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Re-focus
I had a 're-focus' session at the gym today with a personal trainer I'd not worked with before. Fred is a middle-aged guy who's been in the industry for years, and has a rather sexy bod. I'm not sure if I'll go with everything he suggested, but he's talking about sorting out three separate programmes for me for different areas of the body, which'll be useful. I suck rather at knowing which exercises are for which areas of the body (apart from the very obvious), and having a split programme that is really obvious should help with that.
The more thought that goes into my regime, the better. If I just go at it without thinking, I end up knackering myself before I get to the interesting little exercises that can tweak things in interesting ways. (Tired, vocabulary therefore gone to sh*t.)
I got compliments! Fred said I obviously know a lot (about training) and complimented my form with most exercises even including squats and lunges. He reinforced that it was good I was doing running and walking outside of the gym.
Things I learned:
* Something about elbows (Fred will write it down.)
* When doing pull-ups, don't drop my body down so low that my shoulders are near my ears (crucifiction position). Keep my shoulder/back muscles taut.
* Instead of resting between sets, I can alternate exercises so I keep my heart rate up but don't let a particular muscle/muscle group get tired. That way I can burn more calories. Maybe.
* Change the position of my arm when I'm doing bent-over-row, so my arm is sort of in front of my face instead of by my waist. I'll need to drop the weight for this, it'll be more difficult.
* (I'm really dubious about this one...) When doing chest press, don't let the bar go as far down as my chest. The lower part of the press is exercising my shoulders more than my chest. Defo dubious about this.
* When doing triceps extensions, do single-arm ones so I don't favour my weaker arm.
* To make calf-raises more difficult, bend knees to 90 degrees. Either do this on the leg press, or squatting down and holding a pillar.
* Doing seated triceps extensions/shoulder press is better because I can maintain better form that way.
While I was at the gym I did a quick session.
20 mins reclining bike (5 mins warm-up, 15 mins intervals)
Squats on the Smith machine. 15kg * 8,7,7
Walking lunges with dumbbells. Up and down the width of the gym twice with 6kg dumbbells then once with 4kg dumbbells. Ouch.
Squatting calf-raises, 10, 14, 14
Cool down on the silly floating platform thing. (Hey, I was bored, plus I find it difficult.)
Ooh, then I lugged a not-very-portable massage table to Eltham. Go me!
The more thought that goes into my regime, the better. If I just go at it without thinking, I end up knackering myself before I get to the interesting little exercises that can tweak things in interesting ways. (Tired, vocabulary therefore gone to sh*t.)
I got compliments! Fred said I obviously know a lot (about training) and complimented my form with most exercises even including squats and lunges. He reinforced that it was good I was doing running and walking outside of the gym.
Things I learned:
* Something about elbows (Fred will write it down.)
* When doing pull-ups, don't drop my body down so low that my shoulders are near my ears (crucifiction position). Keep my shoulder/back muscles taut.
* Instead of resting between sets, I can alternate exercises so I keep my heart rate up but don't let a particular muscle/muscle group get tired. That way I can burn more calories. Maybe.
* Change the position of my arm when I'm doing bent-over-row, so my arm is sort of in front of my face instead of by my waist. I'll need to drop the weight for this, it'll be more difficult.
* (I'm really dubious about this one...) When doing chest press, don't let the bar go as far down as my chest. The lower part of the press is exercising my shoulders more than my chest. Defo dubious about this.
* When doing triceps extensions, do single-arm ones so I don't favour my weaker arm.
* To make calf-raises more difficult, bend knees to 90 degrees. Either do this on the leg press, or squatting down and holding a pillar.
* Doing seated triceps extensions/shoulder press is better because I can maintain better form that way.
While I was at the gym I did a quick session.
20 mins reclining bike (5 mins warm-up, 15 mins intervals)
Squats on the Smith machine. 15kg * 8,7,7
Walking lunges with dumbbells. Up and down the width of the gym twice with 6kg dumbbells then once with 4kg dumbbells. Ouch.
Squatting calf-raises, 10, 14, 14
Cool down on the silly floating platform thing. (Hey, I was bored, plus I find it difficult.)
Ooh, then I lugged a not-very-portable massage table to Eltham. Go me!