Tuesday, September 29, 2015

The Similarities Between Seeing a Disciplinarian and Seeing a Personal Trainer

I admit it, I'm a Gym Rat and I've been working with a personal trainer for a long time. Sometimes while I'm in my personal training session I'll think about these similarities, and smile secretly to myself. Maybe we'll be working on bench presses, and I'll be getting to that point where I don't think I can go further, that my arms are getting close to giving out on me. I'm sweating up a storm, and that dang 65 pound bar is so fricking HEAVY!!! And just then my trainer will say "3 more, I know you can do 3 more reps, I'm here for you and I'll catch the bar if your arms really do give up". And I always make those last 3 excruciatingly hard reps and my arms never give out.  If I was on my own, I never would have done those last 3 reps.  Partly because sometimes my trainer has more faith in me than I do in myself, party because sometimes I take the easy route and don't push myself as hard as I should.  On the other hand there are times I've been out of the gym for a couple weeks due to an injury of some sort.  When I get back, I am revving to go, I've missed my weight lifting routine so much and am totally pumped. My trainer can see that after missing 2 weeks of workouts, that my body is a bit slower, it's re-learning things once again, and my heart rate is going crazy, so he cautions me that we need to take things a bit slower in getting back to my original workouts. My mind is going "Let's do more! I can take more, and I want to be right back to where I was pre-injury" and my body is saying "Slow down there, we need to take things easy, there's no rush, you'll get back to where you were at the right pace, not this breakneck speed you're trying to go at". My trainer senses this and tailors my workouts to accommodate this. He also checks in with me and disciplines me when needed.  Asking me how many workouts I got in the past week and what types of workouts I did. Checking in with me on how nutrition has been for the past week. Most of the time I'm good, but sometimes I'm bad.  When he has me list out some of the things I've eaten and I have to admit I had a bunch of chocolate truffles, some brownies, a Taco Bell quesadilla, and my favorite mac n cheese, I know I'm in trouble.  And then when he asks if I at least just had only one chocolate truffle, and I sheepishly admit that I've actually eaten 4 chocolate truffles...in one day! Oh my, he looks like he is ready to spank me! But he's also my cheerleader as well.  We celebrate my little successes like when I squatted in the squat rack with more weight than EVER before.  So maybe the next time you're at the gym, you'll think of me or some other disciplinarian you know and smile secretly to yourself ;)


1 comment:

  1. In 2003, I hired a personal trainer to help me get in shape for a 10k who was younger than my own kids. She used to utterly destroy me, but it was the best time I ever posted for a 10k since college. Both trainers and disciplinarians help get performance out of you that you only suspected you had, sometimes even exceeding your expectations. Great analogy.

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