I’m out of shape. Let’s get that out of the way first. Oh sure, I can be forced to walk 10-15 miles and while I’ll be a little grumpy at the end, I’ll get it done. But the fact is, I’m very out of shape.
My company has a gym of sorts in one section of our building. There’s a treadmill, an elliptical, a bike, a universal weight system as well as free weights and some other stuff. But not to be outdone by another office location that has a rock climbing wall, we got permission to bring in a personal trainer three times a week to guide us through some more intensive full-body workouts. Today was the first session.
I’m about to die, y’all.
It was only 30 minutes long, but I did all that junk that I used to make fun of my coworkers at my old job about. Burpees. Lunges. Medicine balls. A punching bag. Those rope things that look cool but really are forms of torture once you actually use them.
Five of us did the workout today, and we were all exhausted at the end – even the guy who works out each and every day without fail for over an hour. I did my best, which was not great considering I’m battle some pretty severe tennis elbow at the moment (don’t get me started about that). But what frustrated me was that I was clearly exhausted and working hard (as if the sweat pouring down my face didn’t make it obvious) and the trainer STILL felt compelled to come over to me and say things like, “If you want to increase the intensity, do this,” and she’d proceed to show me something that my body is just NOT going to do right now because it’s spending all its energy trying to do the BASIC move at the moment.
And in my head I kept shouting, “It’s DAY ONE, lady! Step off and just say ‘Great job!’ You can tell me all about intensity on Day 90!” (which at 3x/week will be in a very long time)
The workout is fine, and I certainly got my heart rate going for those 30 minutes. And I didn’t have to pay for it (the company pays the trainer). So I know that in the long run this will be very beneficial (especially combined with the times that CootieGirl and I go to the gym to use the treadmills together).
But that trainer needs to calm down on that intensity nonsense.
For real.
You’ve met Chantal. Lovely, sweet young woman who looks so innocent? Yeah, she was my trainer. And in that role, not so sweet and innocent. But in the long run, it was better for me and got me past where I thought I could get. Just try to handle it with some humor, like “I’m trying to survive here, I’m not looking for intensity.”