New Program Launch

Not sure if you have been in the gym this week, but you may have noticed some changes ;)

We got some new toys. Big ones. Really big ones.

Two thoughts you might be having:

One, their sheer size might be a little scary or intimidating looking.
Two, machines? Does that not go against the Uptown Movement ethos?

Don’t worry. This is not as big a shift as it might look. It just looks very different.

These are simply more tools to help us serve the philosophy we have always trained by.

I have wanted something like this for years. When we first started out, the engineering was not there yet. These systems did not really exist, and anything close was astronomically expensive and took up way too much space to be realistic.

As soon as these came out, I dreamed. I kept saying, “In my perfect gym, I would…”

Business coaches would tell me it was a terrible idea. Stick to the bare bones. Keep it simple.

But you get one life. Uptown Movement was never built on smart business practice. It was built on a genuine obsession with providing the best possible service.

How This Serves Us

One thing we all preach is the importance of progression in strength training. For training to maintain its effect over time, we need to progressively overload the muscles and movement patterns we are training.

In minimalist gyms like ours, this is relatively easy with lower body training. We add weight to the bar, grab heavier kettlebells, and we can tangibly see that progress week to week. When we use lower body bodyweight exercises, we also have large muscle groups that can use leverage against the floor to make those movements more accessible.

Upper body strength is not like that.

We simply do not have as much muscle mass there. The entry weights for pressing and pulling movements can be quite challenging. Jumping from, say, a 15 pound press to a 20 pound press is a 25 percent increase, which can feel massive.

With upper body bodyweight movements, the problem flips again. Less muscle mass. Less leverage. And gravity being its usual unforgiving self.

Before your first pull up, you might need to hang for 60 seconds. If you can only hang for 10 seconds today, the climb to that first pull up can feel endless. That slow ascent often feels more frustrating than the positives of improving your hang from 10 to 20 seconds, even though that is technically a 100 percent improvement.

When progress is hard to see, motivation drops. No bueno.

What Are These Things?

Very simply, they are squat racks with built in selectorized weight stacks and pulley systems. Maybe not so simple. You will get it once you have used them.

The beauty of these setups is that they give us all the functionality of traditional barbell racks for lower body work, while adding joint friendly, smooth resistance through cables.

This allows us to make smaller weight jumps, push reps safely, and track progress much more clearly from week to week.

That mountain peak no longer looks so unattainable. There are now plenty of signposts along the way.

How This Improves Coaching

We are also structuring classes with a cleaner focus on partnering. While one member works, the other rests.

That means fewer people moving at once and fewer bodies for a coach to monitor at any given time. More detail leads to more intensity. More intensity leads to more progress.

Cleaner programming with less bouncing around the space also means less space management and more time for you to focus on your actual job. Moving mindfully.

To Be Clear

Everything we care about is still here.

Barbells.
Kettlebells.
Mobility work.
Bodyweight mastery.

If anything, their integration is increasing.

We are also adding more complex classes for those who want to pursue deeper bodyweight skill, movement exploration, and tool variability.

Conditioning classes are coming as well, to build the stamina that supports the rest of your training and your life outside the gym.

Instead of forcing everything into one class, we are now giving you options, along with the guidance on how to use them.

What This Means for You

More clarity.
More attention.
More choice.

All leading to a richer movement vocabulary and fewer plateaus.

Your job is simple. Stay curious. Stay consistent. Treat this as a collaboration between you, your body, and our coaches.

Next week we will release the schedule and explain how to make the most out of it based on your goals.

Oooof, I am excited. But remember, new toys are just tools. Tools are cool, but this has always been and will always be about how we use them. With mindfulness and intention.