Starting a Sustainable Fitness Journey

R3VIVE Fitness • January 10, 2022
Three people doing dumbbell split squats in a gym.

It’s the New Year and it’s time to cue all of the gimmicky New Years fitness ads- “new year, new you”, “get fit in thirty days”, “Lose 20 pounds in 20 days” or “10 secrets to getting a sick summer bod” yada yada yada. You get it.

A majority of the ads we’ll see will often promise to solve your health problems through instant gratification and ill-advised quick fixes. While some of these services will deliver on their promise (rarely and temporarily), it is usually through unsustainable methods that lead you back to square one, feeling defeated.

When we began R3VIVE Fitness, we sought various sources for marketing guidance. One line that always stuck out read “Sell the vacation. Not the flight.” After some careful thought, consideration and checking on my moral compass, I first concurred that the destination is indeed the most rewarding part of the journey. However, this message is highly misleading as it ignores everything that goes into the start of the journey which is packing your bags and making sure you have everything you need when you’ve reached your destination. Not to mention the journey often can come with it’s own obstacles, for example; flight delays, crying babies, long TSA line etc. When facing these obstacles, will you give up and head home or will you have the will and self inspiration to stay the course?

Embarking on a fitness journey comes with it’s own set of challenges. Keeping your eye on the prize is easier when we change our mindset and expectations about health and fitness: that big and sustainable outcomes derive from small and incremental changes, eventually turning into long term habits (rather than a dramatic plunge into a 6 week challenge).

Today, we’re going to arm you with some quick and actionable steps you can take RIGHT NOW to start your own journey, keep you at your destination for as long as you desire AND open up a whole new world of living large.

Set a goal

Identify where you are in fitness and where you want to go. What are your resources? What are some obstacles. Do your goals align with your values and priorities? Oftentimes, mistakes occur in the initial phase. Whether it’s setting unrealistic goals or simply goals that don’t align with our values and priorities, the most common mistake occurs here.

Start with small and achievable goals. Carve out time in your schedule, set a timeline and measure where you are at the start and set checkpoints to measure your progress.

Accountability

When setting goals, it’s important to have some form of accountability. Some lucky folks are excellent at holding themselves accountable and while this is great, it doesn’t make up a large percentage of the population.
Accountability can be attained through a coach, recruiting a workout buddy OR simply by making your goal public. There are many benefits to each of these forms of accountability and it’s important to assess which fits you best in this phase of your life.

Consistency

Inconsistent practices lead to inconsistent results. In terms of movement and food, quality over quantity is always the motto. The more consistent, the better. It’s ok to have a day off from training, but if you want to build great habits, find non-exercise activities to do on those days. Try a 30-45min walk with your pup, doing chores or yard work, playing with your kids or even grocery shopping! Movement of this kind is important for blood-flow, moving waste, and general recovery. Whatever you choose, just make sure you move every. single. day. Bonus points if you can get some vitamin D (aka sunshine).

Lifestyle and Behavior

You spend 1hr  of your day exercising. What are you doing with the other 23 hours? When working with clients, we like to follow the Basic Lifestyle Guidelines (BLGs) to help develop behaviors that will increase energy and broadly enhance their lives. Here are three of our go-to BLG’s for anyone starting fitness. If you’re already doing any of these, you’re ahead of the game. Kudos!

  • Hydration – Drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of plain water.
    • Drink more on training days   – 150lbs/2 = 75lbs = 75oz of H20
  • Sleep – Get at least 7-9hrs of sleep every night if you’re an adult. Having trouble sleeping? Improve your sleep by decreasing stress, limiting late night eating / alcohol consumption, and avoiding screens ~1 hour before bedtime.
  • Food Hygiene and Quality – Add one whole food to every meal. Once you get into a rhythm, add a second. Before you know it, you will be eating meals with ingredients of the highest order. Second – Chew your food. Yes, just like your parents have told you from the beginning of time, chew it good. At least 30 times before swallowing. Digestion starts at the sight and smell of food, but the nutrient absorption can be largely enhanced by chewing high quality foods really well.

Starting a sustainable fitness journey comes with its challenges, but if there’s anything we want you to take away from this article, whatever you do, start small and be consistent. Also, HAVE FUN!

To learn more about getting started, read our article on getting started at R3VIVE.

If you need help setting smart goals, are thinking about working with a coach, or have any general questions, please reach out to us! ( info@r3vivefitness.com )

Apex Training Cycle

By Derek Saffold • December 26, 2025
Hey R3VIVE Athletes, The Apex training cycle, going from January 5th to April 3rd, is our next training cycle! This will be the firt training cycle of the new year! this is a chance to refocus and get in some good work to help you reach your goals! lets all work together to crush this training cycle! Functional Fitness: The Apex Cycle is designed to make your year-long strength work truly functional, focusing on controlled, powerful movements, complexes under fatigue, and mandated touch-and-go reps to prepare you for mixed-modal workouts. Our strength culminates in the classic CrossFit Total and the "R3VIVE Other Total," while conditioning features a wide variety of time domains, movement volume builds (like wall balls, toes-to-bar, and burpees), and regular Friday retests of past workouts to track your progress and ensure you perform your absolute best. Build: Designed to bring together all your training from the past year and prepare you for your strongest performance yet. Our strength work will focus on controlled, powerful movements, building you up to test your limits with both the classic CrossFit Total and the "R3VIVE Other Total," which challenges your skill and strength balance. Expect a well-rounded program including unilateral strength, skill work, and core stability, with dedicated days for deadlifts, squats, gymnastics, and varied accessory work to keep you healthy and constantly progressing. For conditioning, we're tailoring the work to challenge you in new ways, featuring a wide variety of time domains and movements, and a specific volume build on common movements like wall balls, toes-to-bar, and burpees. Instead of a standard test/retest, we'll be performing regular retests of past workouts on Fridays, allowing you to easily track your progress and see how far you've come. Our weekly template balances intensity—with short, fast metcons on Mondays—with recovery, incorporating lower impact endurance work on Thursdays, and a strategic taper toward the end of the week to set you up for success on Friday! Partner workouts will wrap up your week every Saturday, bringing the whole community together.

Ultimus Training Cycle

By Derek Saffold • October 30, 2025
Hey R3VIVE Athletes, The Ultimus training cycle, going from November 10th to January 2nd, is our next training cycle! Functional Fitness will be launching into a blend of olympic lifts and diverse strength progressions. Including more intense conditioning and gymnastic strength and skill development. Functional Fitness: We're taking the solid foundations from all our Machine work (which we know you loved) in the Persist Cycle and launching into a blend of olympic lifts, foundational strength, and diverse strength formats. Prepare for tough but fun challenges, gymnastic strength and skill development, and an intensified focus that will push your limits and build your confidence further than you ever imagined! Build: This Build cycle is your blueprint for forging general strength with a rock-solid, consistent split. While we will have linear progressions of Front Squats, and Bench Press, we will also be embracing varied, dynamic strength orgressions. That will not only keep delivering results but also keep our strength fun. Our gymnastics focus will be on pure, raw strict strength, helping you build capacity with both external loads and the incredible power of your own bodyweight. Prepare to feel incredibly stable and powerful! Conditioning will focus on unleashing your engine, that we built in the Persist Cycle . We will Shift gears to a fastermore intense "for time" AMRAP and Chipper style workouts, moving beyond simple interval work and aerobic base building. These conditioning workouts will rotate dynamically throughout the week to maintain variety and deliver a fun and powerful exeriance. our cycle test, "Super Bario Bros.", is a chipper that will progressively challenge your kettlebell/dumbbell and gymnastics movements, demanding peak intensity and absolute confidence in your strength.

Persist Training Cycle.

By Derek Saffold • September 22, 2025
Hey R3VIVE Athletes, Our next programming cycle runs from September 15th to November 7th. It's an 8-week cycle that will continue to see strength progression carrying from what we did last cycle in Functional fitness. While Pump will begin working unilateral strength progressions. Functional Fitness: This cycle will continue our progression from the skill and lifts from last cycle, while trying to integrate them into more of our conditioning. We will do this by focusing on different portions of the lifts during our strength portion then performing smaller sets of gymnastic skills in our conditioning. You will also see conditioning that is purely focused on our aerobic capacity and working mainly on monostructural elements, such as running, rowing and biking. Build: This A-B week cycle is designed to build foundational strength through consistent progression, with a strong focus on Back Squats and Strict Presses, including variations for balanced weekly training. Conditioning will have some longer aerobic pieces and begin to include more skills like strict Toes-to-Bar, and Pull-ups from last cycle. See the chart below for details.
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