Teamwork makes it all happen!
As many of you know, I had the awesome opportunity to spend some time with many of my best friends in southern California last weekend. It was a truly unique experience. What is even better is these are all friends from Beachbody! We all became friends while going through our first rounds of P90X, Insanity, and Asylum. We were part of the first ever “Challenge Group”, before Beachbody Challenge groups existed. In fact, I think it was our “Challenge Group” that prompted Beachbody to see how beneficial they are to connect people and build relationships that go deeper than just working out. I’m glad we came up with that concept ;-)
Anyways, as part of my Top Coach prize for 2012, I was given the opportunity to have a small/private workout with any Beachbody trainer. They would have flown that trainer to me or anywhere else for that matter. It took a little time to figure out but eventually the idea to go to Santa Monica and workout with Tony Horton at Beachbody Headquarters came into the picture. I had the opportunity to invite a small group of friends and the idea grew into what would be an unforgettable weekend!
Working out with Tony Horton
We all got into LA on Thursday and spent the afternoon and evening relaxing and catching up. The guys that were able to come are actually all teamRIPPED coaches and some of my closest friends. These are guys that I originally coached through their first programs (P90X for almost everyone I think) and then took it upon themselves to pay it forward by coaching others. We all got closer and closer through the original challenge group, the Asylum Crazies, and the rest is history!
I find it extremely humbling to be around these guys. I have always coached for the love of helping others. To see what impact that has had on them and me is truly amazing. Not only are their transformations great, their passion for helping others is exactly like mine. Some have taken coaching so far as to actually do it full-time! You want to talk about like-minded people and the power of teamwork, they are it! Friends from all over the US pushing each other to be better in all aspects of life.
Our workout was scheduled for 10 am on Friday. We got to Beachbody HQ and headed in. It was just us and Tony! I have been fortunate enough to have some smaller workouts with Tony before, but this was really special. He decided to run us through an extreme version of “the Warrior” from P90X3. What is normally 30 minutes turned into 90 minutes of total body wreckage. Each guy pushed past where they normally would and had a great workout.
The highlight of the workout for most of us could have been Tony’s talk at the end. He took about 20 minutes to just talk through some of his philosophy. It was really his WHY and challenged us to take more risks (that won’t kill you LOL). At the end of everything with Tony, he took pics with everyone and then had to run to another engagement. I know we all would have spent all day with him if they would have let us. We invited him to our Spartan Race but he had to decline. I think our Honeybadger Shawn Swisher worried him a bit ;-)
Touring Beachbody HQ
The Spartan Race – Super Spartan
Temecula has some amazing and beautiful terrain. Breathtaking and peaceful until you realize you have to run up that terrain! We were all prepared though, we are teamRIPPED, we are the Ripped Spartans!
You can’t imagine the amount of heckling that went on. Any sign of weakness was exploited! LOL! But what is great about friends and this team is that one minute we can be harassing one another and the next rallying around a guy as they have to do their penalty burpees. No man was left behind.
What also became pretty apparent was how good of condition we were in compared to everyone else. Most of the guys didn’t train specifically for the race. Just their normal Beachbody programs and maybe a little running. I didn’t run leading up to this race due to my knees. I knew they could take it but I didn’t want to beat them up before hand. I counted on nothing beyond Insanity, Asylum, and my usual lift days of Body Beast / P90X to get me ready, and I was more than ready to CRUSH THE SUPER SPARTAN!!!
We even threw in extra work on many of the obstacles, doing them multiple times just for fun! One of the best times was a relay race we had at an obstacle. We all had completed the obstacle before and decided to run it again as a race. I feel sorry for the random guy on the right of us … he might need some P90X3 or Body Beast :-)
Everyone pulled together and finished the race together. The last climbs were really tough but they didn’t stop us. There was a lot of heart and willpower! I couldn’t ask for a better crew of guys to have done this with. It was an epic weekend with memories I will cherish forever.
This is What Fitness Does
It allows to you DO MORE. I’ve blogged about this before, but really… if you just workout to look good, that is going to get old …. and fast! We push in our workouts and dial in our nutrition for so much more. To really be healthy. To be better spouses and parents. To play more with our kids. To try new hobbies and enjoy the world around us. We even do it to have a blast crawling through mud, over rocks, under walls, and up ropes. To DO MORE than we thought we could or overcome fears. All in the name of enjoying our friendships and relationships more. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys and gals to surround myself with. You guys are the best!
I will leave you with a short YouTube video I made to commemorate the occasion. It’s a little self serving since it just has the pics/videos I was in, and it won’t play on a mobile device due to the music I selected. But if you are on a computer and want to check out the Super Spartan from my perspective, watch this =
Need a coach?
My email: coachwayne@teamripped.com
IG: @wayne_wyatt
