THE MONTH THAT WAS SEPTEMBER AT VFC
Hey Team and welcome to Septembers newsletter and what a crazy, exciting and jammed packed month it has been and what a month October promises to be.
The month of September always marks the birth of our very own Valesco Fitness Collective and with the new Valesco Baby (in the form of a gym) on the way it seemed more important that ever this year to celebrate 7 years of VFC. Thank you to everyone who came and joined in the super fun in house competition, we loved having you all down here and the pizza and drinks seemed to go down a treat too.
Talking of competition we also have another one of our awesome ‘Scale It Up’ Competition on the 9th October and spaces have now completely sold out for the event, which is fantastic news. Thank you in advance to all the judges and helpers who have put themselves forward to help on the day. We say it every time, and it never gets any less true, we couldn’t do it without you all. Best of luck to all those taking part, you are going to have an absolute blast.
Annndddd on the note of competition a HUGE well done to all of the teams that competed last weekend weekend. Two teams at the Arnold Fitness Games. Emma, Tash, Mooney, Stew, Iles, Harry-Joe, Jonny and Mitch and also to Rich, Tor, Beccy and Harry at The Farm Throwdown on Saturday. You all did yourselves and Valesco proud. Massive shout out to everyone who went and supported our guys and girls at the event, that’s what VFC is all about. There is a write up from Coaches James and Stew below for all the details
The planned opening of the new St Werbs site is happening next week (eeekkk) and we are all excited and terrified in equal measure. We want to take this opportunity to thank Torie, Ed, Bella and Steve Steel for the flyering around St Werbs. It’s been so great to get the word out into the community and will no less than 75 new members ready and waiting to join we can only hope its as successful as our first venture into the world of fitness.
Please pop the VFC2 launch party in your diaries, next Saturday from 1pm until 4pm with the amazing ‘I Scream Tacos’ and drinks all provided for on us . We would lobe to see as many of you down there as possible – please add your name to the list if you haven’t already so we have a rough idea of numbers. All welcome partners, kids, neighbours, friends and dogs….and lets be honest, especially the dogs!!
Thank you for another month of love, support and all round positiveness. We really appreciate all of you making Valesco what it is.
Lots of love,
Amy, Ellie and Leila xx
MEMBER SHOUT OUTS
Welcome to the monthly Member Shout out section where we like to celebrate some of the good things we see in the gym day in and day out.
Shout out from Coach Stew to Tash Feher. ‘Back in June when we did our Arnold Qualifiers, she wasn’t very confident doing TTB or at least stringing together sets of 4+. Sunday just gone on the comp rig, she comfortably smashed out 15 unbroken. Practice makes perfect’
Shout out from Coach James to Keven and Sarah. “both new to the gym, both move really well and have thrown themselves into loads of different classes, came to the birthday party with their little one and have become a real part of the community quietly and quickly. Kev can also burpee box jump over like a mad man and Sarah has one of the nicest cleans at the gym so as well as them being nice, that also helps and always great to have in a class!”
Shout out from Amy for Emily Glover. ‘She hasn’t been with us long, but is really putting in the time and effort to improve. Specifically with her weightlifting. A few weeks ago she was really struggling with her OHS and in a recent class she was making it look easy. Best of all, based on feedback I have received, she is enjoying the process and getting more and more confident each week. She also really makes me laugh, makes an effort with other members and is an absolute joy to have in classes’.
GYM NOTICES
AN INTRODUCTION TO BUILDING CONFIDENCE
Have you signed up for this yet?
Our very own Kate Shlugman will be delivering a confidence workshop.
An Introduction to Building Self-Confidence
At Valesco Fitness Collective 6th October 2022 7.30-9.30pm
In this session Kate will explain the fundamental principals of building lasting self- confidence and start you on your journey to building yours. By the end of the 90 minutes you will have a deeper understanding of yourself, what you personally need to focus on in order to develop your own self-confidence, as well as the first steps you can take to get you on your way. We will finish the session with a Q&A, so bring your questions for Kate to answer.
Please bring a pen and paper.
About Kate:
Kate is a confidence and communication coach who works with individuals on building confidence, strength and resilience for the mind, body and voice. She began her career as a professional actor, and combines performative techniques with traditional coaching skills to create unique and engaging programmes for clients looking to build confidence in any area of their lives.
Confirm by emailing hi@valesco.fitnes if you wish to attend
MEMBERS FACEBOOK GROUP:
ARE YOU ON OUR MEMBERS ONLY FACEBOOK GROUP? It’s an awesome little place to ask questions, find out information or just share funny memes or moments from the gym. If you aren’t a member but would like to be please follow this link and request access.
VALESCO KIDS AND TEENS IS BACK AND RUNNING!!!
We are excited to see the return of Valesco Kids and Teens Functional Fitness this month and best of all they are FREE to all kids right up until Christmas! Aftre this the sessions will be delivered in 6-week blocks (to align with the school term timetable), and will be delivered on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Classes will be capped at 12 individuals per session to ensure the coach can give them the attention they deserve, and contents of the sessions will be planned around FUNctional movement patterns – with an emphasis on keeping fitness FUN. Further details will be released in due course, so keep your eyes peeled for more information coming soon nut in the meantime get your littles ones involved – Tuesday 4.30pm for 8 – 11 years and Thursday 13-16 years. Eail KATZ@valesco.fitness ot get your kids booked in with Gemma.
OPEN GYM USERS
If you are a regular Open Gym user you should have received a communication within the last few week or so just reminding everyone of the rules and regulations around its use. If you have not had this communication please email hi@valesco.fitness and ask to be sent it. Thanks!
THE ARNOLD FITNESS GAMES TEAM WRITE UPS
‘The AGL (Age Group Lads) do AFG’
It all began as a dream back in May 2022. Four normal lads Clapp, Feher, Mooney & Jeenes wanting to come together and put this hobby that we spend FAR too much time doing to the test.
3 qualifiers later, a standard and classic fight to the death from Clapp, and an uncharacteristic top running score from Mooney. We qualified in 12th position for the finals.
Fast forward 3 months. Multiple ‘Team’ training sessions by 50% of the team (Feher & Jeenes) and one or two by the whole team. We were ready! Apart from the worm. We were definitely not ready for this! See my Instagram for evidence.
When the AGL travel, we travel in style, and fast. Cue the hotel with no lights in one room, no telly or working window in another and a wedding going hard until the early hours of the morning. It did have a pool though!
Finally competition day arrived. Four workouts in roughly 6 hours and it would all be over. Jeenes (not the oldest of the AGL!) was nervous as sh*t, not having done a comp for a few years. He almost didn’t go!
An 8th, a 6th and two 9th place finishes ensured we finished 10th overall. Very respectable. Highlights include a 6th place finish in the weightlifting event with a PB for everyone. Feher realising she is a lot better than she thinks she is. Mooney and Clapp absolutely burying themselves in a workout and one of them telling the whole team to f*ck off because they couldn’t breathe immediately afterwards.
Most of all, we had a great time, with the best team and no Age Group Lads were harmed over the course of the day. Fitness is fun.‘
The write up from our next Team Valesco Compete.
James Iles, Mitch Salisbury, Harry-Joe Gallimore and Jonny Crease – AKA; team Valesco Compete – were one of two teams that competed in Birmingham on the weekend at the Arnold Fitness Games. They competed across four events in the Same-Sex Elite team field of 22 teams and, after qualifying in 14th place, were able to finish their day firmly inside the top 10.
The four events on Sunday included an aerobic erg-based EMOM, some team ‘worm’ work, Synchro gymnastics and, everyone’s favourite, a max lift. If you’re interested in seeing the events, check out the Arnold fitness Games Instagram account where all the workouts for all three days are available.
All the workouts lined up well for Valesco Compete, with a heat win to end the day on event 4 (and sporting some pretty spectacular t-shirts) and all four of the boys matching current or setting new PBs in event 2 – Harry on the Hang Snatch, Jonny on the Snatch, Mitch on the Hang Clean and James on the Clean.
As always, the weekend was a huge success and Valesco did themselves proud across both teams on the big stage! Everyone had so much fun competing, having a laugh together and from the sauna and plunge pool the night before, to the Service Station McDonalds on the way home Sunday night, both teams had each other’s backs, are super grateful for the huge amount of support from the Valesco community and the company couldn’t have been better all weekend!
PODCASTS
We are back for part 2 of training hacks and looking forward to sharing with you once again.
The last episode got lots of positive reviews so we hope we can add to that today! As we did last time, Ellie and I discuss a selection of training hacks that we know of and, in most cases, use in the hope you hear something you’ve not before. Expect to learn how to stop some of those classic bad smells, how to stay beyond-hydrated, how to count your rounds and reps in a workout and more.
Sit back, listen up and enjoy.
As always hearing your thoughts and feedback is always nice so let us know if you have anything you wish to share or any have hacks of your own! We still have a few and a bunch of you have shared some already so a third episode is very much on the agenda – entirely crowd-sourced!
It is well worth a listen and you can do that on Spotify here!
EXBAND.FITNESS
HAVE YOU JOINED THE EXBAND GAINZ TRAIN YET?
These are 15 minutes fully coached pre recorded sessions that you can do anywhere at any time so what’s not to love? You even get to see some familiar Valesco faces!!
If you are looking to build endurance in your muscles, prevent injury or generally just look and feel better THIS IS FOR YOU and with only 15 minutes of your day? You’re getting a huge bang for your buck.
With a two-week FREE trial and only £7.99 per month after that it’s a bit of a steal.
EXBAND.fitness to get signed up or https://www.instagram.com/exband.fitness/ to see what all the fuss is about – go on, give us a follow…….please!
PUP CORNER
Hey Pup Fans,
Just a quick one from us this month and a sneaky snap in the new unit form last week.
Its been such fun to see ALL the humoonas doing ALL the running about to get this place ready for us to play in this winter…oh sorry we mean some of you guys of course, whoops!!
We do hope you can come to the launch party they are throwing next week and do remembers to bring your family, friends and furry family members, if you have them.
We can’t wait for our free taco’s….delicious!!
G2G trouble to cause.
Love and Licks,
H&F xxx
COACHES CORNER
This months Coaches Corner is from Coach Leila.
I just wanted to touch on the subject of stress/anxiety and exercise. What a few years we have had. I’m not sure about you? But it feels like one thing after another. There is a huge array of reasons to feel stressed and many people struggle with anxiety.
I have in the past struggled with both. I found exercise and the gym as a whole a great escape. A chance to surround myself with my crazy fitness buddies and release some good endorphins. On top of the last few years of stress (not to mention personal stresses that we all deal with) the government have thrown in another curve ball. The cost of living and stress of what is happening with the economy will be playing hugely on many minds.
There are several proven studies that show a huge improvement in stress levels and peoples mental health when they exercise regularly. “Exercise may improve mental health by helping the brain cope better with stress. In one study, researchers found that those who got regular vigorous exercise were 25% less likely to develop depression or an anxiety disorder over the next five years.”
If you are feeling overwhelmed it’s important to be kind to yourself. Remember to try and incorporate into your day the things that help to make you feel better. Hopefully the gym is one of those.
Remember to set yourself small goals and targets. Don’t be too ambitious.
Remember every time you step foot through the gym shutter you are on to a win.
Find yourself an exercise buddy.
Repetitive motions you perform during workouts promote a focus on the body instead of that on the mind.
Exercise not only makes you feel better, it improves your immunity. As well as improving sleep quality.
And remember we are always here for you. Please reach out. For a chat, a cuppa or a cwtch.
RECIPE OF THE MONTH
Roasted Squash Pancetta Chestnut Risotto
Upping the veg and swapping rice for pearl barley makes a hearty winter warmer that’s full of flavour and healthy too. Scatter with Parmesan and enjoy!
Until Next Time, Big Love Team Valesco xxx
Save The Date
St Werbs (V2) Launch Party – Saturday 8th October
Scale It Up – Safety in Numbers – Sunday 9th October.
The Valesco Christmas Party – Saturday 10th December. Venue booked and deposit has been paid
Strength in Depth Finals Weekend – Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th January 2023
Who Wore It Best
We hands down think this picture is one of the best WWIB we have ever managed to snap. Is it us or does Dan look like he has a kid….and that kid happens to be Jake? Another classic lads!
Have you turned up looking the same as another Valesco member? Then we want to see. Send your snaps to hi@valesco.fitness to be in the next newsletter. We love seeing them!