Hi guys, hope you had a good weekend. Mine was fairly busy. Christmas is in full-force now really isn’t it?
I feel quite good as I’ve done 80% of my Christmas shopping and I’m off Friday so can hopefully finish then. Hurrah. Our spare room is getting packed full of random purchases. Going to have to get some wrapping going on soon….
Last Thursday I had my first personal trainer appointment. What I love about my gym is because it’s open 24/7 I can go in as early as I like (which is handy for me as I have to leave for work around 8ish). It also means I can book my personal trainer appointments for the bright and early time of 6.15am.
We sat and chatted about my goals before we did anything. He also weighed me and gave me a host of different statistics…my muscle weight, bone weight, fat percentage and how many calories I burn just doing nothing. I’m not trying to lose any weight, but he said one of our targets should be to gain some more muscle weight. Cool.
And then we got started. I was using machines I wouldn’t have gone near in a million years. He would demonstrate the moves while I wrote down in a notepad lots of notes to make sure I got the right form.
There were lateral pull-downs, kettle bell single arm raises, deadlifts, using the Olympic bar (!!) for overhead presses and more. The concept behind using each machine was different to what I normally would have done. He set the weight for quite a heavy weight (for me!) and then I would only be able to do between 6-10 repetitions, decreasing on each set (which was usually three sets). He said I should be aiming to have a small number of hard, heavy reps rather than numerous light repetitions. Apparently if I aimed for light weights it would be more of a cardio workout than actually working on my strength. Something I didn’t know!
When we got to the end of the hour he asked if I had a bit more time. Then he did more sports massage on my back and legs. I was literally lying there on this mat almost crying in pain when he was doing my back. All the way up to my neck, then down to my lower back it was so tight. When he finished there was no residual pain and my whole body felt more loose.
Having the extra time with him meant I was seriously late though – I didn’t leave the gym until just before 8am!! Meaning I had to get home, shower, eat breakfast and leave in record breaking time. Luckily my work are fairly relaxed so I just worked a bit longer in the evening.
It’s funny because during the workout it was tough but I wasn’t sweating and at the end I was a bit like “well that was quite easy”. The next morning though my shoulders, my back, even under my armpits ached! I found getting dressed and putting my coat on a nightmare. Pulling open doors was terrible. Clearly doing something I guess!
My next appointment is Thursday morning. I’m really pleased with how it’s gone. I would never have done these moves on my own. In fact, the only upper body moves I would ever think to do are things like bicep curls or tricep dips. But these exercises he’s going through with me are more aimed at improving my posture and improving how I hold my body and support it when running.
I’m not going to lie though, it’s two weeks from the marathon and hearing Ben talk about it or chatting to the girls from my running club when I met up with them to catch up…it’s still hard. I drove back from the gym and saw a man out running and I just felt a bit down. Nothing beats running. But I’ve just got to stay focused on what matters at the moment. I have to remember that I will run again.
Have you ever had a personal trainer? It was brilliant having someone show me how to use the machines properly and watch me do the moves, correcting me when I went wrong and motivating me when I got tired.
Have you ever tried using kettle bells before?
What’s most important to you: strength, aesthetics, performance, general fitness? I’ve never cared really about strength…I guess I’m only doing it now to help my performance in running and remaining injury-free.
