Much to my chagrin, J.B. was not my personal trainer, only the overlord who sold the sessions. He assigned me to one of his minions, a genial young woman named Amy. Amy was great, but she made me do a lot of hard things I didn’t like and she had no pity. One time I fell down in the middle of a set of push-ups and refused to get back up, but she still made me complete the set. Another time I told her that if I had to do one more shoulder press, both my arms would fall right out of their sockets and roll across the floor. I had to complete that set, too. I am typing this with my nose.
Amy also liked to keep the conversation flowing during my sessions, where conversation equals Amy asking me a bunch of senseless questions about my life, like, “What did you do last weekend?” Which wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t gone to a wedding in Southern Ohio where I ate two pieces of cake and a fried chicken leg, drank keg beer, and did Peanut Butter and Jelly shots. It was exhausting trying to make up healthy menu items to list when she’d ask me what I’d been eating all week. She always wanted me to show her my food journal, but I kept forgetting it in my locker.
Amy also had a propensity to ask her questions at the height of my physical distress. Say I was doing football drills while holding a ten pound weight in each arm, sweating a river, gasping for air and feeling like my legs could give out any second. Amy would be standing there with her little timer and say something like, “Tell me about when you lived in France.”
Luckily, I had a recurrence of vertigo after my session last week. (Yup. I started using Q-Tips again.) I’m not really sure if it was the vertigo or the workout, but I felt pretty sick afterward, kind of like the time in ninth grade when our Art Teacher turned track coach made me run the 800 meter when I had only ever trained for the 50 meter sprint and I puked in the bushes after the race. It was the perfect opportunity to do the right thing and tell Amy my true feelings about personal training, womano y womano so naturally I went home and sent her an email under a cloak of invisibility.
Amy emailed me back to tell me that she would take me off her schedule, but she was pretty sure I had a contractual obligation to complete three months of sessions. Reading between the lines of her message I was also able to decipher the following encrypted phrase: “Good luck trying to whittle down that booty by yourself, you chicken livered little wuss.”
But I don’t consider myself a quitter – unless you count piano, gymnastics, Lithuanian harp lessons, Jazzercise, and now this – because I still went to the gym today and did a hearty workout. I didn’t have to talk to a soul and when I started feeling a little dizzy, I took a break and watched Guiding Light. I know how to use the weight equipment now and am finding that I really love it, so from here on out I’m going to be working out to my own personal fitness compass. Don’t be surprised if the next time you see me, I have rubbed myself down with coconut oil and have a size 22 neck.
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I too quit Lithuanian harp lessons and Jazzercise . . . both before I started, unfortunately. Good luck finding puka shell necklaces that fit!
Amy sounds like a twit.
The last personal trainer I had asked me why, at the age of almost 30, I didn’t have kids. But I must! have kids before I am 30 or my body just won’t snap back into shape. I took her off MY list pronto.
I’m all for designing your own workout – as long as you include a bunch of weight-lifting (see http://www.stumptuous.com for an excellent womancentric guide) and some interval training you will see results.
I always say that I would love to have a trainer like Jillian who would scream in my face and piss me off enough to do a really tough workout, but in all truth I would probably end up kicking her in the face and getting kicked out of the gym. Probably best I work out by myself.
Way to figure out the weight equipment! I still struggle with that. I mean, I know how to do them but I never feel like I’m using them correctly. Hmm…
Kat´s last [type] ..A Beautiful Thing
you are at least going to the gym … I’ve procrastinated joining for an entire year (and they even have free babysitting, yet I’m afraid).
Life in Eden´s last [type] ..I Don’t Live in a Magazine
Good for you Rima, I figure that if you at least you are working out, that has to count for something. I really should do more myself, but there is no way in heck that I could deal with a personal trainer.
I’m surprised everyone is beating around the bush with their comments afraid to say what’s really on their minds…
WHAT are peanut butter and jelly shots and WHERE can I get some? YUM!
Yuliya´s last [type] ..Are you sitting down
Yuliya – It’s Frangelico and raspberry Chambord – really good, if I do say so myself!
My vertigo started immediately following the words “peanut butter and jelly shot”
Nothing like needing to read a blog, and yours is always tops. Like diving into a box of chocolates, Rima. I could stuff myself. Loved this post!
JCK´s last [type] ..running through the grass as if she were a young fawn
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As a Boot Camp drop out I can’t tell you how comforting this post is to me.
That kind of pressure would drive me insane. I have migraine issues, and sometimes doing heavy exertion will give me pain. Push-ups, for sure. I can’t tell you how many times I feel the throb start, and I know a personal trainer wouldn’t give a hoot about that, thinking I’m a bit whiner and faker. I know you can get along fine without that lady.