CrossFit Bounce

How much training does it actually take to maintain strength?

A common fear among gym-goers is this:
“If I miss a few sessions, or take a week off, have I ruined all my progress?”

Good news. No, you haven’t.

Maintaining strength takes far less work than building it.

Once you’ve built strength, your body is actually very good at holding onto it. Research consistently shows that strength can be maintained with a small weekly dose of training.

In many cases, one challenging set per week for a movement or muscle group is enough to maintain strength.

Even taking a short break from the gym, whether that’s a few days or a week, doesn’t cause strength to suddenly disappear. True strength loss takes weeks, not days.

And it’s not just about one exact exercise.

Strength carries over between similar movements. So even if you’re not doing the same lift, other exercises that use the same muscles can help maintain those gains.

The real risk to strength isn’t rest.
It’s long periods of complete inactivity.

So if life gets busy, you miss a few sessions, or take a short break, don’t panic.

Your strength isn’t fragile.

Consistency over months and years matters far more than a perfect week. 🤌🏼

💪🏻 No Pain, No Gain? Understanding Muscle Soreness 💪🏻

Ever finished a session and pulled up sorer than expected?

That deep, achy stiffness that shows up a day or two later is often DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), and in many cases, it’s completely normal.

DOMS usually happens when we:

• Try something new

• Increase volume or intensity

• Return to training after a break

It’s your body responding to a new stimulus and adapting to become stronger. In small, consistent doses, this is exactly how progress happens (hello, gains ).

That said, not all pain is created equal.

Normal soreness (DOMS) tends to feel:

• Achy, tight or stiff

• Spread across a muscle group

• Worse 24–48 hours post-session, then gradually improves

Pain that may signal an injury often:

• Feels sharp or pinpoint

• Sits in joints or bones rather than muscle

• Limits normal movement

• Doesn’t improve (or worsens) after a few days

If something feels off, trust that instinct and pull back.

What helps with soreness?

Movement is your friend. Gentle training, light cardio, mobility work, good sleep, hydration and eating well all help your body recover. Doing nothing usually makes stiffness hang around longer.

The big takeaway:

Some soreness is part of training and progress. Pain that stops you moving normally isn’t.

As always, this is an open conversation, chat to a coach if you’re unsure, and jump in the comments if you’ve got questions.

Peace out, Coach K 😍🤘

Coach K’s Friday Thoughts 💭

This is an open discussion where we encourage questions, shared experiences, and learning from each other.

This week’s topic:
RPE - what it is and how to actually use it in your training.

RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) is a simple way to measure how hard you’re working based on how it feels. No heart rate monitors, no tech; just your breathing, muscle fatigue, and overall effort.

Think of it on a 0–10 scale:
• 1–3: Easy, comfortable, plenty left in the tank
• 4–6: Moderate, breathing heavier but controlled
• 7–9: Hard, challenging, close to your limit
• 10: Max effort, nothing left to give

You’ll also hear us talk about RIR (Reps In Reserve). This works alongside RPE and helps guide weight selection:
• Example: An RPE 8 means you finish a set feeling like you could have done about 2 more reps.

So why do we use RPE?
• It allows you to adjust intensity based on sleep, stress, and recovery
• It’s simple and accessible, usable anywhere
• It helps reduce injury risk by avoiding all-out efforts every session
• It’s a great way to track progress as the same weights start to feel easier

Ultimately, RPE helps you listen to your body and train smarter, not just harder.

💬 Do you use RPE in your training already?
What do you see as the pros and cons?

Let’s get chatting 👇
Coach K

Chasing Novelty vs Chasing Progress 🧠💪

Let’s talk about something we all feel from time to time…

The urge for something new.

New workout.
New movement.
New piece of equipment.
New stimulus.

And hey, that’s totally human. Novelty is exciting. It keeps training fresh and fun. And fun matters.

But here’s the part that often gets missed 👇

The biggest fitness gains rarely come from the most exciting workouts.
They come from the most repeatable ones.

Those “boring” looking sessions on paper...
bike intervals, row intervals, running repeats, strength progressions...
they might not look Instagram-worthy…
But they are absolute gold for your fitness.

Why?

Because simple, repeatable workouts let you:
• Accumulate meaningful training volume
• Track improvement over time
• Progress load, pace or reps
• And actually adapt

When every session is wildly different, your body never gets a clear signal:
“Get better at THIS.”

It’s a bit like trying to learn 10 languages at once; you stay entertained, but you don’t get fluent in any of them.

That doesn’t mean we never use novelty.
We absolutely do.
It keeps training fun, builds resilience, and makes the gym enjoyable.

But novelty should be the spice… not the main course.

The real magic happens when you show up, do the simple things well, and do them consistently:
• Slightly more weight
• Slightly more reps
• Slightly faster pace
• Slightly better control

That’s where fitness compounds.

So next time you see a workout that looks “too simple” or “too boring”…remember:
It usually means effective 😉

And if you trust the process, the results will come.

Team Bounce

“If I’m not puffing… was it even hard?”

We hear this one a lot on our strength-focused days 💪
No big metcon. No lying on the floor gasping for air.
And sometimes that makes it feel like the session wasn’t hard enough.

Here’s why those sessions matter and why they’re exactly where they should be 👇

Strength days are about quality, not chaos

When the goal is to get stronger or build muscle, the stimulus has to be right:

💪Lifting challenging weights

💪Performing enough quality working sets

💪Having adequate rest to maintain good technique and output

That requires focus, not rushing, and not fatigue from cardio layered on top.

Strength + conditioning crammed together = compromised results

If we try to squeeze heavy strength work and conditioning into the same hour:

👎🏻The weights usually have to be lighter

👎🏻Technique breaks down sooner

👎🏻Neither strength nor conditioning gets the stimulus it deserves

By separating them into different sessions or days, we can:

👉Lift heavier, with better intent

👉Recover properly between sets

👉Actually drive long-term strength and muscle gains

Not every session should leave you breathless

Feeling “puffed” is just one form of training stress, and it’s not the only one that matters.
Strength sessions tax your:

🤌🏼Nervous system

🤌🏼Muscles

🤌🏼Connective tissues

You might not feel wrecked immediately… but your body is still working hard and adapting.

The big picture

Our programming isn’t about making every session feel brutal; it’s about making every session purposeful.

Some days build your engine 🚀
Some days build your horsepower 🏋️‍♂️
Both are essential if you want to train well, stay healthy, and keep progressing.

Trust the process. Lift with intent. The results come.

—
If you’ve got questions about why we program things the way we do, ask us anytime. We love this stuff.

Strength & Muscle Building, Made Simple.

With the sheer amount of training advice online, it’s no wonder people feel confused, and stuck without results.

Jumping from one “new” program to the next, or following the latest influencer who’s supposedly reinvented the wheel, is a common trap.

The truth?
Strength training and muscle-building principles haven’t changed much in decades.

Here are two simple principles that will get you results:

1️⃣ Stop changing your program every few weeks
You don’t need to “confuse” your muscles. Stick with the same key lifts and structure for 6–12 weeks. It might not be exciting, but it’s effective.

2️⃣ Progress something each week
Aim to do one of two things:
    •    Perform more reps with the same weight, or
    •    Lift more weight for the same reps/sets

This is the simplest form of progressive overload, increasing total tonnage.

Example:
Week 1: 5 × 10 Bench Press @ 60kg
Total tonnage = 10 reps × 60kg × 5 sets = 3000kg

Week 2: 3 sets @ 60kg + 2 sets @ 65kg
Total tonnage = 3100kg

That’s more total load on the working muscles → adaptation → strength & muscle gain.

Key takeaway:
You don’t need massive jumps in weight.
A few extra reps, or a small load increase across some sets, is enough.

Consistently increase your total tonnage, and results will follow.

P.s. don’t forget getting strong and/or building muscle is never a straight line from start to finish, some weeks you may not be able to add load or reps. This is normal. Keep chipping away and those gains will come.

P.p.s. Don’t forget to eat to support your training goals. This is a post for another day.

Well done to these weapons finishing out 2025 with a massive investment into their health and fitness.

If you only have one goal with your fitness in 2026, make it turning up to the gym 3-4 times per week and see how much your whole life improves.

That’s not biased mentality, that’s 15 years of watching people change their lives through fitness and community.

It’s never too late for it to be your turn.

The Surprising Way Cardio Boosts Your Strength Workouts

Did you know your aerobic fitness (aka VO2max) isn’t just for runners or endurance athletes? It plays a huge role in how well your body recovers during resistance training too!

Here’s how:

When you’re lifting heavy, your body relies on creatine phosphate to fuel those big, powerful movements. But after a set, those stores need time to replenish so you can crush your next set. This is where aerobic fitness comes in!

➡️ Better VO2max = Faster Recovery

If your aerobic fitness is high, your body clears out fatigue-causing metabolites and replenishes creatine phosphate stores up to 20% faster.

💡 What does this mean for you?

Instead of needing 5 minutes to fully recover, you could be ready to go in 3-4 minutes.

Over time, this adds up to more work done, better training efficiency, and greater progress in strength and muscle gains.

Whether you’re chasing PRs or just crushing your workouts, improving your aerobic fitness can give you the edge to train harder and smarter.

So don’t skip that cardio—it’s your secret weapon for better recovery and bigger gains! 🏃‍♂️💥

🥔 Don’t Skip Carbs If You Want to Crush Your Training Goals 🍚

Let’s start with something important: performance in the gym matters for everyone.

Whether your goal is weight loss, strength gain, improved fitness, or just staying healthy and active, your ability to train effectively is key to achieving those results. And to perform at your best, you need to fuel your body properly.

Take a look at the attached graph. It highlights the relationship between exercise intensity and fuel usage. At lower intensities, your body primarily burns fat for energy. But as intensity ramps up, your body shifts to relying more heavily on carbohydrates.

Here’s a simple example:
At around 80% of your maximal effort, your body gets roughly 80% of its energy from carbohydrates and only 20% from fat.

Why is this important?
Because if your body doesn’t have enough carbohydrates available, your performance will suffer. Think of it like running your car on low-octane fuel when it needs premium – it just doesn’t run as smoothly or efficiently.

While your body has ample fat stores (even in lean individuals) that can provide energy for low-intensity activities, fat is a poor fuel source for high-intensity efforts, such as heavy lifts, sprints, or intense conditioning workouts. Carbohydrates, on the other hand, are the premium fuel your body needs to crush those sessions.

The catch? Your body can’t store as much carbohydrate as it can fat, and those carbohydrate stores run out quickly when you’re pushing yourself.

So, what can you do to fuel effectively?
👉 Eat a carb-rich snack 30–60 minutes before training – especially if you’re planning a high-intensity workout.
👉 For sessions lasting longer than 60 minutes, consider consuming additional carbs during your workout to keep energy levels high and performance sharp.

Remember, this advice isn’t just for “athletes.” It’s for anyone who wants to feel stronger, fitter, and more energized during workouts. Proper fueling will help you show up, work hard, and get the results you’re after!