Coach Mindy can be found doing one armed pushups in the studio most days of the week and has lost more than 40lbs at NGPT. Her determination and recipes are two great assets she brings to our team!

Make progress…not excuses. I always thought about this phrase with respect to my consistent past behaviors of “well I’ll just eat this cookie now and then I can work out tomorrow”; “it’s cold outside so I can’t go jog”; “I’m tired, I can’t exercise now”; and so on.  I didn’t expect I would be really tested to not make excuses due to a prolonged injury rendering me one-armed for a year.  Since starting my boot camp in October 2011, I’ve had three surgeries, and most recently I woke up with a broken arm. The surgery during boot camp was probably the easiest one to endure and not get me down or back into the making excuses habit due to the momentum of the boot camp. Surgery in January and July 2012 was more tough, but I was getting pretty excited to start strengthening my right arm muscles and try to catch up to my left arm. 

Then came the broken arm and I was pretty devastated. I had been working on being able to do pull ups in PT’s with Maria, then all the sudden NO lifting, NO pushups, NO use of my arm at all. For about a week I was really angry that I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. I kept going to classes but that one week I know I didn’t put in great effort because I was feeling like giving up on working out. One day in Advanced Cardio Blitz I positioned myself to not have to do the station with the EQ row bars since I couldn’t row one-armed but as a class we did an extra station which meant I was going to be on the EQ bars after all. I decided to give a one-armed row a try and I was able to do it. That moment I stopped being down about my injury and I got excited about what else I could do one-armed.  Now instead of seeing obstacles to effective, sweaty workouts, I see challenges.  

Though I did have that revelation in class, I also have to give credit and gratitude to all the instructors, Coach Bill, Adam, and Trish in particular for the ongoing encouragement, recommended alternatives, and motivation I needed when I was lacking. To the other ‘wounded warriors’ out there, I’ve seen you in classes and you are rocking it! To anyone who is injured/becomes injured/feels discouraged - If ever you need encouragement/motivation/a hand, I’ve got one strong left arm to offer!!

-Mindy Metzcar