports for the bridge to fitness.
Set Smart Goals
Rather than chasing old lifts or old WOD scores, set up a goal specific to today’s workout. For example, today we did the following:
Set a goal of finishing every portion of the 15 air squats in each round of “Strict Cindy” unbroken with consistency and great mechanics. You can move slowly through them, but you won’t stop until all 15 are done each round. Small, smart, and attainable goals add up over time and leave you feeling accomplished and re-motivated. No need to chase someone else or one of you old scores.
“Please remember to take things slowly and scale as needed. Please have grace with all of us and one another as we navigate these new waters together. It will take some patience”
– Coach Meg
We want to hear about your fitness journey.
Tell us more about you and your fitness journey. Maybe we can help.
