Our Tempo Diaries series takes a deep dive into a week in the life of one of our Tempo community members. We get a look at why they train, how they train, and what they get from their Tempo workouts.
Here’s a week in the life of Alvah Angelrune, a Tempo athlete from Atlanta, Georgia who went from a slow adopter to a multiple-workouts-a-day fitness lover.
I gave it a shot and I just got hooked.
“I’ve never been a ‘go to the gym’ person,” Alvah explains, “The few times I walked in to the gym as a newcomer, it was intimidating. Especially when you have no experience with weights. I was thinking “What am I doing? Am I going to make a fool of myself?”
Alvah and I talk from his neon-light-lit workout studio. Blue, purple, and pink lights illuminate his space–Tempo Studio at one end, and Tempo Move at the other. A squat rack with barbells and weight plates sits opposite a velvet couch. A brick fireplace with a water fountain fixture and macrame greenery line the walls of the room; it’s inviting, cozy, and just plain cool. This is a fitness lover’s dream, but that’s not how Alvah saw himself just a few years ago.
He remembers, “I didn’t even want a Tempo. My fiance got it; it just showed up at our house one day! I didn’t even know we were getting it. She was looking for something that gave her the sensation of being at the gym, because this was during the pandemic. She really wanted to be able to hold weights in her hands. I didn’t know how to feel about “this machine.” I honestly wasn’t paying much attention to it. Eventually I gave it a shot and I just got hooked.”
I get my workout in when it works for me.
Alvah’s busy. He works two jobs from home, teaching classes and attending meetings that cause his working hours to fluctuate all over the place. For him, he explains, “Tempo is about the versatility of being about to jump in whenever I want. If I have free time, I get my workout in when it works for me.”
I ask him what he gets out of Tempo–what his ultimate goals are. Is it being the strongest he can be? Gaining lots of muscle? He smiles, shakes his head a bit, and responds, “My main motivation is staying healthy. Everything else is just a side effect.”
“To be honest, I’ve never had much experience with working out, and the only time I was consistent was with the Shaun T. Insanity workouts years ago. I already liked the comfort of doing workouts at home with those classes. But weights were completely new to me.
And now…I want to workout to be healthy. I’ve gotten relatively fit before, but I didn’t have good motivation. I’d workout to make me feel better in moments where I needed something…but once the fuel of those rough times goes by, what are you really squeezing out to continue your health goals? What stays?”
People are stronger than they know.
I nod in understanding. At Tempo, our core belief is that people are stronger than they know. To us, strength is more than just muscles, it’s the power to take on a challenge and to see it through. We believe, through fitness, we can connect with and build upon our physical, mental, and emotional strength and use it to pursue everything we want in life (and get it).
I ask Alvah if he sees his physical health improvements translating over into the rest of his life and he quickly agrees. “Aside from physique side effects,” he explains, “it’s been really great for me with reducing anxiety and improving my sleep. We all have our own struggles. There have been times where pushing through a workout was what specifically got me through a stressful moment. I don’t know if I would have made the progress I did in those hard times if it weren’t for Tempo.”
And Alvah’s progress is now making its way to his nutrition choices, too. “I have gotten changes just from working out, but I think having a better meal plan will likely help out. So, now I’m fixing my eating habits…You can only push so far when working out if you want physical changes. I want to boost my health with whatever else I can get my hands on. It’s been a lot of trial and error lately, but it’s something else to push myself.”
The Routine
So what does Alvah’s routine look like?
He says, “I’ve developed a schedule for myself. I will workout heavy on two days, and on the third day I will do a hybrid workout.”
➤ I get up at 6:30 a.m. to show moral support to my fiancé.
➤ I prefer to workout in the early afternoon. 11 a.m. is a good time to start.
➤ I throw on my own workout playlist. I have five songs that I revolve through that I listen to when I really need to get through something. I love Guchi Polo by Sara Malacara.
➤ I always have a leg day and an upper body day. I have two programs on loop: The two week upper body and lower body lifting programs with Coach Jonathan.
➤ I will add another, second workout that complements that main upper/lower class. I go to the classes tab, filter to upper or lower body, and choose what feels right.
➤ Then it’s ab day every day. No matter what.
It must have been my surprised expression in hearing that every day involved core training, but Alvah remarks, “Recently I was doing a core workout class with Bryan. He was saying that abs are that one body part that you can hammer more often than other body parts. In this household I do them every single day.”
And what about his third hybrid workout day? “I recently added calisthenics into my routine. I’d love a Tempo pull-up bar training. I really like the classes with the bench and the squat rack. I also love the yoga classes now! Sometimes I take live classes.”
Tempo has something for everyone.
I ask him if he thinks even beginners could implement a week of his style of training. Alvah laughs and says “Remember that I was a beginner! My workout week now might look pretty crazy to most people. I workout out 1.5-2 hours on my training days. But when I started I was just doing ONE program…maybe 2-3 days a week for 30 minutes. First, I started doing more days. Then more days, and an ab workout. Then an additional workout on my heavy days. I started pushing myself further and further as time went on.”
So what would he recommend to folks looking to make Tempo more than just a resolution this coming year?
“The most important thing for me was finding a coach that spoke to me,” Alvah says, “When I first started Tempo, Coach Cole was that coach for me. He is so extroverted and happy – kind of opposite from how I am.” He laughs. “I think if you really like a coach’s style, it makes you more naturally inclined to want to learn new things.”
He goes on, “One month I signed up for C-squared, which is with Coach Cole and Coach Colby. Colby was doing way more bodyweight-type workouts than I was familiar with. It gave me that one day of weights, one day of bodyweight movements. It was a good balance.”
“Then I went on a trip and it took me a while to get back in the mental groove. When I did get back, Coach Jonathan was a new coach. I literally went through all of his classes, starting at the beginning. I wanted to build as much knowledge as I possibly could. He was the right coach for me in that moment. I do still have moments, almost every day, where I want to go easy on myself. But the coaches make it easier to give me that extra motivation in the background. Tempo has something for everyone.”
