Life of the Lintee Bean

Personal training with the awesome Ron tonight!  I did a little stretching while he finished up with his earlier client.  I’m starting a new stage of my “New Rules of Lifting: Supercharged” program and I like to go over my exercise choices with Ron, review form, etc.

For my core work, he suggested stability ball roll-outs.  These sound innocent enough – but they are REALLY hard and HURT.  I managed ten… if you count the two where I got “stuck” and Ron had to give me a push.

For my “power” work, I learned kettlebell swings.  These aren’t bad – though I’m afraid the weight is going to fly out of my hand and smack some other gym member in the head, making their brains come out of the heads and opening me up to a liability lawsuit.

For “single-leg stance” we did single-leg Romanian deadlifts.  These are difficult, but I kind of like them.  I struggled with them when I was doing the “for Women” program.  Now I’m much better at them, meaning  I fall over less often.  In fact, Ron said I had the best form he’d seen on them!  Yay, me!

For “push”, I did dumbbell shoulder press.  Something simple that I’ve done for ages and while I still don’t have as much strength as I’d like – my brain doesn’t have to work that hard, just my arms/shoulders.

For “squat” I did barbell back squats which are kind of my favorite things EVER.  Squats are just cool.  I warmed up with a set of five at 95 pounds.  I told Ron I REALLY want to do a 20 rep set at 145 pounds, so I can get a zillion quest points on Fitocracy.  He didn’t seem optimistic I could do this.  I think I might… someday.  Not now.  Tonight we did 135 pounds… and the first rep, I went down… and then it went “bad”.  Suddenly, I was falling and yelling at Ron and it was just ugly.  Ron saved me, but it was scary.  I just stood there a while thinking about how scary that was.  Then I decided to try it again so I wouldn’t lose my nerve.  I did a set of five reps at 135 pounds – then a second set.  Nothing bad happened.

For “pull”, I did my assisted chin-ups. I told Ron I wanted to try with my “smaller” band – which is only supposed to assist about 25 pounds.  I tried it – and I DID IT!!!!  I was so excited I just hung there afterward, staring at Ron.  He yelled “Don’t stop!  Keep doing them!”  But of course, it was too late and my arms were noodles and he needed to untangle me from the band so I could get down.  I rested a minute – and tried again, and I DID IT AGAIN!  It was super exciting!!!!  I told him I wanted to try it without ANY assistance, just to see… and I did… and I DID IT!!!  It was really hard and I honestly didn’t think I’d make it, but he was yelling and I DID IT!  There was a lot of screaming and happy dancing and high five-ing… not just with Ron but with a random trainer I didn’t know that was in the vicinity.  I AM SO PROUD OF ME!

Ever since I started the “New Rules of Lifting” program, I’ve wanted to do an unassisted chin-up.  This has been my biggest goal.  If I remember correctly, I could do things like this as a child playing on monkey bars… but definitely haven’t done these since at least my early teens.

I tried to do another unassisted one, but couldn’t manage.

Then we did a “circuit” of body-weight squats, squat jumps, big ball rotations, ninja lateral lunges, and ball slams… then I went home and ATE ALL THE FOOD, as I am building muscles!

Assisted chin-ups, with “training wheels” (in the form of a resistance band) – 48% less awesome than unassisted chin-ups