Still standing

Today was my first workout with my LifeTime Fitness trainer Kyle -- and I'm happy to report that I am still standing!

Kyle is about 11 years younger than I am and grew up in my husband's hometown. He looked a little to me like a priest -- close cropped hair, full dark beard -- which helped me not think mean thoughts about him as my muscles were literally shaking from the paces he was putting me through. I'll try to snap a picture of him next week.

We started with a five-minute warm up on the treadmill. Then we went through a series of resistance exercises -- reverse lunges, bicep curls, and a bunch of other exercises that I can't remember what they're called. Kyle explained what each exercise was meant to do, carefully naming each muscle group that was being worked on. I nodded and pretended to have a clue what he was talking about. Note to self: get a human anatomy book and learn the muscle groups.

I did learn that while Kyle said one set of reps is not enough, it is thatfirst set that doesn't feel so bad. We'd take a 90 second break or so between the sets (to allow the lactic acid building up in my muscles to have a chance to dissipate -- see I am learning!) and then go again. It's the go again part that was giving me grief. I tried to get Kyle chatting about himself or me or anything to distract him from remembering I was supposed to curling, lifting or crunching again. Turns out he has a good memory and I was out of luck.

My best performance was the plank - think pushup stance, only your forearms are on the ground in front of you and you just hold the position as far as you can. I made it 53 seconds the first time, then a full 60 seconds the second time. My most dismal was the shoulder raises (or whatever they're called). Yikes, did those hurt!

One thing I was surprised about what how much of a mental workout I got. I really had to concentrate to count reps, exhale on the exertion, think about the correct form for each exercise. Kyle said that the first few weeks of training is a lot of neurological work as your brain gets used to telling which muscles to fire when. Makes sense to me.

I can't believe I'm saying this about exercise, but, honestly, I had fun. At the beginning of the workout, I asked Kyle if he was more like Bob or Jillian. He answered "both." If I had a vote, I'd say he was more like Bob. He was encouraging, often pushing for "just two more" and responding with a high five when I achieved it.

I'm scheduled to work with Kyle again next Wednesday. Until then he's given me a reprieve on resistance training (but not on cardio!), which is good because even though I'm still standing, I am definitely feeling the workout.