Welcome To Iconoclast
I was in the Army for eight years and recently left after coming out as a transgender woman. I survived policy after governmental policy as my body endured the pressure of intense exercise under regiments designed to create war-fighters. What this translates into is rigid and tense running sessions three times per week, and strength training in the days between. See yourself for a moment as that tension-ridden workhorse. Yes, you would be able to relate because we have the unique quality as Americans of being among the most stressed in the world. You don't have to be a person in the military to know what it is like to push your mind and body to the brink of madness.
What makes training with Ngo so powerful is his ability to diagnose needs specific to your body immediately. Firstly, I should say that his respect for me as a person was promptly displayed with his acceptance of my gender identity. He let me know from the very beginning that I was welcome to use the locker room I felt most comfortable in. Many trans people and gender-non conforming people are turned off by gyms and health-clubs for this very reason. I have never been in a gym situation where I was invited to use the locker room of my choice even when I had subscribed presenting as my preferred gender, which is a lady. It was just always assumed that since I looked like a man in a dress that I would have to use the men's bathroom. Being a gender-non-conforming individual, let alone a trans-woman, let-alone a woman with 8-months on hormone replacement therapy, the welcome that I received from this gym was astonishingly warm.
HIIT IT
I came into this situation a little cocky, I must say. `Of course, I felt like I was in shape already and that I was prepared for anything Ngo had in store for me. Incidentally, my confidence was re-inforced when Ngo said that he was going to train me as a woman would train by identifying the target areas vital to sculpting a female shape. When you go to Iconoclast fitness you can be assured that the physiology vital to your specific transformation is carefully evaluated. It was not long before all of my assumptions and comfort zones were challenged in an extraordinary way with the training.
The first step was to diagnose the shape I was in and evaluate my goals. Ngo had me do a lunge-based diagnostic and with that, he was able to determine what would be the specialized path forward for me. To start he had me do a one-two breathe patterned stair set for 12 min. When he saw me jump on the machine and immediately go at it like a hamster on a cheese-wheel, he said "one-two and breathe." It immediately reminded me of meditation, actually. Getting into that meditative state is very similar to entering into a focused mindset when you're exercising. As I followed his advice it drove home the fact that all this time my speedy cardio method had its flaws. Examining one's breath and looking inside will definitely set the tone for the rest of the workout.
Here's the tragic flaw of doing workouts on your own: as you know by now, namely, the resting-between-sets issue. Sure you need to stop and catch your breath between the repetitions, but when you're alone you may overshoot that because that's just what people do when they're not being watched. Training with Ngo as a guide has given me a sense of rhythm and pace where I could take sufficient time to catch my breath, but at the same tame stay motivated to not sit on the bench and look at my e-mails.
Take a tour today and get started on creating a vision for transforming yourself into who you really want to be.