Personal Training in Review

Happy Wednesday!

Almost 3 months ago, I signed up for personal training.  I had wanted to do personal training for a few years now but I'm cheap  it's expensive so I never signed up for it.  I had decided to switch gyms and the gym near my house had a sale on personal training.  Each session came to only $25!  That may seem expensive to some people but personal training typically runs about $1,000,000  $50 per session depending on how many you buy. 

I signed up with my personal trainer Mike and then found out he is an avid runner and runs marathons and all that nonsense!  Perfect!  He has given me tremendous running support.  But my personal training was not for running, it was for toning and core work.

So how has it gone now that I'm nearing the end of my sessions?  Pretty well actually!  I feel like I'm stronger when I'm in my sessions.  Yesterday he made a comment about my arms that went like this..."Look at those bicep muscles!  Do that again!  Look how much definition you have!"  To which I giggled like a little girl and said "shut up."  I'm such a weirdo sometimes!  I actually hate when people look at me and so I got all self-conscience about my BIG new bicep muscles.  Haha!  I have "graduated" up levels from where I started.  He now pushes me really hard because he knows I can do what he gives me to do.

My sessions go something like this...

Mike shows me something to do.
I look at Mike like he has 4 heads.
I say to Mike, "You are crazy!  I can't do that!"
Mike says to me, "Yes you can!  Don't say you can't!"
I do the exercise and then almost pass out, but I complete it.
Mike looks at me with that cocky smile and says, "See, I told you you could do it!"

I hate when he is right!

So what are some of the things we do in my sessions?  It's always really hard for me to explain so I'll just summarize a few things.

I go twice a week to personal training.  Both days, we do some type of core work in the beginning.  The core work may involve planks (both regular and side planks...kill me now!).  Or the core work might involve something on the bosu ball that makes you work really hard on balance and in turn, you have to tighten your stomach and butt.  We may do ab work on the exercise ball (this may involve regular crunches or crunching up while tossing a medicine ball).  We do all sorts of stuff for core work.

Then usually on Monday's, we do arm toning work.  Again, this may involve so many things!  I told you before that we use the TRX.  This machine is good because you are using your own body weight for the weight.  (We also use the TRX for the ab work, the lady in the picture on the link I showed you is doing something for abs that I did yesterday).  For arms, we may do pull ups, flys, push ups, bicep work, tricep work.  It's actually really good!  You can use it for almost anything that you would use regular weight machines for.  Another exercise that I did just yesterday was on a machine.  I've used this machine on my own before but it's so hard to do!  We did tricep dips and pull ups.  3 sets of 10 which again, I didn't think I could do and thought I would die and made all sorts of faces to which Mike kept teasing me about!  Sigh...again, he was right, I did it.  For arms, we also use weights and resistance bands.  With the resistance bands, I'll put it under my feet and squat down.  One exercise may then involve bench pressing my arms up as I stand up.  Another may be bicep curls while in a squatted position.  Tricep push backs are another exercise.  So many things, so little time!  Sometimes I will stand on that dreaded bosu ball and do the arm work with weights on there, which then also works my core muscles.

Today is legs (most likely).  I will post leg exercises in a later post so I can see what we do today on those.

Since my personal training is coming to a close, I'm faced with the decision to keep going or not.  Do I renew for more sessions or say "Adios" to Mike!  I was undecided when Mike asked me but I think I may see how much it would be again (becuase they always have some sort of deal going on) and possibly sign up for 2 more months.  I really think it is doing some good.  And if I could just get my eating 100% under control, I'd be good to go!