Personal Training - Session 1

OK confession time here...I don't know what it is and I know one day...one day...I will get over it, but I still feel crazy intimidated going into a gym setting.  I know, I know!  I need to freaking just get over it and put my big girl panties on, but seriously each and every time I have to go to anywhere that is vaguely gym-like, I have to psyche myself up to walk in the door.  I went to talk to a local gym recently about a membership and even as I was getting a tour of the facilities, I still felt nervous and broke out in a cold sweat.  Somehow the gym still brings back horrible memories of high school gym class fails and even though I know that no one is watching me and judging, I cannot seem to get over it.  Confession over.  Ha! 

So I'm totally hoping that I'm going to like working with a personal trainer.  I'd been thinking about it for ages and finally decided to bite the bullet back in February.  I really enjoy working out in a group setting but thought that working one on one might be good for a change of pace.  I hate to disappoint people so tend to work way harder for someone else, I like having someone working with me because I'm a chickenshit and hate being alone in the gym (ha!) and because I'm more of an introverted personality, might find for strength training that a personal trainer would be better. I typically hate having any attention on me, but having a personal trainer means I kinda have to get over that.   At first I was wondering if I would feel uncomfortable being the only person that Graham was focussing on (and seeing me make my ugly I'm-calling-on-my-ancestors-to-get-me-through-this-last-rep face) but after the first class I realized it was a different kind of attention.  We're working together and I'm fairly certain he's not thinking in his head "holy crap, is she ever weak" or "wow, those shorts don't do her any favours!" but critiquing my form and thinking of things that would help me obtain my goals. 

Tuesday's session was actually technically the first session, but Friday was the first day where I really had to put the pedal to the metal.  We're doing a split workout routine so upper one session, lower the next so Friday's session was upper.  Exercises we did were:

Overhead shoulder press
Chin ups (ack!!!)
Alternating chest press
Barbell row
Cable pull
Upper back face pull
Hanging chair raise

How was it?  Well I gotta say...I am so very glad that the gym was virtually empty because my chin ups were pretty pathetic!  I pushed pretty hard on the shoulder press so when I got to the chin ups, it took every fibre of my being to do six very weak chin ups.  Blargh.  But overall, I really liked the exercises...they were all quite different than what I had done before and Graham really took into account the issues I brought up (upper back and shoulder weakness, posture) while still keeping in mind the goal to become stronger and more muscular overall.  Or, as he named this program "Buff"...hah!

So how am I feeling?  Yesterday morning I was barely sore, so I was wondering maybe if I didn't push hard enough.  I admit I was worried about overdoing it on my shoulder so may have held back a wee bit but lo and behold...today I'm sore like crazy (hello my old friend DOMS...haven't seen you in quite awhile!) and I can barely raise my arms above my head, but no shoulder pain!  None!  I might not be able to shampoo my hair for a few days in the shower, but I'm super happy and stoked about my shoulder.  Must be sure to tell Graham the good news!

The other thing I'm going to really work hard on is my nutrition...no use in paying for all these sessions and working out so hard to undo it with bad eating.  I hadn't really thought about it as I had figured that my diet is pretty darn healthy and clean since Hubs and I changed how we eat the past year or so but if I'm really trying to build muscle Graham suggested I need to up my protein intake to around 1 gram per pound of body weight...nutrition is key to building muscle.  One gram per pound means 120 grams of protein per day which is quite a lot but if that's what it takes, that what it takes.  I figure if I'm spending all this time and money on these sessions, that to see the full effect of the training I should do what it takes to reach my goals so protein shakes, here I come!

Soooo...Tuesday is lower body.  Excited to see what the workout will be!