Tandem Trainers

For the last two Tuesdays, I’ve had tandem training sessions. I’ve had not one but two personal trainers. There’s my regular Ed and the new guy Shawn. I’m not entirely sure why Shawn is sitting on the training sessions. I’m thinking because he’s a new trainer. I haven’t had a chance to ask Ed what the scoop is.

But I thinks it’s great! It’s interesting to see them try and out do each other with exercises. Of course I’m the person that has to do the exercises but I really like the challenge. Shawn has come up with some very good exercise to do. One was on my least favorite piece of equipment the bosu ball. All sorts of fun things can be done with it. I’m not very good on it.

Anyway, Shawn had me put my feet on the ball and then do a push up. Now that sounds fairly simple but there’s an added step. After doing the push up you bring your left hand over to where your right hand is and then extend out your right hand so your in the push up position again. You do another push up and then reverse the process. It’s not all that easy to do. The other exercise also on the bosu ball is to put your hands together making a triangle with them and then doing a push up. This concentrates more on the triceps then just your chest like a regular push up would.

Shawn also uses straps for exercise. There’s one where I take hold of the handles and he holds the middle of the strap and I do various pulling exercises. The most difficult one he’s had me do is the following. I have two dumbbells one in each hand. I hold them at my sides. I lift them straight out in front of me until they are even with my shoulders. I then move my arms out to the side. I maintain this position and then do a squat. As I rise up from the squat I let the dumbbells drop to my side and then start all over again. This was very hard but I was able to get through 12 reps.

That’s not to say Ed doesn’t have some difficult exercises for me because he does. His exercises are always a challenge, although I will say I think I'm getting better at doing his stuff. On the whole, I think I’m making very good progress. My sense of balance is better but still not as good as it should be but on this matter I’m definitely a work in progress. I also think that the easy with which I did my century has a great deal to do with the spinning classes that I’ve taken but also the personal training sessions.

I'm also walking regularly in the evening and in the morning when I don't go to the gym. What I want to do is walk for around 30 minutes or more. When I'm back from my walk, get on my stationary bike and ride it. I'd start at 10 minutes and work my way up to about 30 minutes. So at least 3-4 nights a week I'd do that. I hope to start that soon.

One last area that needs improvement and that is of course my weight. But even here I’m making some progress. I’m below 180 and heading toward 175. I’m hoping to be close to that by September.