Training Update

Okay, I haven't posted much, but quite a bit has happened.

Last time I posted, I had just finished my boot camp class. Since then, Jenna went in and did her Fitpoint with Gilles and then I had my first session with my new trainer, Rosa.

I was wary of having a woman trainer, probably because I'm a big sexist jerk and a bad person and someone should kill me with rocks, etc. Still, I went in and gave her a fair shake. She was nice and gave me a good workout, but we just didn't really click. Part of it is because I have a few very specific things I want from a trainer.

I want a trainer to teach me how not to need him/her anymore. I don't want someone to take me from place to place and tell me to do this many reps of this exercise and then go to this machine and do this many reps at this weight and then I get sweaty and go home. I want someone who will take me to a machine and tell me what it's doing, how it differs from the other machines that purport to work the same muscles, why I should use it as opposed to something else, etc. I want to learn. I want to spend a couple months with a trainer and come out of it knowing how to diagnose my own needs, how to design a workout to fill those needs, and how to track my progress towards my goals.

Also, I want a good, functional workout. I can go in and pound on machines all day without any help. I want a trainer who understands my goals and shapes my workout to help me reach them. I'm looking for a very generalized fitness, but with certain specific major parts to it. I want excellent cardio endurance. I want excellent strength to bodyweight ratio. I want excellent muscular endurance. I want to be able to do just about anything with my own body. I'm not super concerned about being able to bench press a certain weight, but I would love to be strong enough to do 10 pullups in a row. I'm not as worried about having 6-pack abs as I am about being able to carry 100 pounds up a flight of stairs. See the theme? I don't want to be a gym rat, and the workouts I want to do may well end up being non-standard stuff like ring dips and kettlebells and all.

So anyway, that all leads me back to this. Rosa was very nice and I was certainly worn out by the end of our session, but I didn't feel like I learned much. She tried to tell me a few things, but it felt very much like she was repeating words she'd heard rather than telling me stuff she really understood. I could be absolutely 100% wrong about that, but that was how it felt. Also, it turns out that the 6:00-7:00 in the morning workout is just not feasible. I thought I could make it work, but by the time I get that done, drive home, get some breakfast get showered and get out the door, it's after 8:00. For waking up at 5:15 or so, that's not ideal. So even though I really like working out in the morning, it seems more practical to work out in the evening. Add to that the fact that Jenna would also need to find a trainer for herself who she liked and you could work with her schedule, and the whole thing just really didn't work very well.

So, while talking with Gilles, he proposed what i think is the perfect solution. Instead of two private trainers, Jenna and I both work with him in one joint session twice a week. It'll cost the same as two trainers, but we get to work with a guy we know we like and we get to be together, which you know is a major plus for us. So there you go, then. Problem solved, with a solution I didn't even know was an option. I couldn't be more pleased. Our first joint session with him is tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that goes.