Life of the Lintee Bean

I had my first session with my new personal trainer, Nick, this week. It was okay. He has a lot to learn.

We started by just sitting down and getting to know each other a little. I told him my whiny-ness level was at a 7 tonight (on a scale 1 to 10).  He seemed surprised I start my sessions this way.  I find it’s good to give my trainer an idea what they are in for before I land up throwing a tantrum in the middle of the gym, flailing my arms and whining “this is HARD!!!!”.  They should plan accordingly.

My former trainer had warned Nick that HE does not choose what we do… I choose what we do. However, he asked me how I felt about incorporating the Bosu ball into my routine. My face told him quickly how I felt about that. NO.  Bosu is a four-letter word.

I let him know that I HATE cardio and I cannot jump and any exercises that involve multiple steps are difficult.  He thinks he can teach me how to jump. Hmm… I don’t believe that. He’s not seen me attempt this “jumping” thing.

He asked about my diet.  I told him I don’t eat meat, and I don’t do it for health reasons – so don’t bother trying to explain the benefits of protein – it’s gross and I just cannot do it.  I’ll eat Greek yogurt and eggs and try to watch my protein intake, but that’s as far as it’ll go.  He was okay with that.  He asked “for example, what did you eat yesterday?” Let’s see… for breakfast, I had a protein drink – good! For lunch – I just had soup (not much protein) but knowing that, had a nonfat latte, so got some protein there.  By dinner I was starving, and I ate whatever I could find in my kitchen (Brussel sprouts, soy meatballs, other random stuff)…..

… and then I ate peanut butter out of the jar, with chocolate chips.

He said he eats peanut butter out of the jar too… but not with chocolate chips.  (It is 98% more awesome with chocolate chips.)

He asked if I had any medical conditions.  I told him I am old.  He said that’s not a medical condition.  I’m just saying – I’m going to come in and say “my knee hurts” or “my shoulder hurts” and he’ll ask why (at least my former trainer always did) and I don’t know why – I’m old.  Things hurt sometimes.  Also, I have the mystery motion-sickness-like thing that sometimes makes me nauseous and, combined with my natural clumsiness, causes me to fall down sometimes.  So, there’s that.  Oh, and at present I seem to be having some violent allergic reaction to something and I’m itchy and covered in hives.

He asked me about my goals.  Obviously, my goals are to lose fat and increase muscle.  Does anyone come in hoping to gain fat and lose muscle?  This seems obvious.  I told him I wanted to have gigantic gorilla arms and skinny chicken legs.  He said he was not going to let that happen.  I told him I wanted to grow biceps.  I told him I want to do handstand push-ups.  He seemed a little uncomfortable with that, and said we’d have to start with overhead presses… I just want to do handstand push-ups… someday.

I want to do EVERYTHING in the first part of the “Cryin’ Like a Bitch” video by Godsmack.  He was unfamiliar – so his “homework” was to watch this video.  I don’t need to do the stuff in the last part of the video, where the mixed martial arts fighters pummel each other and bleed… just the first part where they do one-armed inverted rows and spider push-ups and other awesome stuff.

I told him I’d finally done an unassisted pull-up.  He’d been there when I did my first unassisted chin-up, so he said “Oh, you’re THAT girl!”.  Yup, the woman that went nuts because she just did her first unassisted chin-up and made her trainer do a happy dance with her.  Now, I want to do three unassisted pull-ups in a row.  Then I want to work up to muscle-ups, because being able to pull your entire TORSO away from the zombies will be even better than just pulling your head out of danger.

New trainer is VERY into high-fives, and said I would have to work with that. I can work with that, that’s fine.

… and though I promised to do my second set of rear lunges after we “checked out” (time for our session to end), he said NO and made me do them RIGHT NOW. He is mean.

So, we started with a little boring core work – plank jacks.  I understand the importance of core work – I just find most of it boring.  It’s probably good my current program does it first and gets it out of the way.

Next… POWER.  (Sounds fun, doesn’t it?)  Tonight for “power”, I’d selected one-armed dumbbell snatches.  Nick told me all the things I was doing wrong, and I was able to correct a few things.  So far, so good.

Time for strength super-sets.  First up:  Romanian Deadlifts, super-set with overhead dumbbell presses, super-set with goblet Bulgarian split squats.  Why the HECK I’d put Bulgarian split squats into my routine, I don’t remember.  They are HARD.  They make me want to die – preferably, at home, in my bed, peacefully, soon.    I didn’t do all the reps in my second set of split squats… and omitted the third sets of everything entirely.  We were running short of time, anyway.  I also dislike that this stage of my program has us aiming for 12 reps per set.  I told Nick I would prefer to do very heavy weights for one rep with poor form.  Nick does not like this idea.  Nick is being difficult.

Moving on to more strength super-sets… this time, lat pulldowns and rear lunges with overhead presses.  WHY did I include rear lunges?  They are also really REALLY hard!  I did my first set of pulldowns… some reps of the first set of rear lunges… looked up at the clock.  I did 10 of the 12 reps in my second set of lat pulldowns.  Nick chastised me for giving up at ten – he felt I had two more in me.  I don’t think I did.  I wanted to go home and vomit now.

I told Nick I’d do the second set of rear lunges/overhead presses after I checked out.  Our time was up.  Nick said I could do them now.  Oh, I don’t want to make him late for his next client… I can do them later.  Nick said I could do them RIGHT NOW.  Nick is mean.  I did some reps, and then threatened to die if we did not stop.

Checked out, and our first session came to an end.  I had broken a nail, and Nick did not even CARE.  Of course, my lack of nail polish and haggard cuticles could have made my plaintive “Oh no!  I broke a nail” rather difficult to believe, I suppose.

Afterward, I went upstairs and did some easier upper body work.  I know Nick said he’s not going to let my “giant gorilla arms with chicken legs” goal come to fruition – but Nick can’t see what I’m doing upstairs after our session – or the push-ups and pull-ups I’m doing at home. Nick seems okay.  I can work with him.  He’s not “mini-Nick” doll worthy yet, but we’ll give him time.