Tuesday morning, I worked out with Gael, a personal trainer at my gym. At about 4' 11", she's a pint-sized powerhouse, but has a gentle, mellow vibe that I really liked. 7 AM is WAAAYYY too early to have someone yelling in your face. She was patient, careful to monitor my form, and at no point did she push me to the point where I felt faint, or feared I would get injured.
We started out by doing a conversation/ warm-up. It was 12 minutes on the stationary bike at a medium setting. My heart rate climbed, but I could still carry on a conversation about my fitness goals. During the last three minutes, we did 3 sets up 30-second intervals, where Gael turned up the bike's resistance setting. I could definitely feel the blood pumping.
After that, she showed me some basic stretches (lots of which I am familiar with from yoga), and also showed me how to use these foam roller thingys to sort of massage my muscles. I was really surprised how many tight knots I had in my thighs. It sort of treaded that line between painful and feeling good.
After that, we went over to the assisted pull-up machine, which I have been too scared to use by myself. This machine uses counter weights to balance your body weight, so you can actually do pull-ups. My body weight is 125, so she started the setting at 110 (that means there was a net difference of 15 pounds...doesn't sound like too much). Surprisingly, it was incredibly difficult. She adjusted the weight to 120 pounds, and I was able to do 2 sets of 8 pull-ups, then a set of 6. I felt my muscles working in ways I have NEVER experienced! The next two days, I was super sore, from my upper back, around my shoulder blades, up through my pecs and biceps. That machine is intense. But Gael said that pull-ups are THE best exercise for upper body sculpting and core strength (hello backless wedding dresses!).
After that, we did some squats combined with light weight lifting, and then some dead lifts. We finished with a little more stretching. The hour passed incredibly quickly, and I felt good, but not like a dead dishrag when I was done. In fact, since it was only 8 AM and I had time to kill, I did 20 minutes on the treadmill (four 5-minute sets of interval training).
Gael told me that 20-30 minutes into a workout is when your body really starts to burn fat, so I figure that if I do a solid half hour of weight training, then move on to cardio, theoretically my body should be burning fat the entire time I'm doing cardio.
However, I'm trying to be not to overanalytical or scientific about it, and just focus on CONSISTENCY, which is the single hardest thing as far as working out goes (this is confirmed by my trainer).
This morning, I went to the gym again and tried my best to repeat what I'd done with Gael weight-training-wise. It went pretty well, although I'm sure my form wasn't as perfect as when she was there coaching me. Then I did my 20-minute treadmill interval routine.
I'm planning on going to yoga tomorrow, and hopefully Sunday I will be motivated to do SOMETHING - either come back to the gym, or maybe try a pilates class in my neighborhood.
I did buy a three-pack of training sessions with Gael, which I hope give me a ton more information and useful tips that I can apply to my workouts on the days I don't train with her. Overall, I feel good, and I know that if I can just keep this up – and BE PATIENT – I will start to see results.
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