Apr 11, 2008 3:34 PM

Q: How long was your deployment?

A: It was a full six months. It was kind of a unique thing to be out there right when September 11th happened. When I initially took the job, [I thought] “When was the last time the U.S. went to war?” [That was back] in 1991, so I was like “OK, we’re OK. I feel pretty safe going out there,” and sure enough I ended up being…and I mean the thing a lot of people shy away from, they think, you’re working for the military and you’re going out to sea, but you’re probably more safe on that ship than anywhere else in the world. I think a lot of people—when they are making their decisions to possibly apply for a job with the fleet—think it’s kind of dangerous. It really isn’t. I felt more safe on that ship than I did anywhere else probably at that time.

Q: Are most deployments six months?

A: Most of them are six months. Do some of them last longer? Yes. The Abraham Lincoln did one after I went out for [about] 10 months, but those were right at the beginning [of the Iraq war] when we were doing some really heavy air strikes and things like that. Now, it’s pretty much back on a regular schedule. Six months is usually the thing. Now you do have workups and things like that that also go on. So you get a feel for being out to sea before you go out and actually do the deployment.

Q: You’ll know if you’re seasick or not?

A: You’ll find out right away. They do have pills for that, and they take care of it pretty well.

Q: As more women have entered the military and are in the Navy, has that affected fitness facilities at all?

A: Well, I mean you just have to make sure you have the facilities for women. I mean, that’s it. Every one of our fitness centers have a male and female locker room. Now are [the women’s locker rooms] as big? No, they are in proportion to the standardized sizes as far as the amount of women that would be using it. So the men’s locker rooms usually are a little bit bigger because there is more of a male population. But the same good facilities are in the women’s [locker rooms] because they made women’s locker rooms now. We also have family locker rooms now, too, in some of our facilities. So it’s catering not only to the female population but also understanding that people have families with children they want to bring along, too. But, no, there really hasn’t been any big hindrance to having more women in the Navy since they’ve come in. You have to have these facilities now and that was really about it.

What really took off with the female population [was that women] really prefer group exercise. So that is the bigger thing that got a good development. Rather than just being the spouses coming in, now we also had actual military members coming in [to classes] who were female. It’s really becoming so it’s an even mix of male and female in group exercise, so I really can’t even say that [now]. Maybe initially it was, but today when you walk in to some of our classes, you may see certain kinds of classes have a little more female population than male, but on some of our other ones like spinning and stuff like that, it’s a good, even mix. Step is even kind of becoming an even mix. You are still going to have in your heavy stretching and group exercise classes…I think there’s a larger female population [in those classes] but still, we are starting to see a lot of males come in, too, and realize the importance. And that’s the kind of mindset we want to try and get everybody out of: that this is not a female class; this is not a male class. We want to make sure this class is good for everybody, and that’s the whole thing about fitness, too. When you finally get somebody educated about fitness that there is no one thing that makes you in great shape…There’s a million great things that make you in great shape, and you just find what you like and try new things to keep it fresh so that you maintain it your whole life.

Q: You go to a lot of trade shows and conferences and check out the new trends. Do you always try to bring in new trends or do you feel them out and make sure they’re not too trendy?

A: Well, there are some trends that come up that we are like, “Whoa, we need to wait and see if this really takes off or if this is really safe.” There are just some things out there that we are not going to have in our gyms. You’re not going to have the pole dancing classes—that’s a little risqué—you know things like that. You have to remember, we are dealing with a population that has a little more say than your average Bally’s club that says, “This is what we offer, and that’s it. If you don’t like it, too bad, just don’t attend.” Ours gets a little more political because we are dealing with the U.S. government and things like that. So we have to watch for things that could potentially not sit right with somebody, and they could potentially go up the chain of command and say “Hey, I don’t like this. Why do we do it?” So we have to be a little more neutral in some our fitness endeavors that we try out. Another thing, too, is safety, and that’s a big thing, too, because we do have people directly in charge of safety. So that’s some other options, too, with some of the things we include in some of our classes or new machines we bring on board or different apparatuses that people try to sell us and things like that.

Q: Do you offer yoga, Pilates and dance-based classes? Are those fairly mainstream trends now?

A: Oh yes, yes. More than the general good ones, some of the big hot ones now are Body Pump. That’s really big right now. Spinning is really taking off, and what I’ve found with Spinning is that your instructor really makes the class. You can have kind of an average instructor and a few people will show up, but if you’ve got a great instructor, your class will be packed every time. I guess that’s the key for group exercise is that you know [to have] a good instructor for the class because people see that. If [participants] really enjoy your class, they are going to keep coming. And that’s one thing there as far as trends that I’ve noticed on base is that it all depends on the instructor because no matter how popular something is, it’s only as good as its instructor.

Q: Some of your fitness centers will also do some programming for sailors who have failed their fitness tests. Is that pretty consistent at all of the bases? They all have programs like that?

A: I developed a 24 Weeks of Success program, which is a 24-week training program, because the testing timeframe for the sailor to take the command or the PRT, physical readiness test, which is a three-mile run, a two-minute curl up, a two-minute push-up test and then a body composition test, [is 24 weeks]. So what happens is, they take this test, and they compare themselves to a chart and that chart should tell them if they passed and how high they passed, up to superior or excellent [fitness ratings] all the way down to satisfactory or failing. And if they fail, they automatically go onto an FEP program or a Fitness Enhancement Program. This is where the command fitness leader would come to one of our Navy fitness professionals and say, “Hey, I need some help in developing one of these programs to train my group.” And one thing I did was a blueprint or a template to show our fitness professionals a consistent program that they could show [when sailors ask], “What’s 24 Weeks of Success?” which is six months in-between each testing period. That gives them a full six months worth of workouts to progress to specifically pass the run, the curl-ups, the push-ups and then also lower their body composition.

What’s been nice is Rota, Spain, a base over there, took our program and put it onto an Internet Explorer format onto a disk. So when you go through it, it’s kind of like looking at a Web page because now everything on the Internet is the way to go for most things, so you know more people are familiar with that, and they can go and print off their workouts on there, and they can read everything. It’s just like going through a Web page—you know, a fitness Web page. It’s kind of neat going from there since then people make their own programs. [The program is] just kind of the blueprint. Can you do the program as is? Sure, it’s going to get you in shape, and—unless you really had a lot of obstacles to overcome—you are probably going to pass your next PRT if you stick to this program. But now a lot of people came back and said, “Well, now it’s great. We got them in shape. Now, what do we do?” Well, that’s when I created a second one, which was a maintenance program. And that’s a 15-week program. Then there’s a third one now that just came out about a year and half ago that’s an advanced program. So it’s kind of like going full steam. If you want to start with the advanced program, basically you have a years’ worth of workouts on these discs, and I also came out with a recent one for Athletic Business (2007 trade show and conference) this past year. It’s a deployment one, so it’s more working with rubber bands and things like that that we are using for our band kits that are out there.

So a lot of different things help the sailor with that. Now are there some great regular fitness staff members out there doing some command fitness stuff out there that are not following this 24-week [program]? There are some other good programs out there, but we wanted to give a blueprint to show that we could hand it to the sailor and hand it to a fitness professional and say, “Here’s how a fitness program looks.” Because a lot of people, especially sailors, just don’t know how to train for an extended amount of time other than a couple weeks. [Sailors say], “Well, I’ve got two weeks to get into shape.” Well, we both know that that’s a little difficult to do. Especially if you have to lose 30 pounds—unless you start cutting off limbs and stuff like that or you’re not going to get the job done. Not many people want to sacrifice that just to pass a test. It just comes down to the point of how do they do it? And like I said, it just gives them a blueprint of how to run and some other unique things in the training program. It also gives them the split times to be able to run on a treadmill, so if they are out to sea, they can still run on a treadmill and get their workouts in. [There is] also a crosstrainer version and a bike version to maintain their fitness, too.

So there’s a lot of things out there that we give them, and we also have instructional videos and how to do the basic strength training equipment and things like that to get people back into shape because not everybody wants to go get into a program unless they are mandated to get into the program. And, like I said, unless you fail and are placed in the fitness enhancement program, you may be borderline, and you don’t have to go do this group thing, but you are still looking for the information to go do that, so that’s where the disk comes in to be able to do some of our videos and some of our books that we create, too.

blog comments powered by Disqus