Training Session

Her eyes are everywhere! I'm under constant observation like a lab rat. I must be careful, no eye contact - 'they' can get an instant read on body fat that way, I must blend in.

I thought at the time she was joking last week in the lunchroom with the fingers to the eyes jabbing a finger at me, I'm watching you sign. Now I know better, oh yes indeed I'm wise to this game!

Yesterday, I'm coming out of the cafeteria after running one of those frantic I've got a one-o'clock errands with my (current favorite) lunch of a veggie burger and tater tots. A mixed message I know when suddenly I hear from the second floor balcony, "Whatcha got there?"

Drat! One of the trainer's minions.

I can't really hide the tater-tots since they seemed to have multiplied all over my plate like so many deep fried carbohydrate bunnies but I gamely call out that I have a VEGGIE-burger here... and a PICKLE! Too late, he's gone, probably reporting in to central command. I'll have to hide the tater-tots, donuts and other weaknesses under a layer of lettuce. It's now quite apparent why I see so many folk with monster salads, I've been a fool.

On a slightly more serious note what I'm noticing going on with me now is that there are these little battles running through my head at the checkout line, "Do you REALLY want that Ho Ho? I mean go ahead if you want but you've already put in so much effort attempting to get rid of the seven hundred you ate last year, is it worth it?" I can feel my mindset shifting. Weird. What I don't want to happen is that I become too enamored with that type of reductionism, I want the battles to continue and I want the dark side to occasionally win, just not too often; because, truly the stair climber sucks.

So I show up at the gym this morning and get ready. The trainer is in her office staring into her PC, probably watching YouTube of 'the tater-tot incident' from yesterday. She gets up and pulls out my routine and says to go ahead and do five minutes on the elliptical to get my heart rate up. I comply, curious about what happens next.

Next were these dynamic warm-up exercises and I am forming the impression about midway through that there's nothing 'warm up' about them. Oh yeah, I'm warm and getting sweaty. Apparently I'm not doing my triple lutz correctly which is how I'm feeling about some of these warm-ups, ungainly and very uncoordinated. I pay close attention and try again. She opts for having me do the squat - shoulder flexion & extension of despair with a big rubber ball that I press against the wall. I get what she's trying to do, form is important or you don't suffer as much and its all about getting fit. I'm suppose to do twelve reps of each of these and thennnnnn I'm all warmed up!

Instead I feel like I'm about midway through the workout.

Now I'm looking at the routine having just taken it a few hours ago and I'm staring at this entry called 'SB Wall Squat' and I will tell you true, I don't have a CLUE what that is anymore. Thank heavens for google, it looks like this. Now I remember it and now I remember why I blotted it out of my memory.

Then I did this 'Chest Press Machine' where she was asking about how difficult it was for me near the end of my reps at such and such a weight (50 lbs), "On a scale from one to five, five being the hardest, hows it feel?"

"Seven." My rapidly deteriorating mental acuity having garbled what she said into, "On a scale of five to ten..." A bizarre scale I thought but I'm not the trainer am I?

She looks alarmed, studying me closely, "Oh!"

I hear what she was asking and I say, "Three." Sheesh!

Next, five minutes on the treadmill where she instructs me on how to use that properly, barking out all sorts of commands until the settings are correct while studying my HR monitor. Of course my treacherous shoe lace came undone around minute four. I silently pray she doesn't notice.

"Stop the machine!"

"Oh come on I can make it!" I gasp like those wounded dudes you see in the movies who don't have a prayer.

"Stop the machine!"

I sigh and tie my shoe, stupid shoe lace.

Then on to some lateral pull downs followed by some DB Lunges on a step which are NO FUN!

When I'm all docile and complacent from all this exercise (exhaustion) she says, "OK, now five to ten minutes on the StepMill or the Bike."

I bee line for the bike.

"Um, nooooo. I'm thinking the StepMill today," she says while staring into my eyes with the cold flat stare of the professional fitness trainer. Her whole body language immediately shifting into this weird, "Wanna tangle over this?" posture.

I meekly head towards the stupid StepMill, lamb that I am.

She starts me at level one for about nine seconds before ramping me rapidly up to the dreaded level five. She's paying attention to the HR monitor and me letting me bleat and moan about this outrage until I run out of breath.

She asks, "How much time left? The machine should be counting down from twenty..."

I'm staring around the display trying to find the clock which is the large counting down thing in the upper left hand corner while simultaneously thinking, "Oh GREAT now I have to do math too?"

"About four minutes," I gasp in despair.

"GREAT!"

Um, yeah. Sweat is pouring off of me and I mean that quite literally, just drip drip dripping into this puddle at the lip where the stairs come out.

Around minute three I become delusional as I idly wonder, "Is there any way I could look more attractive then I do now, gasping for breath, lumbering up these steps covered in sweat?" And then it hits me. Flossing! If I had both fists crammed into my mouth working some little string between my teeth while marching up these endless steps every chick in this gym would swoon. I guarantee it!

"How much time left?" calls some distant voice.

Eh? I glance around the display and wheeze out, "About a minute."

"Dial it back to three for your cool down."

Gladly!

After I was done sobbing and finally calming down we wrapped up the routine by doing some core body strength exercises. Pelvic Tilts, Basic Mat Crunch, and Alternating Supermans.

Followed by a five minute cool down which consisted of me heading straight for the shower. Here's the chart, it think it's pretty obvious when I was doing cardio :-)
So here I sit finishing this entry up.

Wanna know a secret? I feel GREAT! Not sure about tomorrow but right here, right now, well it's a good feeling.