My friends and family all know I’m not a huge fan of exercise, specifically when it comes to strength training. Oh, I occasionally go to yoga, and I run, but other than that? Nope. In 2015, I hired a personal trainer at my gym, in the hopes that it would motivate me and get me to a place where I could/would consistently do strength training on my own.
Unfortunately, that plan did not work out. The first trainer was awesome, but after a few sessions she received a promotion and wanted me to come on Saturdays or to another gym location. When we couldn’t make it work, she set me up with another trainer to take over for her.
The next trainer did not seem to know or care about my fitness goals. There were no progress measurements, no record of each workout, and sometimes she actually gave me incorrect information. She’d say “oh this is the best you’ve done at this exercise, you’re really making progress” … umm, we’ve never done this one together, so how would she know? Every session it was more of the same, squats, squats, squats, and other exercises that were also squats (burpees, ball slams, etc). There was no consistency or plan for the upper body portion of the workout, it was something different each session. I fired her, and then I didn’t go to the gym for 6 months. Maybe longer than that.
Recently, I started having more and more issues with back, hip, neck and shoulder pain. All of it seems to be related to poor posture, weak glute and hip muscles, and overall, lack of strength training. I decided that I need to take control, and finally put some effort into strength training. I’ve also decided to focus on lowering my body fat percentage rather than looking solely at weight loss in terms of total body weight. I’d rather be strong and healthy and weigh a little more than be “skinny fat” where the pounds come off but it’s all muscle mass that’s being lost. I’ve been there before.
My goals are to make it to the gym at least once a week, yoga once a week, plus continuing with my running. After my last half marathon, I’ve been having some issues with my adductor muscles and the psoas on the left side, so I took it easy for several weeks and have stretched more often.
Oh, and by June I want to be able to do unassisted chin-ups. Then I can move on to pull-ups!
Here’s a look at a typical gym session:
Cardio Warm-up
Running
5 min
Upper Body
Chin Up (Assisted)
3 sets of 10
Lat Pulldown
3 sets of 10
Tricep Extension
3 sets of 10
TRX/Lower Body
TRX Row
2 sets of 10
TRX squat
3 sets of 15
Forward walking lunge
3 sets of 10
Backward walking lunge
3 sets of 10
Cardio finish
Running
5 min