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Entrant Guidelines 2015

1. Fitness Assessments

Since your PT will be doing most of your fitness assessments reading these guidelines is

optional unless you:-

Are wanting to take your own before and after photos

Wish to be considered for the Lifestyle Award

Are entering the Adventure Category.

Want to enter the Fit4Business category

Would just like to know more about how it all works

Contents Page

1. Why do assessments 2

2. Important dates 2

3. What to expect 2

4. Why use a PT for assessments 3

4. The Photoshoots 4-5

5. Assessments you can do yourself 5

6. The Lifestyle Award 6

7. The Adventure Category 7

8. The Fit4Business 7

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.

You’ll experience lots of fabulous changes over the course of this 20 Week Challenge and part of our duty is to

help you see them all, understand how you reached them and to then maintain them.

In order to do that, you and your trainer need to get an insight into where you’re at now, at the start of this

Challenge, on a whole range of health and fitness related issues.

These insights often include not just health and fitness tests but also a look at your daily habits and lifestyle

choices. All of it will help your trainers to write you a great programme and to expertly tweak it when things

aren’t moving fast enough in the right direction.

Why Do Assessments?

Assessments help you to see your

success and to adjust what you’re

doing so that’s what you keep

getting.

Your PT will choose tests most suitable to you. Ask them beforehand if you are concerned about them or would

like to know more about what to expect.

PTs may do assessments in one session or over several, one to one or in a group. Some PTs will charge extra for

fitness testing, some don’t, some will use nurses or refer you on to doctors or specialists for aspects. How it all

rolls is very dependent on what a PT thinks would be best for you taking into account your limitations on time,

money, energy etc.

Dates Entrants and their trainers have from April 27th to May 24th to

complete an initial set of assessments which includes photos.

Final assessment take place from week 17 onwards and must be

completed by midnight on September 15th.

For more important dates head to the calendar on the lower

right hand side of the 20 Week Challenge web site.

What to Expect

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We wish doing assessments was a simple as standing

on the bathroom scales or wrapping a tape measure

around your waist, but it’s not. To get great results in

the shortest amount of time, a PT needs to know a lot

more about you.

PTs assess a wide range of important factors: PTs will

assess things you’ve probably never heard of like:-

your VO2 levels, ROM, BP, hydration levels, FHP, lean

mass, body fat levels, HDL, LDL, Q angle and a whole

lot more.

PTs know how to do tests accurately, safely and

consistently which is essential for our judges to see

and for your PT to be able to write you great

programmes and to refer you to other professionals

when need be.

PTs can apply the results of your assessments to

ensure what you do is right for you. Imagine if

everyone was given Dan Carter’s training

programme! The result would be catastrophic. What

you should do will depend very much on the results

of your assessments and which is also why Catch

Fitness can’t dish out a one off, generic, programme

for everyone. It simply wouldn’t help 99% of the

entrants.

Why we use PTs for Assessments

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1. The body change photos

Body change photos area compulsory for the Abdominal, Upper Body,

Lower Body categories and if you’d like to be considered for the

Horleys Overall Body Change Award.

Your personal trainer will most likely take the photos for you but in the event that

you’ll be arranging your own here’s some hot tips on how to get them right.

A. Wear tight clothing. A full length and/or full sleeved shirt is fine, just keep it

tight.

B. Wear contrasting colours. Choose colours that stand out from your skin

colour and to what is behind you. Plain walls work best although additions

of accurately used postural charts are advantageous if your PTs use them.

C. Consistency is key. Stand in the same spot each time. Mark the spot on the

ground or measure it out. If you zoom in or out be sure to note by how

much. Keep lighting the same by taking photos inside. Our judges have

commented that this is where photos have most gone wrong in the past.

D. Take at least four full body photos. Take one from the front, the rear as

well as the left and right sides.

E. If your PT is NOT taking the photos you will need to hold that day’s

newspaper in one of the photos so that the front page of the newspaper is

visible allowing the judges to check the date.

F. Email a digital copy of the photos to your PT who will include them in their

final report to us for judging purposes only. There is no need to post us an

initial set of photos although some do post them on our Facebook page as

well.

G. We will not publish these types of photos in a way that would identify you

unless we have your consent.

Photos are not essential for all categories but regardless they can help tell

an important story, even if only for you.

There are two types of photos entrants do:-

1. The body change photos our judges need to see these ones for the

Abdominal, Upper Body and Lower Body categories as well as for

entrants who wish to be considered for the Overall Body Change

Award (all entrants are eligible for that one), and

2. The WOW photos!

The Photo Shoot

Above: Lisa – a great side series. Sizing is

accurate. Only suggestion would be to have had a

plan wall the background.

Above: Paulette – We love the choice of

clothes and background here.

Below: Peter – While you don’t have to

take your shirt off if you have entered the

Abdominal or Upper Body categories then

a visual like this can be helpful (in addition

to strength, flexibility and other tests that

your trainer deems important to these

areas).

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1. The WOW photos

Assessments You Can Do Yourself

If you’re hoping that a fringe benefit of doing this

20 Week Challenge is a change to your body shape

then how about getting some photos of you in one

of your favorite items of clothing, that you really

wished fitted awesomely.

You can do these yourself or ask your trainer to help you with them.

How do you feel? Take a look at this entrant’s

self -analysis on the right listing key issues

around how they feel.

Often we look at where we have got to go and

not where we have been. These charts help to

remind us of what has changed in our journey.

Draw up something similar for yourself

(optional) adding to it anything else that you

would like to be different at the end of the

Challenge.

Give a copy to your trainer at your next session

and keep a copy for yourself to redo in 20

weeks’ time.

Real age applications. While possibly not the

most accurate tools these can nevertheless be

quite insightful and fun.

1. If you know your BP and cholesterol

levels have a go at

http://www.realage.com/ or this one

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/Healt

hAge.html.

2. If not have a go at this Virtual Age one

http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/Vi

rtualAge.php o

The number one reason why people

give up so fast is because

they look at how far

they still have to go

instead of how far

they have come (unknown)

Beautiful Bec, one of the 20

14 entrants, celebrating

how far she has come In

this case to the top of NZs

steepest street, Baldwin

street in Dunedin.

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The Lifestyle Award

All entrants are eligible to be considered for the True Grit Lifestyle Award. If you’d like to be in the running or

to simply want to focus on also changing your lifestyle then key is to:-

A. Do an assessment on yourself like the one on the page before, where you self-rate your energy, sleep

patterns etc.

B. Create another list detailing your current lifestyle habits. See column A of Marty’s list below for

examples. Be specific. Add to this list along the way or at the end, as you look back and evaluate all

you have changed. It can be hand written, typed up or painted on a wall - do whatever works best for

you but bear in mind you will need to send the judges a copy at the end of the Challenge.

C. Your PTs fitness assessment of you will also be important for the judges to see for instance, how your

strength and cardiovascular fitness have improved, your blood pressure, resting heart rate,

measurements etc.

D. At the end of the challenge ask for a letter from a friend or family member about your journey.

E. Then forward us your results and the letter or give them to your trainer to forward us. We will need

one hard copy and one digital copy by September 25th if you are sending your report directly to us.

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The Adventure Category

The Fit4Business Category

What qualifies as an Adventure? Anything you consider adventurous. It may be that you’d like to use this 20 Week

Challenge to train for a big adventure, or that you’d like to attempt 10 adventurous activities over the 20 weeks or to

climb 20 peaks and try 20 new healthy recipes.

If you enter this category you get to write your own report and you can do that in one of two ways.

a) Start a Facebook page like this one Laura’s Adventure - and notify us so we can join it. Record your goals

there and pop up pictures and achievements along the way and we’ll just send our judges there at the end of

the Challenge.

b) Write a report at the end of the 20 weeks telling us what you did and send a digital copy to

info@catchfitness.co.nz and one hard copy to Catch Fitness c/ p.o. box 17-666 Sumner, Christchurch by

September 25th.

This category is an optional third one, for everyone, inclusive of the PTs involved on

the 20 Week Challenge.

It is perfect for anyone who wants to set workplace or career goals.

Providing you have ticked the box on your entry form you will be automatically

entered into this category and contacted by Fit4Business at the start of the

Challenge. For those that didn’t enter on sign up you have until May 21st to contact

us by email and advise us that you wish to enter this category.

Neither Catch Fitness or your PT provide the supportive material for this category

nor are we involved in the judging of it which is instead that is all done by our

generous sponsors at Fit4business.

Winner Amanda Taylor seen

here with Fit4Business’s

Bryce Robb