Creighton Personal Training

10/06/2026

I was going over a DEXA scan with a client recently and it highlighted something I see all the time.

The client said she'd love to get back to the weight she was years ago. On paper, that sounds like a great goal. The problem is that her body composition today is actually better than it was back then.

She has excellent muscle mass, exceptionally strong bones (like ridiculous wow levels), low visceral fat and a healthy body fat percentage. In other words, she's carrying more of the things we want and less of the things we don't.

The scales don't know the difference between fat, muscle and bone. They simply add everything together.

As we went through the results, it became clear that chasing an old scale weight could actually mean losing some of the muscle that helps her stay strong, healthy and capable.

This is why I encourage people to focus less on a specific number and more on what their body is made up of.

Strong bones.
Good muscle mass.
Low visceral fat.
Healthy body fat levels.
Strength.
Fitness.
Energy.

Those things matter far more than a number on the scales.

Sometimes the healthiest version of you doesn't weigh what you think it should.

Oh... And she got all these results by training less than 2 hours a week.

29/05/2026

One of our ICE members recently completed two hikes totalling over 100km.

The interesting part?

She doesn't spend hours running. She doesn't do long endurance sessions every weekend.

She simply attends 3 ICE sessions per week.

This surprises a lot of people, but it's exactly what exercise science would predict.

✅ Improved cardiovascular fitness

✅ Increased oxygen delivery to muscles

✅ Better fatigue resistance

✅ Greater aerobic capacity (VO₂ max)

✅ Improved recovery between efforts

Your body doesn't just adapt to the exact activity you perform. It adapts to the physiological demands placed upon it.

That's why improving fitness through structured interval training can transfer to activities like hiking, sport, recreational events, and everyday life.

You don't need to spend endless hours training.

You need a consistent, effective stimulus and enough time for your body to adapt.

Three sessions per week.

Five months of consistency.

100km of hiking.

Fitness is earned gradually, then revealed when you need it.

Great work Linda 😉

28/05/2026

Looking over some client notes and I'm extremely proud 🦚

Tania’s progress since starting training 👏

Started with:
• Bodyweight slant squats × 8
• 60kg leg press × 8
• 25kg pulldown × 8
• 6kg bench press × 10

Now:
• 165kg leg press × 10
• 70kg hex bar deadlift × 10
• 50kg safety bar squats
• 35kg pulldowns × 12
• 12.5kg bench press × 12
• Floor push-ups
• Walking lunges with 12.5kg dumbbells

But the biggest thing isn’t just the numbers.

Better movement quality.
More confidence under load.
Better conditioning.
Better tolerance to training.
More athletic movements.
Less assistance needed.

No gimmicks.
No “6-week shred”.
Just consistent progressive training over time.

This is what real progress looks like.

25/05/2026

24/05/2026

Most people still judge exercise by one thing:
“How long did you train?”

But the body doesn’t adapt to time. It adapts to stress.

These two heart-rate graphs show that perfectly.
One session was a 30min RPM class:
longer duration constant movement steady cardiovascular demand.

The other was an ICE session:
18 minutes total
only 5 minutes of actual "work"
16 seconds on × 3 rounds across 5 stations
then a 1-minute hard finisher

Yet the shorter ICE session still produced:
repeated heart-rate spikes, incomplete recovery, high oxygen demand
major cardiovascular stress in a fraction of the time!

That’s the difference between: ❌ external work vs ✅ internal load
The body doesn’t measure:
Kilometres, exercise duration, sweat, how exhausted you look.

It responds to:
oxygen demand, recovery ability, intensity
and repeated stress exposure.

This is why intelligently programmed interval training can:
✔ improve fitness fast
✔ improve recovery capacity
✔ increase conditioning
✔ create a huge cardiovascular response
✔ save enormous amounts of time

For general population clients:
more is not always better, smarter is better.

You do not need endless cardio sessions to get fit.
You need:
✅structure
✅progression
✅intensity
✅recovery
✅and consistency
That’s the philosophy behind ICE.
Short. Structured. No fluff. High return on time invested.

22/05/2026

Most people don’t need a harder workout.
They need a smarter system.

❄️ ICE Training at Creighton Personal Training is built for people who are tired of random fitness classes, wasted time, and programs that don’t fit real life.

✅ Less than 30 minutes
✅ Structured, coach-led sessions
✅ Improve fitness fast
✅ Evidence-based programming
✅ Beginner-friendly
✅ Real coaching in a private studio environment

No fluff.
No chaos.
No “smash yourself for an hour” mentality.

Just intelligent conditioning designed to help you get fitter, move better, and feel better consistently.

📍 118 Jessie Street, Armidale
💰 Unlimited ICE Training — $37.95/week

Try ICE Free For 7 Days

Train for a full week.
No pressure. No gimmicks. Just see if it works for you.

👉 Start Your Free Trial - www.creightonpt.com

08/05/2026

Training to FAILURE vs 2 REPS IN RESERVE: What the Science Says 📊
The 2025 "Without Fail" study compared both approaches. Here's what they found:
MUSCLE GROWTH: Failure = slightly more, but 2-RIR still got excellent gains ✅
STRENGTH: Completely equal. No difference between groups ✅
POWER: Similar jump height improvements ✅
ENDURANCE: Identical results ✅

THE REAL DIFFERENCE? Recovery and fatigue.
Stopping 2 reps short gives you 95% of the results with:
• Less muscle damage
• Faster recovery
• Better session-to-session performance
• Easier to maintain long-term

This is why I don't program every set to absolute failure for my clients. High effort? Yes. Grinding every rep? Not necessary.

Work smarter, not just harder 💪

Study: Schoenfeld et al., 2025

17/04/2026

HOW ONE TINY STUDY SOLD THE WORLD ON 3 SETS

In 1962, Berger ran a study on bench press strength.
He compared 1, 2, and 3 sets over 12 weeks in college-aged men.

Strength gains were roughly:
1 set: ~23.6%
2 sets: ~24.0%
3 sets: ~26.3%

So 3 sets only beat 1 set by about 2–3 percentage points.
That small difference is easily within normal training noise.
But this paper was treated as proof that “3 sets is superior.”

The story doesn’t end there.

Berger later did follow-up work with different set/rep schemes.
Those later results didn’t clearly replicate the idea that 3 sets is best or that one specific scheme was magic. When people went back and re‑analysed his work, they found the advantage for 3 sets was small and shaky, not a slam‑dunk case for mandatory multiple sets.

What that means for you:
1 hard set can still build a lot of strength.
More sets can help somewhat, but not like dogma suggests.
The right number of sets should fit the person, the goal, and the schedule,
not a rule from one old study.

Key Takeaways
The original Berger study showed only a tiny edge for 3 sets. Later analysis and follow‑up work weakened the “3 sets is best” claim.
Programming should be individualised, not chained to an old 3‑set rule.

Too many people just following blindly what they have been "taught" without critical thinking and asking... WHY?
At CPT, we deal in those why's 😉

12/04/2026

Most people don’t stick with bad training because it works…

They stick with it because they’ve already invested so much into it.

That’s called the sunk cost fallacy.

“I’ve been doing this program for months”

“I’ve always trained this way”

“I’ve put too much into this to stop now”

But here’s the truth:

Past effort doesn’t make something effective.

It just makes it familiar.

If your training is:
Beating you up.
Not progressing.
Taking more than it’s giving.

You don’t need to double down…

You need to change direction.

It’s not too late to switch to something simple, structured, and actually effective.

We’re not committed to exercises.
We’re committed to results.

If you’re ready to train smarter, not just harder come try a week of ICE.

Comfort doesn’t get results. Better decisions do.

www.creightonpt.com

09/04/2026

Nice work Tania.
She now has her Mother training along side her, to ensure they are both fit and strong.