Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.

We wrapped up the Operation Christmas Child shoebox drive last week and here are the results:
16 boxes donated
+ $455 donated

This is amazing!  Thank you all for the support and participation in this project.  God bless you.

Don used bands this week for tricep press downs.  We attached them from the top pegs on the power rack.  At your starting point, make band tension begin slightly prior to 90 degrees.  By doing this you will ensure there is tension through each rep as opposed to not having a load at the starting point.  You can adjust beginning tension a couple of ways:  choose the right band, choose how to attach the band at the top of the rack, or adjust your height by adding mats under your feet.

You have 5 more weeks left in this decade!  What awesome goal are you going to accomplish in this time?

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
― Horace Mann

Until next time Iron Made Community.
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Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.
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Monday we celebrated Veterans Day.  We wanted to say thank you to all who have served and are currently serving to protect the United States of America.  God bless you.

This week Jared used a heavy blue band to perform kneeling band crunches.  This is a nice variation.  By using the band, the exercise difficulty increases during contraction.  Jared did a great job implementing 5 x 12. 

I finished the book Parenting – 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp.  This was by far the best parenting book I have read that directly addressed scripture and our heart condition.  Here is a portion of the notes directly from the book.
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-What competes in your heart and therefore in your daily decisions for the value that parenting should have?
-If all you’ve given your children is fear of you, then when they leave your home, they will no longer have anything to motivate them to do what is right.
-No one gives grace better than a parent who humbly admits that he desperately needs it himself.
-Remember your words and actions are always an accurate reflection of the condition of your heart
-There is nothing more important to consistent, faithful, patient, loving, and effective parenting than to understand what God has given you in the grace of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
-God did not create human beings to be independently able; he designed us to be dependent.
-God meets people who humbly admit their weaknesses and run to him for help.
-God never calls us to a task without giving us what we need to do it.
-God’s grace grows and changes you as a parent.
-God in his wonderful mercy gives his law so that our behavior would be guided by a clear knowledge of what is right and wrong.  But the guidance of the law is meant to do something else.  It is meant to protect your child from herself.
-Three most common used tools (that shouldn’t be used) – Fear, Reward, and Shame.
-Good parenting lives at the intersection of humble admission of personal powerlessness and a confident rest in the power and grace of God.
-If you are not looking for your identity in Christ, you will look for your identity in your children.
-Two lies every child believes:
                -Autonomy – I am a completely independent human being, and because I am, I have the right to live my life any way I choose to live it
                -Self-Sufficiency – He has everything he needs inside himself to be what he needs to be and to do what needs to do.
-The most important thing you do for your children is to remember the one who sent you, and in remembering the one who is sent you, teach your heart to rest.
-Ultimate job as parent:  do everything within power, as an instrument in the hands of the Redeemer who has employed you, to woo, encourage, call, and train your children to willingly and joyfully live as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Your children must come to learn early that their lives don’t belong to them.
-Core mission as parent:  raise children who approach everything in their loves as the disciples of Jesus.

If you would like all four pages of my notes, please send a message and I will be happy to send them to you.  Have a wonderful week!

“Parenting is either a thing of the highest treasure to you, and that is demonstrated in your choices, words, and actions every day, or it’s not.” – Paul David Tripp

Until next time Iron Made Community.

Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.
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We use bands for such a wide variety of exercises per the conjugate training system.  This week we implemented a prone band hamstring curl post max effort box squats.  We performed 3 sets of 50 reps.  This would be similar to the prone hamstring curl machine.  By performing on the floor and using bands it offers a difference in both range of motion and tension.  Jared did well executing this movement.

Another way to fight against the law of accommodation is by using chains.  This week Ethan implemented chains when performing dips and bicep curls. 

We are wrapping up the Samaritans’ Purse Operation Christmas Child.  Thank you to everyone who participated this year!  We could not have done this without you.  Until Saturday evening we will still be accepting donations.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

“I will prepare and someday my chance will come.” – Abraham Lincoln

Until next time Iron Made Community.
​
Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.
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We hope you have gotten the opportunity to try our three new pieces of equipment in the past week.  Last week we introduced the T-bar row to you.  This week we want to demonstrate our new bench and grip machine.
Ed demonstrates a banded pinned bench press here:

​This bench has a couple of great features you can see implemented here.  Band pegs are a great addition.  By having pegs instead of attaching to the frame, as in the past, the pressing tension stays on a vertical axis as opposed to diagonal pulling you backward toward the frame.  On the rack arms these have an adjustable feature.  This is a great feature mainly due to the wide variety of arm lengths during the un-rack and re-rack.  The safest part of this bench is the spotter arms.  Now you can have a spotter without being inside the rack or having a lifting partner.  This competition bench also has a wider pad that has a grippe texture to help lock your upper back in place while benching without slipping while being safer for your shoulders.
Ed demonstrates the grip machine here:

This is a GREAT tool to build a better grip.  This makes grip training easier as it can take place of bar wrist curls.  A method I like to implement is doing 75% of my total reps without my pointer finger.  When grip fails, more often than not, it starts with the pinky.  Give it a try!

Lastly, we are searching the internet and asking our surrounding network if you know of any grants available for small businesses looking to expand.  If you have any ideas, or have experience in grant writing, please contact me.  Thank you!

Try these variations and new equipment and let us know how you like them!  Have a great weekend.

“An eternal perspective will affect how we make choices.  It stresses the important over the urgent, need over want, service over pleasure, people over things.  ‘People and the Word of God are eternal.  Most everything else is temporal.  Make sure you invest in the
eternal.”
-Jerry Sittser in the Will of God as a Way of Life

Until next time Iron Made Community.

​Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

As a supplemental exercise to your shoulder day try using a plate to perform upright row, front press, and overhead press.  This is a great triple set that burns everything. Jared did a great job performing this circuit. ​

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.
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​Iron Made Community it is that time again, Operation Christmas Child fundraiser!  We have participated in this outreach for over 6 years now, and I first want to thank you all for making a global impact.  I am so excited about this, last year we raised $1,185 in 5 days which was used to sponsor almost 40 boxes!  Our goal is to beat this.  We have a deadline of November 14th.  We have a variety of options for you to help:  donate any amount (via cash, check, or Venmo), donate $30 to sponsor a box, or take a box to fill and return to us.  Guys we have such a great opportunity here to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and provide gifts for those who would not be receiving one, let’s do this together. Thank you ahead of time for your help.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  If you do not know about Samaritan’s Purse and this project, you can check it out here: ​https://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/

​While training Brian this week we ended with an awesome triple set for shoulders.  We push to implement a 2:1 ratio of working rear delts/traps vs. front delts.  We started with chest supported dumbbell shrugs, then moved to lying cable upright row, and finished with machine rear delt fly.  Brian did 4 sets of 15 reps of each exercise.  You can find the video here:

James 1:27
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Until next time Iron Made Community.
​
Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.

We wanted to take a moment to mourn the loss of our friend Bill Mounts.  He passed away the morning of September 28th.  He was a leader in the New Middletown area for many years.  He was an accomplished business owner and a kind hearted man.  Bill and I were friends on social media prior to meeting.  I remember when my son was born Bill decorated our yard with welcome home and congratulations signs.  He always went out of his way to be kind.  Last year Bill even brought a homemade apple pie to the gym.  We enjoyed seeing him the last two years at the Canfield Fair as well.  Bill was a fighter, he battled many health concerns during the last couple years and yet always kept his faith in God and spoke with encouragement.  Thank you Bill, for living life with a servant’s heart.  You may find his obituary here: 

https://www.wkbn.com/my-valley-tributes/howard-w-bill-mounts-new-middletown-ohio-obituary/

We have two great variations for you to try this week.  The first one is a cable lat press down on the incline bench.  I specifically like this variation because it isolates your lats without engaging your lower extremities.  It also allows a longer range of motion reaching behind your head and ending at your waist.

​Next is a plank variation using the ab roller.  Slightly bend your arms when executing this movement and be sure to keep a tight core with feet planted.

 “Why do the wise have so few problems compared with the rest of us?
First – the wise seem to manage expectations as much as possible.  They rarely expect what isn’t possible in the first place.
Second – the wise always consider both the best and worst case scenarios.  They don’t just think about what very realistically can happen if things were to suddenly turn.
Third – the wise act with reverse clause – meaning that they not only consider what might go wrong, but they are prepared for that to be exactly what they want to happen – it is an opportunity for excellence and virtue” – Ryan Holiday

Until next time Iron Made Community.
​
Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.

My friend Ryan sent me an article for the conjugate training system.  He just began this training style and loves it thus far.  This article goes in depth with explanations and examples.  Please find the link below and let us know what you think!

Conjugate Training System Article

In the book ‘The Daily Stoic’ by Ryan Holiday there is a passage called clarify your intentions I want to share with you.

“Let all your efforts be direct to something, let it keep that end in view.  It’s not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad.” – Seneca

-Plan all the way to the end
-Begin with an end in mind
-Having an end in mind is no guarantee that you’ll reach it – but not having an end in mind is a guarantee you won’t.
-When your efforts are not directed at a cause or a purpose, how will you know what to do day in and day out?  How will you know what to say no to and what to say yes to?  How will you know when you’ve had enough, when you’ve reached your goal, when you’ve gotten off track, if you’ve never defined what those things are?  The answer is that you cannot.  And so you are driven into failure or worse, into madness by the oblivion of directionlessness.
-Control your perceptions
-Direct your actions properly
-Willingly accept what’s outside your control

“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters – don’t wish to seem knowledgeable.  And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.” - Epictetus
Until next time Iron Made Community.

Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

​Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.

Let’s start with two good morning variations, using the yoke bar and a dumbbell.  Both movements are implemented while kneeling.  By kneeling this takes more of the lower extremities out of the movement (hamstrings and glutes).  Keeping your core tight is imperative to these movements to keep pressure of the skeletal framework of your back.  (For more about ‘bracing’ your core, view our blog on 9/6/19).  Both exercises require good balance as well.  During the good morning exercise focus on the hip hinge back and forward.  Kevin did a great job demonstrating these for us, check them out here:

I also want to show you an exercise called the back crunch.  While standing hold a dumbbell to your chest and crunch down to your knees.  Then, keep your hips still while crunching your upper body in an upward extension just above 90 degrees.  Watch here as Kevin demonstrates:

​All three of these exercises will help build a stronger back using isolated movements that do not require much weight.  
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I always want to learn more!  Part of the reason is to pass it on to others.  Last week I began a course by Mac Lake called Leading With Questions – The Key to Unlocking the Potential of Your Team.  It includes 14 videos, a print out PDF packet, and lots of homework.  I highly recommend it for those of you who may be in management positions, hiring, or even want to learn how to ask better questions for the goal of better communication within your family. 

​Here is the link, watch the promo video, and if you have any questions let me know.

“Want to be happy?  Have zero expectations of others.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

Until next time Iron Made Community.
​
Best Regards,
Kevin Byers

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the Iron Made Gym Newsletter.  Our goal with this production is to share information with our unique community that will help you reach your goals.
During our back day this week we implemented a lat press down variation using bands.

We found the correct depth entailed looping the orange band around the cable handles then hanging the band off the top pegs from the power racks.  We knelt down and focused on keeping our chest high, core tight, and arms slightly bent to isolate the lats.  Watch Peyton as he demonstrates here:

I wanted to tell all of you specifically who were a part of our summer Iron Made environment, thank you!  We had a great productive summer.  It was a pleasure to meet and serve so many new customers. I look forward to serving all of you in the near future.

​ ‘The one thought that blocks our potential:  ‘I already know this’’.  – Jay Shetty

Until next time Iron Made Community.
Best Regards,
Kevin Byers