Second Session with Personal Trainer

Well, the make or break session with the personal trainer took place today. I decided that to warm up I would take the bike down to the gym for the first time. It was a good decision as I now know that it takes only 3 minutes to cycle to the gym from my home! Pretty quick which is good to know, it is mostly downhill so there aren't that many benefits on the fitness front. Be that as it may, the return jouney is all up hill so that is a good way to end a session for me.

As I had arrived a bit earlier than intended due to the short nature of the trip and so I jumped on the treadmill to do some walking as the instructor had suggested to me prior to our appointment. I did about 12 minutes walking on the treadmill at 5.0 kms per hour to warm up and felt good by the time appointment rolled around.

I met the trainer at the reception area and we went to the swiss ball area of the gym. There was a bench and a couple of dumbells. My first exercise was to step on to and back down from the bench holding the dumbells which were 9kgs. I did 20 on one leg, and then changed to the other leg for another 20 reps. I felt pretty good, but had a bit of a puff going as at the moment the wrost thing for me is the cardio fitness, my strength is pretty good however.

Immediately after this exercise the trainer had me get into the lunges. She had me do 10 on each leg without any weight so she could inspect my form and she gave me the thumbs up. After this I was told to do 25 on each leg as a set. My legs were trembling from the warm up, and the set, however I knew that I needed to work hard to make progress so I got stuck in. At the end of this set I was trembling and my legs were tightening up. The trainer was offering me encouragement to keep going with the work, and as such I did not let up when given the dumbells from the warm up set and told to do another 25 on each leg.

During the set my hamstrings, glutes, and quads began to sieze up however I did make it to 25. The trainer called me to stop and took me over to the Swiss Ball. I was then asked to do tricep extensions with the handled medicine ball that weighed 9 kgs again. I did a complete set, during which my legs began to feel worse. My groin strained and my amstrings would not let up. I walked it off to the drinking fountain but was still in pain by the time I got back. Nevertheless, in the interests of giving it a good shot I continued with the remaining leg and the set that required completion. At the end of that both legs were playing up and I was in pain. I did complete the tricep extensions again however. The trainer suggested moving to squats, however I was in such pain that I suggested to her that would not be a good idea. Instead we moved on to the medicine ball where I did some chest expansion exercises and impressed the trainer with the weight that I could lift.

The session was rounded out with ab exercises on the Swiss Ball, during which my legs were shaking and I was really worried that some damage had been done. The session concluded with the two of us discussing what would be best for me and what the future could hold.

Unfortunately the trainer did not really tell me anything that I didn't already know. She said that I did not need to work on my strength, that was well in hand. I knew this. She said that I needed to work on cardio, probably twice daily using the treadmill mostly. She suggested that I exercise before breakfast, and then again in the afternoon or early evening. This had been my plan, for no more than an hour at each time, probably confining each session to 45 minutes, but gradually building up to that duration and increasing the intensity. I also planned to work in some classes once the cardio was in hand.

Of most concern though was what didn't happen again. I wasn't weighed and apparently I am not going to be. No nutritional advice will be given either. I asked point blank how much it would cost me to continue with the trainer, however she said "Don't worry about that. Don't even think about that." Of course, all this did was multiply my concern about the cost as now I have no idea and it seems like it is so expensive that she doesn't even want to tell me how much it will be. At this stage I am resigned to the fact that I will have to do this on my own and put in the effort. I have the motivation as I have started this thing and really was looking for some help. In any event I have one more session to do and decided to leave it to then, given that my legs were killing me.

I went to the treadmill and did 25 minutes at a realtively light pace to try and get the blood flowing. I felt better after that, and did manage to ride home. On the way out of the gym I spied the scales and will be making use of them when I feel confident I can make the step up onto them without doing myself an injury! One thing about pain is that it makes me not want to undo any of the good work, however it is also makes me a bit wary about going back to the gym. Am sure that I will be back in there tomorrow.

I have also decided to develop a exercise and diet regimen for myself as it seems unlikely that I will continue with the trainer. I will post both of these as soon as they are ready to go. Keep an eye out!