Personal Training

Wow! What can I say? I showed up last night for my personal training session. Remember, this is was my freebie for signing up at Gold's Gym. Actually, I found out last night I get 2 free sessions, the first of which was the one that I used last night.

A few thoughts I had before showing up.
(1) I've been in and out of the gym my entire life, so I hoped to gain insight into some new exercises that I had not done before more than I wanted a "workout guideline".
(2) Many of those that sign up for the free sessions have never really worked out before and so their sessions tend to be more of an introduction to the gym. Having already been in decent shape before showing up, I assumed my routine would be quite different than most.
(3) To continue the sessions would be expensive and I have no intention of doing more than the free sessions.

I walked in to find Tony, whom I had originally scheduled with. He walks over with a huge smile on his face and said, "I actually have a conflict so I've asked Bobby to handle your session. I told him that he can't wait to see you because you are in phenomenal shape and that he should really be able to break you down pretty good and show you some new stuff." Excellent! That is what I wanted to hear, although I disagree about the phenomenal shape compliment. I consider myself just somewhat fit. Also, if I were the trainer and I was trying to sell personal training to someone, my lead in would probably not be "hey, you are already in phenomenal shape!" ha!

So I sat down with Bobby and talked about my goals and how we could vary workouts to keep my body confused so that I would have continual gains. Meanwhile I'm realizing that although Bobby knows what he is talking, so do I. Due to my past experiences I already know everything he is telling me. Of course it's nice to have it reiterated to you. Oh, back to the subject of my goals. I would love to put on some muscle but not get too bulky because that would conflict with my competitive running. So my ultimate goal is to get shredded, totally cut up. Also, I want to focus on building my shoulders. Even back when I was pretty big and strong during my football days, my shoulders lacked the size I wanted. In addition, I'd like to get my body fat back down in the single digit range. I've only been there once in my life and would love to achieve that once again.

We continued talking and he measured both my weight and body fat percentage. This is key for me because it will give me a basis for comparison. I'll note this and come back every few months to see what progress I've made. For the record, I currently weigh 221 lbs and have 18.7% body fat. Not good by any means, but also not bad. About two years ago I had over 26% body fat (and in men, over 25% is clinically obese!). I'm definitely headed in the right direction!

Then it was on to the gym floor. The plan is to do 30 minutes of weight training and 30 of cardio on an average day. Yesterday was no average day by any means. It took much less time to totally annihilate my muscles.

Since this was a first assessment, he said we'd do a mix of upper and lower body, focusing on shoulders. When he walked up with 15 lb dumbbells I almost laughed but knew what was in store. I wont go into details of the super-sets, but it will suffice to say that rotating multiple exercises, having little to no rest, and doing high reps was brutal. Before I was done, I had dropped from 15 lb dumbbells to 5 pounders. Wow. After multiple stations with almost no rest my arms were spent so we did some leg extensions and lunges. That was it. 25 minutes of weights and I felt like I had completed 2.5 hours. Did it work? Well, I'll tell you this; my shoulders are extremely sore today. I may have been broken off yesterday but today I'm reaping the benefits. Oh, and I did 20 minutes of cardio as well. That was plenty!

In addition to having a great (and quick) work out, I was introduced to some new exercises. I couldn't be happier about that fact since it did address my original intend. Now I have some new items to introduce into my workout routine. I am going back on Saturday for my follow up session. I hope to learn much more!

Oh, one more thing. They gave the sales pitch for future sessions. VERY EXPENSIVE. If you don't know what you are doing or if you lack the drive to make yourself stay in the gym it's probably worth the expense, but in my situation it's just not worth the money. I'll talk to them every few months to get a feel for my body fat percentage, but that's about it.

All in all, yesterday was a great session!