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kaigouVarious commentary and observations and a bit of snark, behind the cut: time to get back in shape.
So CP's been going to the gym, and I kept pondering it but was too depressed to muster the motivation, but not being shape was just making me even more depressed. (Plus, the city culture around here is heavily weighted towards college-age. Having been legal to drink for longer than two years AND being overweight seems to have taken its toll. I know, it's not something anyone is supposed to hold against you in an interview, but there's no denying the subtle ageism and shapeism. This didn't exactly make the depression less, either, and I ended up in a kind of feedback loop.)
Anyway, finally I announced I'd be going with him, and joining the gym as well. Just thinking about it, or trying to motivate to at least walk the dogs or do cals wasn't getting me anywhere. After all, when you're at the gym, it's not like you can pause to check email or, I don't know, get distracted or whatever. Not entirely impressed with the sign-up routine, since I had to ask someone on my second visit to show me how the machines were grouped, and even then no one mentioned trainers until a few days later. *eyeroll*
I hate finding trainers. It's an agonizing process up there with finding a good hair stylist. I think I was spoiled the first time I joined a gym, lucking out with the gym's manager. Sadistic, if friendly, bastard, who clearly had spent time coaching. He told me where it should hurt, and where it should NOT hurt (as in: sign I'm doing it wrong). He'd count for me, then tell me to do five more. If I could keep going, he'd keep counting. I crawled out of the gym every time, by my fingernails, and I loved it. When I joined a gym down here (after we first moved), the trainer gave me a workout that was mostly cals and only a few weights (and I love weights, and will do just about anything to get out of doing cals). Plus, she seemed more inclined to be friendly than to be coach-like, so when I started chatting, she'd chat, too (instead of being a good coach and yanking me back on task).
This time, I asked for someone with athletic experience, used to the athlete's brain, who had coaching experience. I should've been more specific, in that I wanted someone who'd coached girls, not some high school football team. I finally had to tell the guy, up front, that I know full well (for reasons of socialization or whatever), that to motivate most guy athletes, just tell them to make it hurt. Guys will flail around, make it hurt, and be happy. But girls want to know where it should hurt, and how much, and when, because we're measuring that information against what's happening, to determine whether we're doing it right. I'm not saying this is universal for the sexes; it's just what I saw, over and over, with guys' coaches and teams, versus girls' coaches and teams, and what worked for each. So me, having learned to ask/require that information early on, still require it.
Putting me on a machine and saying, it works these muscles, isn't enough. I want to know where else it might/should/shouldn't hurt, and when, to know if I'm doing it right (or if it should hurt at all, and if it shouldn't hurt, hell, what's the point, but that could just be me). I think we were on the third exercise before I finally came this close to snapping at the trainer. I had asked whether the back of my shoulder-cap should hurt, and he said, yeah, it might hurt a little there. I told him, I didn't ask whether it might hurt, I said it does hurt, and it doesn't hurt anywhere else. To me, that says that my muscles are compensating -- my shoulder's taking the burden when he'd told me this should work my abdominals. If there's one thing I learned in crew, it's that when your legs (frex) aren't strong enough, you compensate by using your arms, and that wrecks your technique because the power is in your legs -- plus it can mess up your back, too, because you're wrenching muscles that aren't supposed to be taking the hit.
Annoyingly, I never did find out whether the workout worked my stomach muscles enough. Or if the weight was too light for my stomach muscles but too heavy for my shoulders, so my shoulders were feeling the work more than my gut. I've spent a lot of the past year being far more sedentary than usual, but I've done that in the past and of all the muscle I had and lost, the stomach muscles are one thing I've always retained. Downsized, some, but still far more than you might expect. So I think the exercises he gave me are mostly revealing that my arms/shoulders aren't as strong, and that's why the weights feel like nothing, but the pain's showing up in the wrong places.
In the end, he gave me a list of things to do... and said to do them two days a week. That's not what I wanted! I wanted a six-day-a-week routine, trading off doing this on this day, that on that day, with cals every day. What's this measly two-days-a-week thing? Either I get into the routine of going every day and feeling the burn, or I'll just get bored. Doing the same thing, every time I work out, will bore me. It was like he didn't even hear me, and just brushed me off, when I said I wanted alternating days. Then I asked about stuff for my legs, and he told me that doing the chest pull thing, whatever it is, while in a squat, is working my legs enough.
Ugh. I'm thinking about going in and talking to the manager, because I liked the trainer, but that was a waste of time and money for me. I didn't walk out of there by dragging myself by my fingernails, fine, but I didn't even walk out tired. Well, except for the back of my shoulder-cap, which wasn't even a muscle group I was ostensibly working on. I felt like I'd just, I don't know, moved some wood around in the garage -- tired for a few minutes and then fine. If that's what I wanted, I'd bloody well move wood around in the garage and save myself the cash!
Possibly, it's just me, since the other advice was to do 30-60 minutes a day of walking, biking, swimming. Everyone's first suggestion is the elliptical if your knees are bad, but that's downright painful if the knee-issue is lack of cartilege -- it's not exactly pleasurable (and painful in a bad way) to hear the grinding sound with every move. Ugh. The seated bicycle doesn't hurt my knees, but it's boring. Just sitting there. But I can walk, just fine, without knees hurting, so... today I motivated and went and did a treadmill for an hour.
Now that was a workout. I got off at 30 minutes to drink lots of water, stretch, take a five-minute break, and get back on. The guy showing me how to program it suggested a .5 incline and a casual speed of like 1 or 1.5, then up it to 3 for a minute, and take it back down. Problem: I have a long stride, and I walk really fast. Within about five minutes of the first stretch, I had it at my pace (about 3.5 mph, turns out), and I just raised/lowered the incline from about 1.5 to 2. Every now and then I'd increase the incline to 2.5, just for the hell of it, then take it back down, and drop the speed to 3... and within about five paces, I'm at the very front of the treadmill because I'm walking faster than the treadmill's turning.
Here's the problem: the trainer said to get my heart rate at 70% of whatever. Some calculation. I couldn't remember the exact number, but when I checked my heart-rate, it was 150. Whoops. I'm supposed to aim for 125-135, something like that. I'm not sure whether I should slow down in speed (it's not like I'm running! I'm walking at my comfortable pace!) or reduce the incline... or just leave it, and figure that as my heart gets back to strength, that my heart rate will drop and I'll be in the proper aerobic zone and no longer going anaerobic.
But still! I somehow managed to get off the treadmill and remain vertical, both times, and my knees didn't hurt. (My feet were another matter -- three miles is a lot to walk when you usually only do like a half-mile with the dogs, with random stops here and there to check out the smells.) But the remaining-vertical was really close, and that was my idea of satisfying, to push that hard.
Now I just have to figure out how to take what the trainer suggested, and pad it out and change it so it's a six-day-a-week program that will be enough to make me crawl out of there every single time. Sheesh. I'm not sure whether he gave me such a low bar because he's taking my age/weight/shape into account, or if he gave me such a low bar because he honestly didn't realize he's dealing with the mental training (if not the current physical shape) of an athlete and that doing just one mile per hour isn't in my mental cards. I want to do far more than that, and I like being pushed that hard. I don't like feeling patronized or pitied or underestimated.
Bleah. Guess on Monday I'll be asking after the manager, to politely request someone who'll take me seriously. Le sigh.
So CP's been going to the gym, and I kept pondering it but was too depressed to muster the motivation, but not being shape was just making me even more depressed. (Plus, the city culture around here is heavily weighted towards college-age. Having been legal to drink for longer than two years AND being overweight seems to have taken its toll. I know, it's not something anyone is supposed to hold against you in an interview, but there's no denying the subtle ageism and shapeism. This didn't exactly make the depression less, either, and I ended up in a kind of feedback loop.)
Anyway, finally I announced I'd be going with him, and joining the gym as well. Just thinking about it, or trying to motivate to at least walk the dogs or do cals wasn't getting me anywhere. After all, when you're at the gym, it's not like you can pause to check email or, I don't know, get distracted or whatever. Not entirely impressed with the sign-up routine, since I had to ask someone on my second visit to show me how the machines were grouped, and even then no one mentioned trainers until a few days later. *eyeroll*
I hate finding trainers. It's an agonizing process up there with finding a good hair stylist. I think I was spoiled the first time I joined a gym, lucking out with the gym's manager. Sadistic, if friendly, bastard, who clearly had spent time coaching. He told me where it should hurt, and where it should NOT hurt (as in: sign I'm doing it wrong). He'd count for me, then tell me to do five more. If I could keep going, he'd keep counting. I crawled out of the gym every time, by my fingernails, and I loved it. When I joined a gym down here (after we first moved), the trainer gave me a workout that was mostly cals and only a few weights (and I love weights, and will do just about anything to get out of doing cals). Plus, she seemed more inclined to be friendly than to be coach-like, so when I started chatting, she'd chat, too (instead of being a good coach and yanking me back on task).
This time, I asked for someone with athletic experience, used to the athlete's brain, who had coaching experience. I should've been more specific, in that I wanted someone who'd coached girls, not some high school football team. I finally had to tell the guy, up front, that I know full well (for reasons of socialization or whatever), that to motivate most guy athletes, just tell them to make it hurt. Guys will flail around, make it hurt, and be happy. But girls want to know where it should hurt, and how much, and when, because we're measuring that information against what's happening, to determine whether we're doing it right. I'm not saying this is universal for the sexes; it's just what I saw, over and over, with guys' coaches and teams, versus girls' coaches and teams, and what worked for each. So me, having learned to ask/require that information early on, still require it.
Putting me on a machine and saying, it works these muscles, isn't enough. I want to know where else it might/should/shouldn't hurt, and when, to know if I'm doing it right (or if it should hurt at all, and if it shouldn't hurt, hell, what's the point, but that could just be me). I think we were on the third exercise before I finally came this close to snapping at the trainer. I had asked whether the back of my shoulder-cap should hurt, and he said, yeah, it might hurt a little there. I told him, I didn't ask whether it might hurt, I said it does hurt, and it doesn't hurt anywhere else. To me, that says that my muscles are compensating -- my shoulder's taking the burden when he'd told me this should work my abdominals. If there's one thing I learned in crew, it's that when your legs (frex) aren't strong enough, you compensate by using your arms, and that wrecks your technique because the power is in your legs -- plus it can mess up your back, too, because you're wrenching muscles that aren't supposed to be taking the hit.
Annoyingly, I never did find out whether the workout worked my stomach muscles enough. Or if the weight was too light for my stomach muscles but too heavy for my shoulders, so my shoulders were feeling the work more than my gut. I've spent a lot of the past year being far more sedentary than usual, but I've done that in the past and of all the muscle I had and lost, the stomach muscles are one thing I've always retained. Downsized, some, but still far more than you might expect. So I think the exercises he gave me are mostly revealing that my arms/shoulders aren't as strong, and that's why the weights feel like nothing, but the pain's showing up in the wrong places.
In the end, he gave me a list of things to do... and said to do them two days a week. That's not what I wanted! I wanted a six-day-a-week routine, trading off doing this on this day, that on that day, with cals every day. What's this measly two-days-a-week thing? Either I get into the routine of going every day and feeling the burn, or I'll just get bored. Doing the same thing, every time I work out, will bore me. It was like he didn't even hear me, and just brushed me off, when I said I wanted alternating days. Then I asked about stuff for my legs, and he told me that doing the chest pull thing, whatever it is, while in a squat, is working my legs enough.
Ugh. I'm thinking about going in and talking to the manager, because I liked the trainer, but that was a waste of time and money for me. I didn't walk out of there by dragging myself by my fingernails, fine, but I didn't even walk out tired. Well, except for the back of my shoulder-cap, which wasn't even a muscle group I was ostensibly working on. I felt like I'd just, I don't know, moved some wood around in the garage -- tired for a few minutes and then fine. If that's what I wanted, I'd bloody well move wood around in the garage and save myself the cash!
Possibly, it's just me, since the other advice was to do 30-60 minutes a day of walking, biking, swimming. Everyone's first suggestion is the elliptical if your knees are bad, but that's downright painful if the knee-issue is lack of cartilege -- it's not exactly pleasurable (and painful in a bad way) to hear the grinding sound with every move. Ugh. The seated bicycle doesn't hurt my knees, but it's boring. Just sitting there. But I can walk, just fine, without knees hurting, so... today I motivated and went and did a treadmill for an hour.
Now that was a workout. I got off at 30 minutes to drink lots of water, stretch, take a five-minute break, and get back on. The guy showing me how to program it suggested a .5 incline and a casual speed of like 1 or 1.5, then up it to 3 for a minute, and take it back down. Problem: I have a long stride, and I walk really fast. Within about five minutes of the first stretch, I had it at my pace (about 3.5 mph, turns out), and I just raised/lowered the incline from about 1.5 to 2. Every now and then I'd increase the incline to 2.5, just for the hell of it, then take it back down, and drop the speed to 3... and within about five paces, I'm at the very front of the treadmill because I'm walking faster than the treadmill's turning.
Here's the problem: the trainer said to get my heart rate at 70% of whatever. Some calculation. I couldn't remember the exact number, but when I checked my heart-rate, it was 150. Whoops. I'm supposed to aim for 125-135, something like that. I'm not sure whether I should slow down in speed (it's not like I'm running! I'm walking at my comfortable pace!) or reduce the incline... or just leave it, and figure that as my heart gets back to strength, that my heart rate will drop and I'll be in the proper aerobic zone and no longer going anaerobic.
But still! I somehow managed to get off the treadmill and remain vertical, both times, and my knees didn't hurt. (My feet were another matter -- three miles is a lot to walk when you usually only do like a half-mile with the dogs, with random stops here and there to check out the smells.) But the remaining-vertical was really close, and that was my idea of satisfying, to push that hard.
Now I just have to figure out how to take what the trainer suggested, and pad it out and change it so it's a six-day-a-week program that will be enough to make me crawl out of there every single time. Sheesh. I'm not sure whether he gave me such a low bar because he's taking my age/weight/shape into account, or if he gave me such a low bar because he honestly didn't realize he's dealing with the mental training (if not the current physical shape) of an athlete and that doing just one mile per hour isn't in my mental cards. I want to do far more than that, and I like being pushed that hard. I don't like feeling patronized or pitied or underestimated.
Bleah. Guess on Monday I'll be asking after the manager, to politely request someone who'll take me seriously. Le sigh.
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no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 05:53 am (UTC)Tangentially, what is up with the stomach crunches? It's like everyone's got to have some wierd way of doing crunches that requires legs up or down or arms in the air or some other nonsense. What was wrong with just doing inclined stomach crunches with your legs tucked under the bar? Stupid fancy cals that I can never remember how to do the next day... bleah.
no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 08:38 am (UTC)No clue on the calisthenics, I've never been an athlete.
no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 02:57 pm (UTC)Besides, a lot of trainers like to say that they're sadists, but they're not, not really. Except for that first guy (who did have major coaching experience), the rest have all been the kind of person who'd give me twenty... and no more. The first guy could see I still had something left after twenty, and would tell me five more, then five more after that, until I really was agonizing over the last two or three. Man, it was great. And I don't know how to find someone like that again, not when every trainer likes to think they're like that, and doesn't realize they actually aren't.
no subject
Date: 25 Jun 2012 04:52 am (UTC)Sounds kind of like you're looking for a coach rather than a personal trainer. Coaches, as I understand it, aren't so much worried about keeping you happy as getting results, whereas personal trainers are more employees of the trainees and therefore don't want to push them too hard for fear that the trainees will leave and find someone else who's not so tough on them. Maybe you could see if you can find someone who's been a drill instructor?
no subject
Date: 25 Jun 2012 05:13 am (UTC)I've noticed that when I complain (which I always do) while working out, a trainer backs down. The coaches I've had -- like the first trainer I had -- just scoff and tell me to keep going. That's what I want, and "drill instructor" probably fits that even better. Heh. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 25 Jun 2012 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 06:38 pm (UTC)Though my best dance teacher was very into "do a hundred of each different kind!". At least it was some variation!
no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Jun 2012 10:57 pm (UTC)A lot of the exercises the trainer gave me are cord-based (where you pull on something, rather than sit/stand at a precise one-exercise machine), the way you stand and move is important. Not knowing where it should hurt (and not feeling any hurt at all in the muscle groups he said I'm supposed to be working) leaves me wondering if I'm heading for an injury because my technique is wrong. And that would really piss me off.
no subject
Date: 25 Jun 2012 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 26 Jun 2012 05:10 pm (UTC)In the gym environment, everyone says they're masochists, mostly because I think the social assumption is that to work out, you must be a masochist. But it's mostly lip service, and you don't really discover who enjoys the burn until you do a session working with them. Until then, it's all talk. Guess it just took two sessions to find someone who wasn't all talk.