Kevin Keefer Personal Training

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Huge congratulations to @juliemckelvey27 for achieving the incredible feat of conquering the Seven Summits! 🏔️ Your determination, courage, ability to stay focused, adapt to unexpected challenges, and summon inner strength in the face of adversity is a defining aspect of your character. It has taken you to the highest peak and the pinnacle of achievement. It showcased an enormous test not only of your physical strength but also your indomitable will. You Accomplished something that less than 100 women in the world have achieved and many have died trying to accomplish. Beyond the physical and mental challenges, completing the Seven Summits is a profound spiritual and emotional experience. It is a testament to human resilience and your pursuit of excellence. WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU SAID YES TO A CHALLENGE? When Julie mentioned the challenge of conquering the Seven Summits, I didn’t know what that meant. She explained it’s the highest peak on each continent. I was thinking ok….. Wait!!! That includes Everest and Denali (I wasn’t sure of the others but i knew those two)!!! This journey is not without its risks and sacrifices. Sacrifices that include possible injury/death, losing appendages, altitude sickness, and long periods away from family and friends. This would require Intense training. Relentless training - watching julie training hard every week, making training a priority everyday even during vacations and trips, her dedication and vision to accomplish her goal was always on display. Developing a strength training and endurance plan for the unique intense challenges of each mountain was the easy part for me - implementing it was the hard work julie had to put in. I enjoyed watching her evolve over these 7 mountains, dealing with the challenges: mentally, physically, the injuries, and logistics. The Hard part for ME was the sleepless nights, tracking her by watching her garmin (and freaking out when she would summit or I thought she didn’t make it when the garmin stopped working 🤪), and worrying about the dangers of each mountain. Continued in comments…

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Why am I not as strong as last week? Why did I Miss reps? In todays workout I missed the last rep on a set of 1 ¼ rep DB Incline presses. A rep I completed for the last 3 weeks on that exercise with the same weight. When I was younger, that missed rep would have made me angry🤬. It would make me think I’m getting WEAKER. Strength gains are NOT linear. Let me repeat that - Strength is NOT linear. Just because one week you can do the weight easily and the next week you struggle doesn’t mean that you’re losing strength. It’s not an immediate cause for concern. Several factors can contribute to a temporary decrease in strength. Factors such as inadequate sleep, increased stress, insufficient nutrition (especially calorie deficits), hydration levels, proper recovery, and energy levels all can affect your performance. Ensure you are maintaining a well-balanced diet, getting enough rest, and managing stress. Instead of getting angry and upset over one isolated workout, look back at the trend of your program over the last several months and you should see that you are getting stronger💪🏻. Remember its your Fitness Journey - Focus on the long term, if the strength decrease continues then it’s time to look further into why, you may just need a program design change and/or change in your nutrition. Contact me for more information about programming for your fitness goals. 💥On an added note - weight/fat loss is not linear either. Some weeks you may be up a little but just like strength increase - it’s important to look at the long term progress. #personaltraining #muscle #strength #progress #fitness #partials #rogue #journey

The only thing I would add to this is consistency. Stay hydrated (also make sure you get electrolytes),  have a well designed training plan for your fitness goals, eat healthy with enough macros to go along with that plan, and get enough sleep, and recovery.

Performing an agonist superset today.
In this case bodyweight pull ups with the RO-T8 handles then supersetted with assisted pull ups. First set of 8 reps of RO-T8 pull-ups at a 2111 tempo with 3RIR then 4 reps of assisted pull-ups at 2112 tempo (totaling 12reps) with 150seconds rest. Keeping the same load for the 2nd set and then the 3rd set going to failure on both the RO-T8 pull-ups and the assisted pull-ups. Why? Why not just use a weight on the assisted pull-ups that I can do for 12reps straight? This way I am able to increase the load for the first exercise more than what one set of assisted pull-ups would be. Due to the lighter load of the one set of 12reps of assisted pull-ups you won’t recruit as many muscle fibers with the lighter load vs using the much heavier load of the first exercise therefore recruiting more fibers and increasing the tension.
With this type of intense training, central nervous system fatigue can accumulate quickly so there is no need to perform a lot of sets especially to failure. Be careful of your recovery and your central nervous system recovery to ensure the best results.

Changes can’t happen without consistency

Make it happen….

Believe in yourself, that you can do it - that it’s within your ability. Overcome any self-doubt, it’s the first step to a new you!

A recent study (2020) researching Glute max activation.
A lot of good information but remember - load, tempo, exercise selection/programming (such as pairing a exercise emphasizing the shorten contraction and one emphasizing the lengthened contraction), doing the exercise correctly to target just the glutes (ie a Glute bridge vs a hip thrust), fatigue etc make a difference.
An exercise such as step ups done correctly has a lot of Glute activation however you don’t want to load the exercise so much that you go to true failure and lose stability and increase your chance for injury. While other exercises you can take to failure safely. Remember a well designed program, dedication, proper nutrition, and effort result in great glutes.

Whoop vs Garmin Instinct Tactical. Sundays mountain bike ride - heart rates, mileage, and calories very close measurements. (The 169HR was probably that oh no moment crashing over the bars)