Personal Trainer Recap #5

My final session with my trainer was tonight. (Having said that I'll probably sign up for another set with her in September...but I'm gonna do the Summer on my own now that I have two full strength training routines to work with.)

I actually hate evening workouts, but our schedules never jive in the mornings. Tonight's ended up being really great though, so that's awesome!! I needed the good sweat, and she got me to do a couple of things I wouldn't normally do, plus it kept me busy during my prime-time snacking hour!

We always start with some hard-core cardio. Cardio before strength training is a must. No matter how hard you work out, you need to get your heart pumping and your muscles loosened up before you start with the strength stuff. Rule #1 - very important!!! So, usually it's sprints on the cross-trainer or sometimes the elliptical. She likes to mix it up, which is great because I get bored easily. haha. So tonight she says "how about the recumbant bike?". Love it!!! I always use the recumbant bike as my cooldown cardio, but I've never used it for HIIT.

She had me pick a level that I find challenging...so I chose 10 (I usually ride at level 7 or 8.... 6 if I'm being lazy). She was impressed and thought that 10 might actually be too high. So I did the five minute warm-up ride, trying to keep my RPMs at a consistent moderately fast rate. Then we did 1 minute resistance intervals by raising the level to 15! One minute at 15, one minute at 10, until I'd completed 15 minutes. My legs were like jello!! But the good, hardcore, shaky jello. My five minute cooldown ride was pretty funny...I had to keep reminding my legs to keep pedaling. 5 miles by the time I was done.

I don't know if I could push myself to do that on my own, but I'm sure going to try to throw that in there at least once a week. It was crazy hard and I really needed her motivation....it will be a personal challenge to do it without her for sure.

Then we went through my new strength training routine to make sure I'm doing everything correctly and to adjust some of my weights, etc. She upped my weight on two of my exercises, so that's good. Tone, tone, tone! For my fast step-ups on the bozu ball (which I love for some reason) she kept saying how fast I was. I don't know if that's just her way to motivate me, or if she really thought I was fast...but I'll take it. I love to get compliments on this stuff!! Plus, yesterday she had corrected my stance for my planks so today's were a breeze to get through...yaaiieeee.

At the end, she showed me a new piece of equipment that the gym just got. I had seen it show up last week, and it looks relatively easy to use, but I hadn't tried it yet. It's the one where you grasp on with your hands and brace with your forearms, while your legs hang...then you pull your knees up (or pull your legs up straight out if you're superwoman). Well, it is easy to use, but it seems to be built for shorter people so I found it a bit awkward. It's a total core/ab/oblique workout so my problematic lower back didn't really like it....but I'll give it a go a few times and see what happens. My trainer said to maybe start with three sets of five (instead of fifteen) and work up from there. Sounds good to me.

And to top it all off, after she left to meet her next client, I decided that I had nowhere to be, so went for a 10 minute cooldown random incline walk on the treadmill....and then had the longest stretch session ever. It felt great!

(hehe, and by the time I got home, watered the planters and garden, had my shower and now typed this...it's too late to go to the kitchen and snack. I had my planned cottage cheese and yogurt and I'm all good! and OP! yaieeeee!)