Author Archives: Coach Mike

About Coach Mike

Mike Alves is an award winning and highly sought after strength & conditioning expert in the areas of weight loss, body transformations, corrective exercise and performance enhancement. He received his B.S. in Athletic Training from the Prestigious Springfield College, aka the Harvard of Sports Sciences, his ATC from the World Renowned National Athletic Trainers Association, his CSCS from the National Strength & Conditioning Association, the global leader in bridging science with practical application and is Licensed by the state of Massachusetts as a Certified Athletic Trainer. Coach Mike has been written up in the Boston Globe, the Newton Tab, he's been featured on NECN, he's been named a Top Trainer by Boston Common Magazine and been invited to be listed on bostonsbestpersonaltrainers.com, and he's been a repeat #1 Trainer in Boston by Boston Sports Clubs and a #6 Trainer by Town Sports International. Coach Mike lives an active lifestyle, is a relationships 1st person and changes lives through his relationships 1st business. Currently he works out of Newton, MA running the #1 Body Transformation Group Personal Training Program in Massachusetts, Change Your Body Boot Camps and offers private training to a highly selective clientele. His strengths are making training fun and giving the love of training & hard work to those he comes in contact with and helping out of shape and overweight individuals get into their best shape. He has coached middle school, high school, college, amatuer, Olympic & professional athletes in the sports of baseball, soccer, football, basketball, mma, triathlons, endurance running and cycling as well as busy professionals, stay at home moms, retired adults all desiring to feel, move and look better.

Boston Athletic Club Trains the Trainer

Posted on by
Reply

“Awesome and Disgusting” was my reply to Coach Rich’s question of how I felt after completing his boot camp at the Boston Athletic Club. Awesome because I haven’t had my butt kicked like that since high school basketball and disgusting because I was covered in sweat and dirt. I sweat like I just got out of a shower. My shirt and shorts were soaked and could have been wrung out and I was covered in dirt from lying on the grown (imagine jumping in the ocean with your clothes on and then rolling around on the beach-that’s how I felt).

Now don’t get me wrong, the sweat and dirt did not bother me. It was just an observation. I actually felt amazing. Happy, relaxed, clear of mind, supercharged and full of life. I loved every minute of it. I felt lucky to be there and to have done it. I’m guessing this is how some of my clients may feel and I definitely want them to walk away from every workout feeling as good as I did.

Another unique thing I observed was that no one was talking. It made me think of a dinner party when the meal is fabulous and no one talks because they are enjoying themselves so much. This was the same except no dinner (unless you count the turkey bacon burps I ate twice during the workout-grosser, I know). I was too winded and focused on doing my best before we had to switch to the next exercise. I’m sure this is how everyone else must have felt.

My favorite part, because I’m sick like that, were the sprint games at the end. We did like 15 total minutes of conditioning in the form of competitive relays. Losing team did push ups. My team didn’t lose, but everyone had fun. That’s when I realized how powerful boot camps (much like semi-private training) can be for creating peer support and getting results fast. No one knew me and I knew none of them, but we bonded. I gave maximal effort to help my team. My teammates responded with the same. Our opponents not wanting to lose and sensing our determination gave their best efforts. This led them to respect each other, to respect us and us to respect them (a triple win if you will). It was cool. Lots of high fives and “good efforts”.

Kudos and thanks to Rich and Ron, the two Fitness Managers at the Boston Athletic Club, who invited me to experience their boot camp after meeting with them recently. Boot camps are one of the largest growing sectors of the fitness industry because you can help a lot of people get in great shape fast.

www.mikealves.com


5 Signs Your at A Triathletes Party

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight I was invited to a house warming party of a former client & friend who bought a condo with her boyfriend. The moment I walked in, I knew something was different. Read along and you’ll see what I mean.

Sign #1 that your at a triathlete party!

*Everybody was fit. There wasn’t a belly, a double chin or poor posture to be seen. I did a double take. Even at the gym there are out of shape people with guts, but not here. Wives and husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends of the triathletes were in shape too. And they’re skin looked g-r-e-a-t, GREAT! Very healthy group of people.

Sign #2 that your at a triathlete party!

*The food. The cold items were 2 different cucumber salads, 2 different regular salads (Caesar & garden), fruit (grapes), whole grain nachos w/ guacamole & salsa, carrots and a specialty dish with brown rice, chick peas, tomatoes, cilantro & some other good stuff.

The hot items off the grill, were chicken, chicken sausages, turkey burgers and veggie burgers.

For dessert they served watermelon, cookies and brownies. Truth be told, the watermelon went, but the sweets were barely touched. Tell me this food doesn’t sound different from what you’re used to.

To top it all off. You should have seen these athletes put away food. I felt normal to eat as much as I do. They were lean & mean and food shoveling machines.

Sign #3 that your at a triathlete party!

*The alcohol to water inventory and consumption were about even. Usually that’s not the case at a party. Unless there are parents with kids, but c’mon, people usually like to have a cocktail when they’re social. I drank 3 waters, 1 Corona. And this seemed to be the norm. I’ll be honest though, it definitely got loud, so you know people were having a good time.

Sign #4 that your at a triathlete party!

*When the hosts give you a tour of their place and the last stop on the tour is not the upstairs and instead it’s their home made bike shop, with 8 bikes suspended from the ceiling, 3 trainers in one corner, those plastic disc wheels (that look like giant vinyl records-OK I just dated myself) you see on TV in another corner, a display shelf of bike helmets (even those long aerodynamic, funny looking ones) and finally a bike frame holder (a friggin bike frame holder-who has that?) for changing wheels. You know your at a triathletes party.

…And Finally, Sign #5 your at a triathletes party!

*After the initial “hi, so how do you know the hosts” icebreakers, the conversation changes to: “so did you hear I signed up for the Switzerland Ironman next year” or “how many races have you done this summer” or “how far did you run today” (“I ran 9!”) or “did you see my new bike” or “remember that time at the Brazil Ironman, when you only trained for 10 weeks and then came out of the water and was puking all over your bike” (sorry if that grossed you out) or “so when’s the next training weekend” (training weekends are when, these athletes/crazy people go away to some cool place like the cape or Vermont and torture themselves with ridiculously challenging efforts and then celebrate together after).

Yeah, I guess it might be the same if you got a bunch of doctors, lawyers or stock brokers in the same room and all they did was talk shop, except signs #1-4 would have been considerably different and #5 would have been consistent to their common bond.

That’s it. Thanks for reading and keep checking back for my race day nutrition plan and nutritional body typing articles.

Cheers,

Mike Alves

www.mikealves.com


Club training vs In Home Training

Posted on by
Reply

Greetings earthlings,

Wet day, long time no write and a new story for you.

This past week I began training some club clients in their homes. Having never trained them in their homes before, understandably, they were apprehensive.

Alas, 45 minutes later, tired, glistening and short of breath, their opinions had changed.

You see, in a club you have lots of tools, a destination, space and people.

In a home, you have convenience, the needed tools, sufficient space and privacy.

In a club, you have distractions, a gym membership fee, travel, staff turnover, parking issues, etc…

In a home, you have no distractions (except maybe pets licking you when you’re on the floor), no travel, no gym fee and front row parking.

In a club, it takes time moving from A to B.

In a home, it takes no time to move from A to A.

To get in a great workout at home, you don’t need much, but you do need some things. This week my clients have used Val slides, super bands, dumbbells, jungle straps and a foam roller. Those are collectively inexpensive and less than 2 months gym membership.

Other items we’ve used have been a bed, a carpet, a sofa, a foam roller, a tool box, a mat, a door, and a wall.

So if you ever thought you couldn’t get a workout in at home, maybe you should give it another shot.

Thank you to all that have welcomed me into your homes this week.

Cheers and great nutrition tips to come.

Mike

www.mikealves.com


Results

Posted on by
Reply

I subscribe to many different, in the biz newsletters, and one of them shared this site, www.theantigym.com.

This site if offensive and not politically correct, but it does some things better than most.

The owners are serious about getting their clients results.

They pre-qualify prospective members to make sure they really want it and to create an environment of people who train hard to get the results.

They dangle carrots as motivation, they tell the truth (sometimes painfully to hear).

They make it fun (pending your sense of humor).

They make it social.

They have a plan.

They have support.

They have experience.

They make programming individualized.

They’re different.

And they sound realistic, though I’d need to know more of how they achieve some things while allowing other things.

Love it or hate it, they’re marketing is fantastic and the buzz its created has been tremendous.

I’m not for or against this site and am laying no judgements. Its only a greatly different approach to training clients.

Visit www.theantigym.com to see what I’m writing about.

Cheers,

Mike Alves

www.mikealves.com


Live for today…!

Posted on by
Reply

Click here to View this Video!