Working out at 6 am wasn’t so bad. I used to be a morning exerciser, so maybe this will be my opportunity to shift back to that schedule. That’ll actually be good for when I move to Sunnyville for 2 reasons: for much of the year, early AM is the only time of day when it’ll be cool enough to exercise outside, and I’ll be teaching mostly in the afternoons and evenings in this new department.
Anyway.
We started with a good cardio warm-up, then ran or walked (about .5 mile; it’ll go up to a mile soon), then we did strength stuff with a bit of cardio obstacle course intervals thrown in. And then we did a few abs and cooled down.
A few criticisms:
I was a bit bored by the strength sets eventually: we did 2 variations on squats, 3 variations on bicep curls, and 2 kinds of standing abdominal twists/bends. Doesn’t sound bad, but we did a lot of each kind of exercise. I’m guessing/hoping that she’ll work other muscle groups on other days.
I’m also feeling a bit critical of the instructor’s form. I’ve worked with personal trainers/coaches enough to know what these exercises should look like. From her instructions, I know she knows what the proper form should be, but she doesn’t seem to be able to hold her form while she’s leading us.
Also, I think she does exercises too quickly. I can’t keep up with how quickly she does bicep curls, for example, because I’m so used to doing them fairly slowly. I was always taught that you get more out of strength training if you do the reps more slowly. It also makes it easier to maintain good form if you’re not moving so fast. Eventually, I stopped trying to keep up with most stuff and just did as many as I could.
That said, I really don’t want to get too nitpicky about this stuff, especially since I have 19 more sessions to go. If I spend the entire 4 weeks correcting her in my head, it’s gonna be a long 4 weeks. I’ll just have to focus on myself and work at having good form on my own.
Overall, I think this program will be both challenging and supportive. The trainer is very pro-modification: if people need to modify exercises for whatever reason, she’s perfectly fine with that. I don’t need modifications for health/physical reasons (i.e., bad knees/joints), but I like the atmosphere that it creates.
At the same time, it’s very clear to me (and she says this herself) that I’m only going to get out of this what I put into it. During the warm-up run this morning, I was bargaining with myself (“Just get to X point and then you can walk”), but then I realized that I need to push myself if I’m going to get the most out of it. And so I ran the whole way.
When I got home, I ate some eggs for breakfast, took a shower, and kept moving. I was tired, sure, but I felt OK. And now that that I’ve been sitting at a coffee shop for most of the day, I can tell I’m going to feel this workout in the morning, which I take as a good sign.
*I promise, promise, promise that I’m not gonna do daily reports.
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3 comments:
I also worked with a few personal trainers who really focussed on good form, slow reps, etc. So I know what you mean about correcting her in your head - it drives me nuts when I see big huge guys at the gym lifting weights that are obviously too heavy because they can't even come close to maintaining the correct form. I want to go tell them if they lift lighter weights but use correct form they'll get the same benefit and reduce the risk of injury. The boot camp does sound cool, though!
Sounds like a good day! So glad you made it through okay.
Form is very important (kinda like quality over quantity). If you do an exercise bad, then you aren't really getting anything out of the exercise. Good that you know what and how to do it so that you are getting something out of the repetition.
Glad it's not just me who wants to correct the macho men at the gym!
Day 2 included some partnered work; my partner was going a little fast, so my form dropped off. Next time, I'll just force us to go slower, I think. But we also had some go-at-your-own-pace circuits, so that was good--I could go more slowly on reps, but then run to the next station. So it all balanced out.
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