Working to a “failure success” is one of the keys to getting effective workouts at Practical Fitness. You get PRIVATE training sessions customized specifically to YOU — your body, your goals, your nutrition needs. Alcyr Coelho started Practical Fitness in 2009 and has been serving clients (some are still his clients from the beginning!) in a safe, private training environment.
And now, Practical Fitness has a new North Texas location in addition to the Frisco location. The Plano studio is now up and running with even more space. Visit their website today to set up your consultation. (Be sure to tell them Lifestyle Frisco sent you so you can get a few extra sessions for FREE!)
SHOW NOTES:
[00:28] The difference at Practical Fitness
[04:30] How is 30 minutes so effective?
[09:35] The ideal candidate for Practical Fitness
[12:54] Practical Fitness has expanded to Plano!
[14:16] Nutrition Fundamentals
LINKS & RESOURCES:
- Practical Fitness on Lifestyle Frisco | Website | Facebook: @pracfitchapelcreek | Instagram: @PracticalFitness
- Frisco Location: 8501 Wade Blvd. #1340 Frisco, TX
- Plano Location: 5512 W Plano Parkway, Suite 200, Plano, TX
Connect with Lifestyle Frisco on:
Transcript
Machine-generated.
Thank you for joining us today on the Frisco Podcast. Today, we’re talking to Alcyr Cohelio, the owner of Practical Fitness. We’ve had Alcyr on before, but we’re going to learn about some new things happening over at Practical Fitness. Welcome to the show, Alcyr.
I’m glad to be here, Kelly. Very nice to talk to you.
Yeah. So for those who, um, haven’t heard you talked to us before, tell us a little bit about what, you know, what’s Practical Fitness all about ’cause it is definitely not your average, you know, gym per se. So, it’s different. So, tell us what it is.
Yeah. So, yeah, we are definitely not a gym. Uh, we like to say to people that we’re basically an extension of their home. Uh, when you come to see us, it’s a 100% private experience, very professional. Uh, we have a state of the art equipment and you only need to see us once or twice a week for 30 minutes. And we are hundred customized to you. It’s not like when you go to classes and you join a boot camp. When you come to us, the focus is only on you. Every single workout is customized to you to your goals. You can even pick your music. So, uh, it’s uh, yeah, it’s a 100% a private experience.
You don’t, you know, assume that when someone’s walking in that they’re going to do the same workout as the person that came in before them, or that they need this or that, the same cookie cutter experience. You are going to meet with them and tailor what they need, specifically, for them.
A hundred percent. So basically I, so the experience begins with a one-hour consultation and we do offer the one-hour consultation, a hundred percent free to have a conversation with us. And we pair that with a 30-minutes session for you so that you can experience what our clients experience. And those are in separate days. So you come for a one-hour conversation. We listen to you, listen to what, you know, what you like to, uh, to achieve. And one of the things that we try to explain to people and we are able to achieve, I would say that probably 60-70% of our clients stay with us for over five years. And we do have clients that are with us since we opened our door back in Austin in 2009. We still have several, I would probably say probably 40 to 50 clients in Austin that are with us for over 10 years.
And that basically the same way we like to say the same way that you brush your teeth twice a day is the same thing for exercising. Our body needs to exercise. And one of the things that we emphasize as well, the exercise different than sports. Exercise is something that you do is so your body functions at their maximum capacity, right? Several of our clients that come with us with diabetes type two, for high blood pressure, individually, they have done hip replacements, knee replacements. We are able to substantially improve their, the, you know, their, their lives. Uh, several, I would say the most of our clients that come with us with high blood pressure, they quit the medicine. Yeah. Same thing with diabetes type two. And again, because the idea is you come to us, it’s only 30 minutes, twice a week.
It is a challenging workout because exercise in order to be effective is a challenge. No one really comes more than twice a week. We have some individuals that do. But, when they do the third, uh, the third session is not as challenging as the first two, because basically it’s a high, intense, workout, low-impact, extremely safe. That’s why, you know, folks with knee replacement, hip replacement, they can, they can come to see us. So there is no momentum. There is no ballistic movement. You come, you exercise. And the days that you are resting, that’s the day that your bodies recover and results come from. The results do not come when you exercise. The results come between the sessions. And between the sessions, we like to say that, you know, they, they can live the life they love because their body is going to be in an optimum state so they can have fun. They can take care of their grandkids. They can go rowing. They can go running. They can go play soccer. They can go play golf better. All those things we are able to improve because of the 30 minute session that they come to see us once or twice a week.
That’s- you know, living the life you love is important because you’re not in the gym every day for hours trying to accomplish something. So, um, with the 30 minutes, twice a week, you know, you have to wonder like how effective is it? And you just answered some of that. But, um, so tell me more. So it’s it’s you said high intensity, but low impact. So these are things they’re going to be doing. Again, it’s one-on-one right with the trainer. They’re watching you. They’re specifically, you know, watching to make sure you’re doing this correct so that you maximize every minute of that 30 minute workout, right?
That’s correct. So basically, yeah. So every single set of the exercise, we, we, we call the failure success. Cause basically we, you go toward muscle exhaustion. So we eliminate momentum because what you see a lot in the gyms is people doing their sets and they go too fast. So the effort [inaudible] and then the weight, the motion of the weight finish the movement for the person, right? So we eliminate momentum. We go very small. During the 30 minutes, our trainers are watching you. One of the things that we are very different: all of our trainers have a college degree. So they really understand the body. They really understand the muscle for what, you know, it’s extremely safe exercise. We watching your form. When your, when the muscle can no longer do the movement, that’s how we call success. It is not a failure.
Muscle exhaustion is the success. Actually the release of lactic acid, right? You feel that. A lot of people do not understand the burn that you feel is actually lactic acid that do two things for you. The lactic acid, uh, it tells your body “please, don’t move more because you can hurt yourself.” Right. It’s actually very interesting. So basically the lactic acid also helps your body to absorb glucose better. ‘Cause basically the glucose is the energy, right? So basically the food that you eat, the glucose and the glucose is the energy that makes you do things, right? So, so when you doing the movement with your, with your muscle, you’re actually losing the sugar that is in the muscle to do the job. Once that you will, you go to muscle failure, that glucose is depleted from your body.
Then you begin to feel that the legs burn. So then you stop. And, uh, the, the muscles release hormones that goes to the brain. It’s the messaging system saying “this fellow here wants to do this movement, but I cannot, you have helped me out.” The brain, “okay, let me help you out.” So that when, if you eat correctly, if you have protein, amino acids is it begins to send amino acid, amino acids to your, to your, to your muscle fiber so it can grow, to literally grow. But in order to do that, to do that, you cannot engage, uh, most of the high, higher intensity again. You have to wait for the muscle to do it’s job.
And repair yeah.
The recovery time. That’s why we don’t want to you to come to see us in the next day. Go to some place to exercise. During the intervals that you’re no longer that you’re not coming to us, your sessions, then what we recommend people: go have fun, go do some low intensity yoga, go to do pilates, you know, take a walk, do a nice hike. And for sure all those, all those activities you’re going to do much better. You know, some, some individuals that actually do not do that- one of the things that we offer in addition to when you come to Practical Fitness, you’re not only getting the sessions with individually, with our trainers. One of the things that we offer our clients, we have an exclusive, uh, yoga we call Active/Rest Yoga that is every week online. We actually’ve Michelle Silva. She’s over here- actually she’s from Frisco and she tapes every week, an exercise session just for clients. Then you have to ask access to that. So basically you can come to us, you do your session and the days off you’ll have a yoga available to you if you’re, if you don’t do that on your own, if you don’t go to a yoga studio. It’s very important that between sessions that you do something, you know, we tell people just don’t, you know, come and just go to work and sit on your legs.
Yeah. Keep, keep moving. But, but not back to that point of muscle failure again. Yeah.
Because to do that, to actually going to impede recovery. What you want to do is keep your blood flowing through your body. So we offered that is an additional service that we offer to our clients.
That’s great. I didn’t know all of that. I mean, I, I burn- I like to feel the muscle burn and all that all the time. I didn’t know that’s what it’s happening in there.
So it’s very interesting because you are burning your glucose to do its job. The reason that strength training is so effective for diabetes type two, is because allows your muscle to use glucose better. Right? So it absorbs that glucose that you put it in your body to do its job. So people that do not exercise the muscle tissue receive- all your cells receive this extra sugar. So basically if you have a higher ratio of muscle to fat, you can do a better job absorbing sugar.
So you talked about people with high blood pressure, people with diabetes, – and that makes sense as to how you use glucose better, – people who maybe are recovering from a surgery or hip or knee replacement. I’m wondering: who else is ideal for this, you know, one-on-one private sessions? Is it also for healthy people who just want to continue to tone and get stronger?
A hundred percent. So you can, you know, muscles allows you to do movement. And that’s what we do, right? I mean, when you, when you go to the supermarket carrying groceries, when you’re getting to a plane, you’re a professional, you know, a lot of our clients are professional because one of the advantage, right? I don’t have to be in the gym all the time. I just have time for 30 minutes. And that’s how, that’s how I got involved in the business. You know? So you’re able to get your luggage and put it up, you know, the overhead bin. So we’ve, we got a client that came to us once and that was two weeks- she’s, she’s in her 50s. Was on the road and she try one beautiful day to, to, to, to, to actually do the movement, pick up the luggage, put on the overhead bin. She couldn’t. Said, “no, I need to do something.” And, uh, she came to us and she says, “it’s not an issue for me anymore.”
Yeah, she just wanted to get stronger. Like there wasn’t an, an underlying problem per se for her. She just wanted to get more strength.
Yeah. And then we have grandmothers that come to us because they want to be able to have fun with their grandkids and be able to carry them and you know, do stuff with them. So at the end of the day, if you, why do you see elderly folks- and for me, it’s, I cannot believe that you see those commercials for elevators, for elderly, you should do the other way around: let them live in a two story house. Muscle is what allows us to live. And do not forget that the heart is muscle. Heart is a muscle. So one, a lot of people don’t understand that when they come to us, they say, “Oh, what about my aerobic?” Because we slow down the exercise- and aerobics, what it is: I’m running down the street, right? Then the legs into the heart, “please send me more blood so I can continue to run.”
So the heart begins to go faster. We do the same thing on the 30 minutes that you come to us. Because you are a one-on-one, there’s nobody there. It’s a private space just for you. We go from one equipment to another, from, an exercise to another. Doesn’t stop. So really your heart rate, as soon as, as you’re doing the exercise and you’re doing a leg extension, right, which is going up and down, you know, move your legs, when you squat. You know, the bus is going to do the same thing. It’s going to go to the heart to say, “send me more blood.” So your heart rate goes up. So not only we doing your strength training, right. We make sure that your joint is very malleable because we are moving slowly. When we know we keep them moving that joint. We also, we use weights that you can handle, but they tend to be heavy. And because we slow, it’s still very safe. We also compressing to bones. So if you have, you know, a start-up process for the lady, you know, we compress the bone. So we help you to repeat repeater. You know, the osteoporosis to happen to you. We also exercising your heart. So in 20 minutes, we’re doing everything that you need to have a better quality of life fundamentally. Also be able to move, be able to walk, be able to go to places, to do a hiking with your friends, again, going back to taking care of your grandkids, engage in any sports. We do all of those things for you on those 30 minutes that you are with us.
Yeah. That’s amazing. You mentioned Austin while ago, but I want to make sure. And that you guys started in 2009. We have told people about your Frisco location for a few years, but I know you’ve also expanded. So can you tell us a little bit about your expansion here and the, you know, North Texas, North Dallas area and what, where people can find you now?
Yeah. So basically you’re going to a location in Plano. It’s actually a beautiful location. It’s almost double the size. Again, state of the art equipment, we use a medics, which you cannot find in any gym for you to have an idea. Each of our individual machines, probably three or four times of equipment that you find, uh, places on gyms. So it’s state of the art. It’s a, it’s a beautiful location, super convenient. There’s a parking. Basically you park a car, you walk, you walk four steps, you are inside the Practical Fitness. There’s no- if you’re going down Preston and going to Plano Expressway, you take a right. It’s probably like two blocks- I mean, two miles from it. It’s, it’s, it’s very convenient, very convenient, very scent, you know, it’s right over there, you know, uh, just, uh, George Bush Expressway, that’s probably south of-
So, right. So it’s easy to get to, like you said, easy to just park and walk in. You’re not in a big, big gym parking lot or anything, and you’re by yourself. It’s focused. How is the best way for somebody to get started? I mean, can they call you guys and set up a time for a consultation? Is that the best way to get started with you?
The easiest way is going to our website to schedule yourself for one hour consultation. Come to see us. We have a conversation, we listen to what you’re looking for. And one of the items that we really have not caught in this conversation is a lot of folks come to us for, for weight loss. So, uh, one of the things that we do really well is, uh, butterfat, you know, in what we call Nutrition Fundamentals. We’re not going to give you a diet, but we’re going to bug you. Not that we are going to go over, we go in and create a program who is high-protein intake, but create a caloric deficit. And we’re going to bug you. I mean, one of the things that we do well, because you private, we’re not- is accountability because a lot of folks, you know, when they are the one they’re not accountable, nobody really likes, you know, most of the people really don’t like to exercise.
It’s really out there, right? Uh, it’s better for you to watch TV. But, uh, like I said, it’s a fundamental for, for you to be able to enjoy the life, to live what we say, the life you love. We will, we will text you when you’re not in to make sure that you are, that, uh, that you watching what you eat. We have this little thing that we call is, is a lot of people like to do logs, right? And write it down. Everything that you eat during the week. That one doesn’t work. We do this thing that’s really easy. It’s called photo log meaning that every, during one week, everything that you put in your mouth, you put water take a picture, text to us. Super easy. Right? We know that you just have to take the picture because we know your phone number. So we know this coming from you.
And then we have a conversation because you see reality, right? And, uh, and the idea is to, is to change the way individuals eat. Still have fun, you know, uh, on weekends, you know, people like to drink. And, uh, so we work with you in a manner that you can collect, collect what we call caloric deficit. Since we, our work, we strengthen training, we are telling your body to grow your muscle. So when you clear a caloric deficit, as you do in strength, training. All the, the energy that the body needs that doesn’t have is gonna come from the, from the fat cells that are in your body, right? That cells is just a battery reserve that millions of years of evolution humans developed because not too long ago, really, a hundred years ago, people didn’t know when the next meal would come. So that’s why the trait extra, the body then would convert that extra, and you know, that extra energy, that extra sugar into fat and store in your body for future use. And we know for women is, is it’s harder because may have babies. So the body then makes the extra effort to keep it, that extra energy available to them, the baby. Now we don’t have that anymore. So you don’t need it. So, we help you create a healthy calorie, caloric deficit with emphasis on protein, because the protein allows you to use to build muscle, protect your muscle, continue to grow muscle.
So any extra energy that the body needs that is not getting to food is going to come from reserve that you have in your body. So you shrink your fat cells and then we change the ratio, right? Cause what we want is not a weight loss. So we want is a fat loss. So, uh, work with you. We were going to send you a text in the middle of the week and recount that to- the checkup to is going [weigh] you. If you don’t want to see the weight, you don’t have to. Just look at the ceiling, but we make a note. And every six weeks we have a review of your goals, how we are doing. And again, because as I mentioned, the, since we have clients over 10 years with us, goals do change. And we change those goals along with you. You know, so we become partners of our clients. And, uh, again, the same way you go to the dentist every six months, come to us once or twice a week. And, uh, we make sure that your is that your body’s healthy. So you can do that and enjoy your life.
It’s like maintenance, like you said, with the dentist. And oh my gosh, I love the, the, uh, nutrition fundamentals you talked about and the photo log. I think that is a great way to help you guys see what your clients are eating and bug them, like you said, to keep up. So that’s fantastic. And it’s all connected, right? What you eat protein that you eat, the muscle that you build, the fat that you lose, it’s all part of the system. So I love that you guys at Practical Fitness are there to help your clients one-on-one and a really customized approach. So
Yeah, just one more thing: I think that, you know, a lot of people, uh, and you go to the gym, you know, they try to sell you out that contract. We do not have contracts. And uh, you know, they are with you to do the sale. Once the sale is done, you’re on your own. And it’s very difficult, especially if you know, and we do not have the same way that lawyers, you go to lawyers for, you know, to protect you. You go to the dentist because they know they’re going to take care of your, you know, your teeth. You know, it’s the same thing with us. If you want to take care of your body, come, come to see us. You’re going to see the exercise is not for those body builders that you see at the gym. And you look at them. I mean, “how can I be like them?” With us you can be like them. Actually going to be better than they are because we are there every step of the way. Again, during those 30 minutes the space, a hundred percent yours, you pick your music. And it’s very interesting to see folks in their eighties, listen to the music from the fifties. I actually like jazz. But even on that scale is really individual is for you. We make sure that you achieve your goals and you really enjoy your life. You’re able to be better in your profession. Be better with your family. Be better having fun. Be better playing your sports.
Yes. Live the life you love. Well, that’s such great information, Alcyr. Thank you so much. So, we will also include the addresses to your, um, your Frisco and Plano location so our listeners can find those and, uh, of course, the link to Practical Fitness so they can find you and set up a consultation. So, thanks Alcyr for your time and giving us the updated information. And thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the Frisco Podcast.
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