​The health of our 6X community and staff is our absolute top priority and as such, we want to update you on some new measures to ensure our gym is a safe environment.

We will continue to monitor the situation daily and will be amending our response as appropriate.
 
We believe it’s even more important to continue exercising to keep your physical and mental health in check at this time and here are the further steps we have implemented:

We have doubled our cleaning roster – tasks include wiping, scrubbing, cleaning and disinfecting every square inch of our gym and all of our dumbbells, kettlebells, TRX’s, machine’s, bike’s etc along with showers, sinks, surfaces, doors and most importantly class floors throughout the day at multiple times – using a commercial grade cleaning disinfectant product.

We will remove our circuit-style classes from our timetable as of this week. I understand this will be of inconvenience to our members who have already planned their week, however as mentioned earlier, your health is our top priority and we are making this call in your best interest.

​This will ensure you have your own station, less opportunity for physical contact.

In our Max8 classes, each member will be asked to use disinfectant on their own equipment pre and post class.

We have reduced our kickstart numbers to 15 to allow more space in the studio.

To further help compensate for the heightened risks, we will be going outdoors when possible! We will notify you of this decision the day prior where possible.

Please ensure you carry and use a towel when on the gym floor. This is mandatory. No towel, no train. We also suggest a full-size towel. Your towel is to prevent your sweat reaching the equipment. It is not intended to wipe your sweat from the equipment. If you use our equipment please wipe it down thoroughly before and after use with the wipes and disinfectant provided on the gym floor.

Please use the hand sanitisers placed around 6X each time you enter and leave.  Wash your hands for 20 seconds at a time before and after class as a precaution.  

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY – if you are unwell, please stay home and follow the most up to date government guidelines.  Our staff will also ask anyone to leave the gym if they are visibly unwell. Our staff will of course be permitted any time off they require if they are also unwell.

We have created procedures and trained all staff on action plans so we can be ready to service and assist all clients at this time. This is a changing situation and we’re closely following updates on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and advice suggested by the Federal Government and Health authorities included in the links below:
 
https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/after-travel-precautions.html
 
We’ll continue to update you on our measures but let’s stay together, train together and get through this challenging time together.

We are working tirelessly in the background, staying abreast of the situation; how we can best handle it and making plans to keep you training through this tough time.

If you need anything at all, please reach out to us.
 
Brad and the Team at 6X

INGREDIENTS

• 650g chat potatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil, plus extra for potatoes
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 300g thick beef sirloin steak
• 300g thin green beans, trimmed, blanched, refreshed in cold water
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 100g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 tablespoons gluten-free mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon gluten-free horseradish cream
• 1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

METHOD

• 1.
  Preheat oven to 190°C. Toss potatoes with oil, salt and pepper on a baking tray and roast for 20-25 minutes until cooked.
  
• 2.
  Meanwhile, place 1 tablespoon oil in a dish with half the garlic. Season, then add steak and coat in the mixture. Set aside.
  
• 3.
  Place the green beans, red onion and halved cherry tomatoes in a bowl.
  
• 4.
  Mix mayonnaise, vinegar, horseradish, and remaining oil and garlic. Set aside.
  
• 5.
  Heat a chargrill over high heat. When hot, cook steak for 2-3 minutes each side, or until cooked to your liking. Set aside to rest for 5 minutes, then slice thinly and toss with salad ingredients and roast potatoes. Drizzle with the dressing, then sprinkle with parsley.
  

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup (125ml) olive oil, plus extra to brush
• 1/4 cup (60ml) red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
• 1 bunch fresh oregano, leaves chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed chillies
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 large rib-eye steaks
• Baked sweet potatoes, to serve

METHOD

• 1.
  Preheat barbecue or chargrill to high. Place 1 tablespoon sea salt in a jar with 1/2 cup (125ml) warm water and stir to dissolve. Add all remaining ingredients, except steak, and shake well. Brush steaks with a little oil and season. Barbecue until cooked to your liking (1-2 minutes each side for medium rare). Rest, loosely covered with foil, for 5 minutes.
• 2.
• Shake sauce again, discarding bay leaf. Place steaks on plates, drizzle with sauce and serve with baked sweet potatoes.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
• 4 lean pork loin steaks or chops
• 250g punnet cherry tomatoes
• 25g pine nuts
• Good splash balsamic vinegar
• Handful of basil leaves

METHOD

• 1.
  Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  
• 2.
  Heat the oil in a large frypan over medium heat and cook the pork steaks or chops for 1-2 minutes each side until golden brown. Transfer to a large roasting pan, spaced well apart. Cut the tomatoes in half and scatter over the pork, followed by the pine nuts.
• 3.
• Season well. Place the roasting pan in the oven and roast for 12-15 minutes until the pork is tender. Remove from the oven, sprinkle over the vinegar and scatter with the fresh basil leaves.
  
• 4.
  Spoon the pork, tomatoes and basil onto 4 warm plates. Serve drizzled with a little extra olive oil.
  

INGREDIENTS

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
• 2 tablespoons sumac*
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 3 tablespoons (1/4 cup) olive oil
• 12 French-trimmed lamb cutlets
• 4 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 teaspoons harissa* (optional)
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 95g kalamata olives
• 6 radishes, thinly sliced
• Greek-style yoghurt, to serve

METHOD

• 1.
  Combine garlic, paprika, sumac, oregano, 1 tablespoon oil and 2 tablespoons water. Rub mixture over cutlets and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Boil carrots for 2 minutes. Combine cumin, parsley, harissa, remaining oil, vinegar and 2 tablespoons water. Drain carrots and toss with dressing, olives and radishes. Grill or barbecue lamb over high heat for 2 minutes each side until just cooked through. Serve with salad and a dollop of yoghurt.
  

INGREDIENTS

• 600g piece beef sirloin steak, fat trimmed
• 1 onion, grated
• 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup (125ml) soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons grated ginger
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 butter lettuce, leaves separated
• 1 cup cooked basmati rice
• 3 spring onions, thinly sliced
• 1 long red chilli, seeds removed, thinly sliced

METHOD

• 1.
  Freeze steak for 15 minutes (this will make it easier to slice thinly), then cut into thin strips. Using a rolling pin, flatten each strip to 2mm thick.
  
• 2.
  Combine onion, garlic, soy, sesame oil, ginger and sugar in a bowl. Add beef, turn to coat, then marinate in pan in the fridge for 1 hour.
  
• 3.
  Preheat barbecue or chargrill to high. Cook beef, in batches if necessary, for 10 seconds each side until just cooked.
  
• 4.
  Divide rice among lettuce cups, top with slices of beef and scatter with spring onion and chilli. Drizzle over beef cooking juices to serve.
  

Improve heart health
The quick movements of boxing combined with throwing punches are excellent for increasing your heart rate. Boxing works your lungs and heart to provide more blood to your muscles and organs. This will boost your cardiovascular health and strengthen your heart.

Lose weight
Because it’s high intensity training, you have the additional benefit of burning more stubborn fat and shedding those excess kilos. Just a few minutes of boxing will burn a lot of calories compared to other exercise programs, making it a fantastic way to lose weight without spending too much time exercising.

Manage stress
There are healthy and unhealthy ways of coping with stress. Fortunately, boxing is a good way to vent your frustrations. It not only has positive effects on your physical health but also on your mental and emotional health. It’s a safe way to let loose and release your tension, helping you feel relaxed and calmer afterwards.

Tone your muscles
If you’d like to gain muscles without too much mass, then boxing is perfect for you. Unlike weight lifting which adds more bulk to your body, boxing as an exercise helps build muscle but tones it as well so you can get a lean physique which facilitates quicker movement.

Increased agility and coordination
Boxing is excellent for honing your ability to coordinate your hand movements with your body as you concentrate on striking a target while you’re on the move. The more you practice your hand and footwork, the more agile, quick on your feet and aware of your body you become.

Strengthen bones
Another advantage of boxing is that it increases the strength and density of your bones. Resistance training of all forms, including boxing, fortifies your bones helping protect them against injury and delaying any tendencies for osteoporosis as you get older. This increase in your bone density as well as muscle is maintained as you continue to box.


Support strength training
All of your core muscles are given a workout when you’re boxing. As you move and strike, this builds your strength especially in the arms and shoulders and gradually increases your power. At the same time, boxing enhances endurance thanks to its resistance training. Some conditioning is also usually incorporated in boxing routines.

What should you do first, cardiovascular exercise or weight lifting? Or does the exercise order even matter? The answer really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Exercise order may matter if you are trying to achieve a specific goal, such as building strength or improving sports skills, or if you have an extremely high level of fitness already. But for the recreational athlete, it may simply come down to which order you prefer.

Recommendations
There isn't any special magic in exercise order, but some reasons it may matter have to do with the available energy for exercise, the causes of muscle fatigue, and the risk of injury during exercise. In general, the exercise you perform when you have adequate energy is performed at a higher intensity with more focus and efficiency. Exercise you perform when your energy supplies are low is less effective and more likely to result in injury.

Most recreational athletes can avoid this question altogether by doing cardio and weight training on different days. Another option is to do both endurance and strength training at the same time with interval training or circuit training routines that give a full-body workout in limited time.
Even though there is no magic in exercise order, some things seem to work better than others. If you have specific goals, use the following advice regarding exercise order.
If Your Goal Is Improving Overall HealthTo improve overall health, it really doesn't matter if you lift weights first or do endurance training first. In fact, you can do both at the same time with interval training or circuit training routines or you can alternate weightlifting and endurance days if you prefer.

If Your Goal Is Increasing Cardiovascular Endurance
In order to build and maintain cardiovascular endurance, you should perform endurance exercise first, when you have plenty of energy for long-distance exercise. Add resistance exercises two to three times a week, either after or separate from the endurance work in order to develop muscular strength and reduce your risk of injury. Lifting prior to running is not recommended because you might increase your risk of injury during running due to muscle fatigue.

Refueling and staying hydrated is important when switching from cardio to resistance exercises in the same session. Cardio exercise will have depleted the fuel in your muscles (glycogen). A suggestion is to have half a bottle of sports drink to provide the muscle glycogen you will need to perform well in a weights workout.

If Your Goal Is Increasing Muscle Size and Strength
Two 2018 reviews of studies found that if your goal is to develop lower-body dynamic strength, doing your strength training before cardio is more effective. These studies found no difference in either sequence for static lower-body strength, increasing muscle size, reducing body fat, or building aerobic capacity.

There has long been a belief, with some support from research, that endurance exercise has an interference effect for increasing muscle size (muscular hypertrophy). The recommendation you will often see is to lift weights first when the body's main source of energy for muscle contraction (glycogen) is high. If you do a hard cardio workout before lifting, you deplete glycogen, which might make the workout ineffective. However, some current research reviews suggest the interference effect may be minor or absent. If that is the case, the sequence does not matter.

If Your Goal Is Burning Calories for Fat Loss
If your primary goal is to burn as many calories as you can in a single session, it's probably best to do cardio first and lift weights next. There isn't any magic behind this; it's simply easier for most people to burn more calories per exercise session when they do cardio first. However, almost any combination of burning more calories while eating fewer will result in fat loss.

Some people achieve significant weight loss exclusively through dietary changes; others do it simply through weight training. Weightlifting definitely burns calories; in fact, it often burns more calories per minute than performing endurance exercise. The problem is that most people fatigue quickly when lifting weights, and therefore cannot perform the exercise as long as they can walk, bike or use an elliptical machine. The end result is that the total calories burned per exercise session tend to be higher for those who do endurance exercise first, simply because the can exercise longer.

Ultimately, the best way to lose body fat is to combine endurance exercise and resistance exercise and, of course, to make dietary changes.

If Your Goal Is to Improve Specific Sports Skills​
If you are training for a specific sport, you'll need to design your training to accommodate the needs of that sport. Whether you do resistance or endurance training first depends on the requirements of the sport, your current level of fitness and your overall goals.

Elite athletes perform a specific exercise order that encompasses days, weeks and months. Sport-specific training follows the competitive season and is carefully designed so that athletes will ​"peak" at the height of the season. Their training builds from a general foundation of overall fitness and becomes focused on specific skills, movements, and even psychological components in order to provide an edge over the competition. These programs look like a pyramid and cover the entire spectrum of fitness (strength, endurance, flexibility, agility, psychology, etc...) over the course of a season.

If Your Goal Is to Exercise Consistently
In order to stick with exercise, it needs to fit into your daily routine and lifestyle. It also has to feel good to you. For this reason, it is helpful to pick the type of exercise, the order of exercise and the time of exercise according to what works best for your body. You may be naturally inclined to feel best if you do endurance exercise first and then do weights. You may also find that your body responds best when you lift weights at one time of the day and go for a run at another. It's OK to let your body, mood or interest determine when you exercise.

What happens to your engine at the end of a long car trip? It doesn’t require a degree in automotive engineering to know that once you’ve reached your destination, your car’s engine stays warm as it gradually cools to a resting temperature.

Here's a cool fact: The same thing happens to your body after exercise. Similar to how a car’s engine remains warm after being turned off, once a workout is over and you’re back in your daily routine, your body’s metabolism can continue to burn more calories then when at complete rest. This physiological effect is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC. Also known as oxygen debt, EPOC is the amount of oxygen required to restore your body to its normal, resting level of metabolic function. It also explains how your body can continue to burn calories long after you’ve finished your workout.

Your metabolism is how your body converts the nutrients you consume in your diet to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel your body uses for muscular activity. ATP is produced either with oxygen using the aerobic pathways or without oxygen relying on the anaerobic pathways. When you first start to exercise, your body uses the anaerobic energy pathways and stored ATP to fuel that activity. A proper warm-up is important because it can take about five to eight minutes to be able to efficiently use aerobic metabolism to produce the ATP necessary to sustain physical activity. Once a steady-state of oxygen consumption is achieved, the aerobic energy pathways are able to provide most of the ATP needed for the workout. Exercise that places a greater demand on the anaerobic energy pathways during the workout can increase the need for oxygen after the workout, thereby enhancing the EPOC effect.

Here are seven things you should know about EPOC and how it can help you achieve optimal levels of calorie burning from your workouts:

1. During the immediate post-exercise recovery period, oxygen is used for the following functions:

• Production of ATP to replace the ATP used during the workout
• Resynthesis of muscle glycogen from lactate
• Restore oxygen levels in venous blood, skeletal muscle blood and myoglobin
• Work with protein for the repair of muscle tissue damaged tissue during the workout
• Restore body temperature to resting levels

2. Exercise that consumes more oxygen burns more calories.
The body expends approximately 5 calories of energy (a calorie is the amount of energy required to heat 1 liter of water 1 degree centigrade) to consume 1 liter of oxygen. Therefore, increasing the amount of oxygen consumed both during and after a workout, can increase the amount of net calories burned.

3. Circuit training and heavy resistance training with short rest intervals require ATP from the anaerobic pathways, leading to a significant EPOC effect.
Strength training with compound, multijoint weightlifting exercises or doing a weightlifting circuit that alternates between upper- and lower-body movements places a greater demand on the involved muscles for ATP from the anaerobic pathways. Increased need for anaerobic ATP also creates a greater demand on the aerobic system to replenish that ATP during the rest intervals and the post-exercise recovery process. Heavy training loads or shorter recovery intervals increase the demand on the anaerobic energy pathways during exercise, which yields a greater EPOC effect during the post-exercise recovery period.

4. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is the most effective way to stimulate the EPOC effect.
The body is most efficient at producing ATP through aerobic metabolism; however, at higher intensities when energy is needed immediately, the anaerobic pathways can provide the necessary ATP much more quickly. This is why we can only sustain high-intensity activity for a brief period of time—we simply run out of energy. HIIT works because during high-intensity exercise ATP is produced by the anaerobic pathways; once that ATP exhausted, it is necessary to allow ATP to be replenished. The rest interval or active-recovery period during an anaerobic workout allows aerobic metabolism to produce and replace ATP in the involved muscles. The oxygen deficit is the difference between the volume of O2 consumed during exercise and the amount that would be consumed if energy demands were met through only the aerobic energy pathway.

5. EPOC is influenced by the intensity, not the duration of exercise.
Higher intensities require ATP from anaerobic pathways. If the ATP required to exercise at a particular intensity was not obtained aerobically, it must come from the anaerobic pathways. During EPOC, the body uses oxygen to restore muscle glycogen and rebuild muscle proteins damaged during exercise. Even after a HIIT workout is over, the body will continue to use the aerobic energy pathway to replace the ATP consumed during the workout, thus enhancing the EPOC effect.

6. Research has shown that resistance training can provide a greater EPOC effect than running at a steady speed.
In an extensive review of the research literature on EPOC, Bersheim and Bahr (2003) concluded that “studies in which similar estimated energy cost or similar exercising VO2 have been used to equate continuous aerobic exercise and intermittent resistance exercise, have indicated that resistance exercise produces a greater EPOC response.” For example, one study found that when aerobic cycling (40 minutes at 80 percent Max HR), circuit weight training (4 sets/8 exercises/15 reps at 50 percent 1-RM) and heavy resistance exercise (3 sets/8 exercises at 80-90 percent 1-RM to exhaustion) were compared, heavy resistance exercise produced the biggest EPOC.

7. The EPOC effect from a HIIT or high-intensity strength-training workout can add 6 to 15 percent of the total energy cost of the exercise session.
High-intensity workouts require more energy from the anaerobic pathways and can generate a greater EPOC effect, leading to extended post-exercise energy expenditure. Heavy weight training and HIIT workouts appear to be superior to steady-state running or lower-intensity circuit training in creating EPOC (LaForgia, Withers and Gore, 2006).
​
Admittedly there is some debate about the significance of the EPOC effect for the average exercise participant because the high-intensity exercise required for EPOC can be extremely challenging. However, if you want results and are up for the challenge, increasing the intensity of your workouts by using heavier weights, shorter rest intervals or high-intensity cardio intervals may be worth the effort. While HIIT or heavy resistance training is effective and beneficial, remember to allow at least 48 hours of recovery time between high-intensity exercise sessions and try to limit yourself to no more than three strenuous workouts per week.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone that regulates a wide range of vital processes throughout the body, including metabolism and the immune response. It also has a very important role in helping the body respond to stress.
​
What is cortisol?
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, one of the glucocorticoids, made in the cortex of the adrenal glands and then released into the blood, which transports it all round the body. Almost every cell contains receptors for cortisol and so cortisol can have lots of different actions depending on which sort of cells it is acting upon. These effects include controlling the body’s blood sugar levels and thus regulating metabolism, acting as an anti-inflammatory, influencing memory formation, controlling salt and water balance, influencing blood pressure and helping development of the foetus.

How is cortisol controlled?
Blood levels of cortisol vary throughout the day, but generally are higher in the morning when we wake up, and then fall throughout the day. This is called a diurnal rhythm. In people that work at night, this pattern is reversed, so the timing of cortisol release is clearly linked to daily activity patterns. In response to stress, extra cortisol is released to help the body to respond appropriately.

The secretion of cortisol is mainly controlled by three inter-communicating regions of the body; the hypothalamus in the brain, the pituitary gland and the adrenal gland. When cortisol levels in the blood are low, a group of cells in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus releases corticotrophin-releasing hormone, which causes the pituitary gland to secrete another hormone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, into the bloodstream. High levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone are detected in the adrenal glands and stimulate the secretion of cortisol, causing blood levels of cortisol to rise. As the cortisol levels rise, they start to block the release of corticotrophin-releasing hormone from the hypothalamus and adrenocorticotropic hormone from the pituitary. As a result, the adrenocorticotropic hormone levels start to drop, which then leads to a drop in cortisol levels. This is called a negative feedback loop.

What happens if I have too much cortisol?
Too much cortisol over a prolonged period of time can lead to a condition called Cushing's syndrome. This can be caused by a wide range of factors, such as a tumour that produces adrenocorticotropic hormone (and therefore increases cortisol secretion), or taking certain types of drugs. The symptoms include:

• rapid weight gain mainly in the face, chest and abdomen contrasted with slender arms and legs
• a flushed and round face
• high blood pressure
• osteoporosis
• skin changes (bruises and purple stretch marks)
• muscle weakness
• mood swings, which show as anxiety, depression or irritability
• increased thirst and frequency of urination.

High cortisol levels over a prolonged time can also cause lack of sex drive and, in women, periods can become irregular, less frequent or stop altogether.
In addition, there has been a long-standing association between raised or impaired regulation of cortisol levels and a number of psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression. However, the significance of this is not yet clearly understood.

What happens if I have too little cortisol?
Too little cortisol may be due to a problem in the pituitary gland or the adrenal gland (Addison's disease). The onset of symptoms is often very gradual. Symptoms may include fatigue, dizziness, weight loss, muscle weakness, mood changes and the darkening of regions of the skin. Without treatment, this is a potentially life-threatening condition.
Urgent assessment by a specialist hormone doctor called an endocrinologist is required when a diagnosis of Cushing's syndrome or Addison's disease is suspected.