One on One

Last night was my first official training session with Amanda as my “new” trainer. I have to admit that I was terrified. I have to admit that it was every bit as hard as I anticipated it being. I have to admit that I never work as hard as she makes me, ever. I guess this is a very good thing in the end, but boy oh boy in those 30 plus minutes was I sure dying. We led up to the session with many anticipatory text messages assuring me that my arms were going to get friend. In particular I was told that my chest and triceps were of particular target. When the session actually hit, she decided to throw in biceps and ultimately that is what we most fried.

We started the thing with phylo push-ups. Not sure if I even spelled that right. Up until last night I could not have told you what that even was. It turns out this is a regular push up done explosively to the point that when you come back up you literally push yourself off the ground and jump up. These are exceedingly hard. I am not really that good at them honestly. Push-ups are a bit of a weakness for me. I have to admit I kind of hate them. We did probably 15-20 of them and then she told me we were doing 50 push-ups. I laughed at her, literally laughed and said yeah right. That will take me the whole 30 minutes. Push-ups are not my favorite for sure. So I did 10 regular ones and then went to my knees and did 15 more and then we called it good. It was onto chest presses on the bench. She handed me 30 pound dumbbells in each hand and I had to chest press them up. This is a lot of weight, like a ton. She had to help me get them up in the end because we always reached muscle failure. Then we did 25 pounds and then 20 pounds. Then we did them sitting up. Good times.

After that we did tricep extensions and then these extended skull crushers where you actually take the barbell behind your head. It’s crazy. And then we did burn out of the biceps and by that I mean we went over to the isolated bicep bar and she loaded up the 25 pound bar with 20 pounds on each side, so it was a total of 65 pounds that I had to bicep curl. Then we did 15 pounds on each side, and then 10 pounds on each side and then just the bar itself until I was completely fried. I was fried. My arms were tingling honestly. It’s a weird sensation to have your muscles tingle on you. We then went back and did the entire set of exercises again. This time it was obviously harder as everything was on fire at this point. My biceps were screaming at me in particular. They are an utter mess today honestly.

After my class I went and did an hour of Iron Power class, which is all strength training, targeted muscle groups. When we did chest and biceps I pretty much had to stop as I could barely do them. Good times. Today my upper body is sore. My biceps are still sitting here pumped up and tender to the touch so I guess I’d say it was an effective workout. I suppose this means that my biceps might actually grow which I guess is always the point.

Anyway, the first workout was every bit as hard as I expected but I survived and probably will be the better for it. Tonight is a half hour dumbbell fit class with a different trainer, Mary. And then it is an hour of turbokick with Amanda. More cardio time. Then tomorrow is well deserved rest day for me. But guess what? I have a date tomorrow night with Amanda. Yup, girl date. We are going to see a movie and then going out to dinner. So yup, I have a real girl date with my trainer. It’s quite bizarre to me too but I kind of love it. I mean, I love how things in my life are actually turning out. The happiness and the friends and the everything really.

My life is really honestly finally starting to look like what I have always wanted. It’s kind of scary though because how do you hang onto happiness? I am waiting for the shoe to drop because inevitably doesn’t it always? That is so pessimistic of me I know, but honestly sometimes a girl has to protect and prepare herself a little. In the meantime I am going to keep fighting tooth and nail to keep this happiness alive. I’m not saying I don’t have bad days, I mean we all have them but for the most part the good really has outweighed the bad in a big way lately and that is just so nice! Ultimately isn’t that why we do pretty much everything in life? To be happy? To feel alive? I’m sincerely getting there that’s for sure.