My personal trainer rocks

I joined Results Gym the middle of January. I’ve been very pleased with my experience there. The facilities are first rate. Everything is in its proper place. If you have a 25 pound dumbbell, you never have to spend time finding the other one. I have yet to see a piece of equipment out of order. The gym is very clean. It’s nice not to have to bring a towel to the gym like I had to at Bally’s. You can just concentrate on the workout. Also, the hours of the gym are great. On the weekends it opens at 7 am. (The location at DuPont Circle opens at 6 on Saturday. Yes, there are people there that early.) A couple of times I've actually been there around 7. The only thing I don’t like about being there that early is I was the only one there besides the staff. It was a little creepy until more people showed up.

As pleased as I am with the gym, I’m even more pleased with my personal trainer. I decided, if I was really and truly finally going to get into shape or as in shape as I could, I needed to have a trainer to show me the proper exercises to reach my goal and to push me to reach it. I got a really great trainer. His name is Randy. He works out of the Results at the downtown location. I’m not sure if he does training at the other locations.

I’ve been taking personal training sessions with Randy for a little over a month. I’ve never done the same workout routine with him twice. There are similar exercises in the routines but never the same routine from start to finish. The order of the exercises are not shuffled around so although the exercise are not done in the same order you’re still doing all the same exercises. That has never happened. At the end of most sessions, Randy will say now you might hurt tomorrow. My response is that I’ll hurt by the time I’m done with my shower. This is only a slight exaggeration. Usually I do hurt the next day. But I’ve noticed that the more I train the faster I recover from the last training session.

Each session lasts around 50 minutes depending on what we are doing. Except for the time it takes to walk back and forth from the drinking fountain, I’m working out the entire time. There is very little if any rest between exercises or sets of exercises. I know I’m reaching my target heart rate because by the time I’m done with the workout I’m soaked in sweat.

The routines are varied. One time we boxed. I never realized how long a three minute boxing round is until I was in one. Randy would shout out which punch I was supposed to do while I was dancing around him. I felt a little silly doing it but in the end I got a great workout. Today I used a medicine ball in all the exercises.

Many of the exercises are tailored to help me with the problem areas that I have. I don’t have the greatest balance. I never really have. This is exacerbated by the problem that I have with my ankle. I still have problems with it from time to especially after an intense workout. Also because I don’t do the exercises I was giving by physical therapist as often as I should. The other area being worked on is in my hamstrings which Randy says are very tight. This prevents my lower body from being as flexible as it should be and reduces the range of motion on some of the exercises I do for my lower body.

Last week I asked Randy if I was making progress. I thought I was. I thought I was getting a littler stronger. The workouts did not wipe me out as the did in the first few weeks. Randy said I was making progress. He liked working with me because I concentrated on form with each of the exercises. I still had my doubts.

I had my doubts that is until today. I did a lunge exercise. This is where you take a step forward with your right leg and the knee of your left leg touches as close to the floor as possible. You then take the left leg and step forward while the right knee touches the floor. The idea is to do this as a smooth motion without stopping between lunges by bringing your feet together and then starting the next lunge. A month ago that is what I would have had to do. Pause between the lunges. Today there was no pause. I did this while holding the medicine ball above my head! I was even able to go backwards without pausing (this time without the medicine ball).

So in closing I have to say that my personal trainer rocks.

I can hardly wait to see what further progress I can make in the coming weeks.