Training my person, part III.
Sep. 10th, 2002 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI had my second personal training session tonight. Kelly had put together an entirely different workout - I now have two complete routines that I can switch between at will. She said she didn't want me to get bored, although it's also the case that last week's workout had more leg work and this week's focuses more on my shoulders and back. (She's done a good job of remembering that I want to improve at hiking, kayaking, and canoeing. All the exercises she's having me do seem well-connected to my goals.)
We'll have one more session together next week to iron out the details. She gave me a general idea of how to proceed after that: work up to 2 sets of 20 reps, then increase the weights and drop back to 2 sets of 12. She's around the gym a lot, so she'll be able to answer any questions I have, but we probably won't have any more formal sessions after next week until I want to change what I'm doing.
This has so been worth the $115 and the scariness. I'm proud of myself, but I'm also impressed with Kelly. She seems impressed with herself too - she was really pleased that she'd mostly guessed right about what I would be able to do, and apparently she's been burbling to her exercise science-major friends about what a fun challenge it was to develop my program. So, yay.
I started out with ten minutes on the exercise bike. Then I did new and different stuff with the 3 pound weights: wide arm curls, which are like bicep curls only sort of splayed to the outside, hammer curls, where my arm starts at my side and swivels as I curl it up, and "one arm kick backs," leaning forward slightly and bringing my bent elbow back without moving my shoulder. (It's for my triceps. Hey! I have a tricep on the right side! I hadn't thought I did, but I could feel it.) Finally, I held a weight in each hand and shrugged my shoulders up and down.
Then I was back on the damned rubber ball. (Honestly, I think the ball is good for me. I can feel that things are happening in my back and stomach, and it should improve my balance. But it isn't fun.) I did a sort of rowing machine motion with weights in both hands, stretching out in front of me and bringing my arms all the way back. I did overhead shoulder presses with my left arm only. And that was it for weights.
Still on the ball, I held a smaller ball out in front of me and swiveled from side to side, feeling pretty silly. Had I but known: after that she wanted me to lie on my stomach on the ball, balancing myself with my toes, and do "hyperextensions," which basically involve raising and lowering my upper body. Sort of upside down crunches, I guess, except that I was lying on a ball. Now that must've looked at least as silly as it felt. She said it would be good for my back, though. And my balance.
Then crunches lying flat on the mat (no bent knees) and crunches with the ab roller and bent knees. (Those were my fault, because I noticed the ab roller and asked about it. They hadn't been in her original routine.) Then plies: deep knee bends with toes pointed out. Calf raises: lifting myself up on tiptoes, then back down, a deceptively innocent task. And finally, double leg extensions: the hardest thing so far. She had me sit on a chair and then straighten my legs one at a time. It wasn't easy with my left leg, but at this point it's purely impossible with my right. I can straighten the leg, but I'm largely doing it by dropping the knee, not raising the lower leg. I'm just too weak with that leg. She wants me to try to do it anyway, because she thinks it will help. She's probably right, damn it.
Then we stretched.
This routine didn't take as much time as the first one, but good lord are my shoulders and back and abs sore right now. Into a hot bath with me.
We'll have one more session together next week to iron out the details. She gave me a general idea of how to proceed after that: work up to 2 sets of 20 reps, then increase the weights and drop back to 2 sets of 12. She's around the gym a lot, so she'll be able to answer any questions I have, but we probably won't have any more formal sessions after next week until I want to change what I'm doing.
This has so been worth the $115 and the scariness. I'm proud of myself, but I'm also impressed with Kelly. She seems impressed with herself too - she was really pleased that she'd mostly guessed right about what I would be able to do, and apparently she's been burbling to her exercise science-major friends about what a fun challenge it was to develop my program. So, yay.
I started out with ten minutes on the exercise bike. Then I did new and different stuff with the 3 pound weights: wide arm curls, which are like bicep curls only sort of splayed to the outside, hammer curls, where my arm starts at my side and swivels as I curl it up, and "one arm kick backs," leaning forward slightly and bringing my bent elbow back without moving my shoulder. (It's for my triceps. Hey! I have a tricep on the right side! I hadn't thought I did, but I could feel it.) Finally, I held a weight in each hand and shrugged my shoulders up and down.
Then I was back on the damned rubber ball. (Honestly, I think the ball is good for me. I can feel that things are happening in my back and stomach, and it should improve my balance. But it isn't fun.) I did a sort of rowing machine motion with weights in both hands, stretching out in front of me and bringing my arms all the way back. I did overhead shoulder presses with my left arm only. And that was it for weights.
Still on the ball, I held a smaller ball out in front of me and swiveled from side to side, feeling pretty silly. Had I but known: after that she wanted me to lie on my stomach on the ball, balancing myself with my toes, and do "hyperextensions," which basically involve raising and lowering my upper body. Sort of upside down crunches, I guess, except that I was lying on a ball. Now that must've looked at least as silly as it felt. She said it would be good for my back, though. And my balance.
Then crunches lying flat on the mat (no bent knees) and crunches with the ab roller and bent knees. (Those were my fault, because I noticed the ab roller and asked about it. They hadn't been in her original routine.) Then plies: deep knee bends with toes pointed out. Calf raises: lifting myself up on tiptoes, then back down, a deceptively innocent task. And finally, double leg extensions: the hardest thing so far. She had me sit on a chair and then straighten my legs one at a time. It wasn't easy with my left leg, but at this point it's purely impossible with my right. I can straighten the leg, but I'm largely doing it by dropping the knee, not raising the lower leg. I'm just too weak with that leg. She wants me to try to do it anyway, because she thinks it will help. She's probably right, damn it.
Then we stretched.
This routine didn't take as much time as the first one, but good lord are my shoulders and back and abs sore right now. Into a hot bath with me.
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Date: 2002-09-10 08:26 pm (UTC)and i'm mighty impressed. someday i'll follow your example. after i've already gotten in perfect shape and don't need anyone else to see my horrifying selfness trying to get at least three cells to undergo aerobic transmogrification and and. and.