We all know how valuable support is when it comes to staying on track and reaching our health & fitness goals. And that support starts with your partner or significant other. Now you may be thinking this is a narrative about how to get your partner to join a gym, but it’s not. Fact is, you and your partner may have two different views on health & fitness and what your goals are. I’m here to talk about how to use communication to enhance your support at home. Tip #1: Communicate Your Goals If your home team just sees you go to the gym occasionally, but doesn’t know why you’re dedicating time, money, and effort – they may not understand your drive. Be honest and tell your partner how you feel about your current health & fitness and your end goal. This is the first step to gaining valuable support...Read more

I have a funny little love/hate relationship with the CF Open. Mostly because it shows me I am capable of more than I thought, WHILE also showing me where I can improve. Having to modify all the workouts last CF Open because I had a little baby guy in my belly I was definitely excited and scared to see what this season would show me.  To be fair, the only thing I expect out of the CF Open every year is to try to improve myself from the year before. Newsflash…it turns out I am not  going to the CF Games?? Previous to having Braxton, I was definitely moving myself up every year and very excited to be in the Age Groups now…getting “older” has its perks. But with the labor and postpartum not going exactly as I planned I truly had no idea what to expect.  I can say,...Read more

What’s up everyone – it’s Coach Byron from Bluprint Fitness in West Town Chicago and I’m jumping on your screen today to talk about Strength & Conditioning and why it may be the key to your health & fitness results.  Now before we get started, let me first shine a light on this fact. Most health & fitness routines work when followed consistently. Whether you choose to focus on cardio only, strength only, or sport as your fitness routine – sticking with it consistently will get you some level of results.  But in my experience, strength & conditioning is queen, king, princess, prince, army, and all of the above when it comes to getting results.  And the results I’m talking about are the ones on the outside AND on the inside of your body. Now, you may be thinking, why does it work so well? Here are a couple of key...Read more

Pre-workout this, pre-workout that…I’ve heard about it all. I’m writing today to chat about the BEST pre-workout you can incorporate into your health & fitness routine. But not your traditional scoop of C4 or your can of monster. I’m talking about the good stuff.  Food & Water. One of the most overlooked pre-workout strategies is how we fuel our bodies on a regular basis. Fact is, if you focus on consuming nutritious food, you won’t need to use supplements often to get you up and going. So what are some general tools we can use to make sure our food is giving us the energy we need to perform inside and outside the gym? Number 1: We Have To Drink Water Up to 60% of the human body is made up of water. So you can imagine how it’s going to function when you are hydrated vs when you are dehydrated....Read more

Squat Problems? Do you ever feel like you are doing all your mobilizations and homework that the coach tells you to BUT you just aren’t making enough progress improving your squat position? Do you feel like you have plateaued in strength gains because of your squat positioning? If this sounds like you and you are literally feeling stuck it might be time to try something different.  Sometimes it is tight muscles that are causing issues with the bottom position of our squat but it doesn’t have to end there. We might need a little more action to convince our bodies to get into a better position. If we want to make real change, a couple static stretches here and there are unlikely to do the trick.  We have to stretch and then move our body through those new ranges of motion inorder to unlock those positions and wake up those...Read more