First session with trainer...

[count_schemula]

Huge disappointment.

Cut and pasted from my blog.

So I was pretty psyched all weekend waiting to get over my initial soreness and ready to start with the trainer on Monday and start getting at it.

Leaving the office will require added stealthiness. Lucky for me though, the gym is like a 2 minute walk away. I get down to the gym about 8 minutes late.

I get in there and my trainer eyes the clock. I know it's bad form to be a few minutes late, but hey, it comes out of my session, so it's not like she can be all that upset about it. She calls me her 1:30 and we kinda get started.

Walking across the gym floor, she asks me what my goals are and why I wanted a trainer. I spell out some of the reasons like I need to learn how to use the equipment, I thought having one would keep me regular and involved. Have you ever worked out before? No. What are your goals? To just get in shape. I'm not out to become Mr. Musclehead, I just want to be in shape, and I assume everything else will follow.

The questions seemed kinda rote, like the questions she asks everyone, and I can't say for certain that she even heard my replies. Sigh.

Ok, we're going to do this, sit like this, gimme 16 of these, do this, sit like this, move over there, what number is that? ok sit here, do these, gimme 16 of these, ok, come get a piece of paper saying not to eat pasta at midnight and I'll see you next week.

Even there in real time I was feeling really let down. She seemed distracted the whole time, yawning, talking to other employees, checking her computer. She even made a joke about how they already had my money, not a mean spirited joke and she has no idea that I feel a little tricked about the whole thing, but in looking back over the 22 minute session, I was really left wondering where the value was in all this. She spoke vaguely about doing legs next time, and that's about where we left it.

I have no idea how much the bars weigh unloaded. I have no idea what weights I was using, I don't know anything more about diet or muscles, I don't know anything about proper form, or the speed at which I should be lifting up or bringing it down, basically, she made $40 in 22 minutes for making some marks on a piece of paper, putting them in a folder and calling it a day.

I'll give her another chance next Monday. But if she's not a little more into it I'm going to have to ask for another trainer. I can write down what reps I'm doing for free and I'd get a lot more knowledge about what I'm doing and what I need to do and how to do it from the Internet or a book. All in all, a really bummer session.

I went and did some crunches, and did not feel like I was doing them right since I was doing like 40 and there was not burning pain. You see my pics below? One crunch should have me howling in pain. I was like, fuck, I'm a million dollars into this and can't even do a proper crunch, this sucks, I'm going to go eat lunch.

[count_schemula]

Zero cardio today. Really inexcusable.

She should have at least closed with, hey, take 30 minutes and do this that and the other to get that heart rate up for a little bit.

She does not need to lord over me for cardio, but she could have set me up with a basic routine, hell, it's day freaking one...

[Sportsmedjosh]

Wow what a huge disappointment. I've seen trainers like that before and well their are good trainers and bad trainers. I wouldn't even give the person another chance I would ask for someone different. You didn't sign an agreement for that trainer you signed an agreement for personal training. Call up the General manager or the Personal Training Directory, the way I look at it is, you spend your money to buy their time. They should go over what you want, ask them those questions you want to know about rep about speed proper form.

[count_schemula]

I just need whomever to be more involved so it's easier to have a dialog and ask questions. To me it just seems natural for her to mention, hey, the bar is 15 pounds unloaded and I just put two 25 pound weights on it.

Just pay attention to me for the 30 minutes, you have all day to just hangout with your peeps.

I'll give her one more chance just because, I want to make sure I'm not imagining this or maybe she was just having a bad day or maybe we'll be fine and it's just gonna take a session or two for us to gel, but... I can't say I have high hopes.

These first few sessions are kind of a waste anyhow, I'm just not in enough shape to really do anything. I agree, I should be using this time to at least be getting my form down and so forth, but, meh, I still have 47 sessions left.

Even at the end when I was struggling with the last reps, and she kinda started to take notice and jumped in with the "go! push! don't stop!" it just sounded non-authentic. I was sitting there in chair with my spindly little arms shaking with exhaustion thinking, "what, I'm in clown school here?"

None of this affects my motivation in all this, I feel like I've truly adopted this an my new hobby, but, my blog is full of a lot of drama for only being one week in and not a lot of wonderment at my newfound passion.

[Sportsmedjosh]

47 sessions is a good amount of time. It'll take a couple weeks before you notice whats called a better nuromuscular adaptation which is your body being better able to tell your muscle fibers to life.

[PINGMAN]

That sucks. When I was in the best shape a few years back, I was working with a trainer twice a week.

[count_schemula]

Yeah, I view them as essential to the process. I want this to work.

[Sportsmedjosh]

I think you might want to call up your trainer and tell them what you want and how you want to go about it. Make sure they are clean on what you want. Tell them you can do machines on your own time and that you will do that. Instead insist on doing multi jointed exercises maybe some BOSU, swiss ball, body weight exercises. Stuff that you might not think of doing by yourself.