Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Personal Training opening my eyes to other avenues

Today I did my second personal training session at Lifetime Fitness. It was the first workout I did where absolutely NO group fitness classes were involved. I used to think it was crazy when my husband or other people I know would say "whoa I had a big workout today!" and I knew they were just lifting weights or doing machines. I really only thought you could get a big intense sweaty workout when you were jumping around, such as in a group fitness class or running. Well, I was wrong. Today I felt what they felt when they said it was 'hard'. I did the machines with my trainer showing me how to use them (the main reason I have never used them in the past, because I was intimidated and didn't know how to work most of them). Well, there were points on certain machines where I had sweat dripping in my eyes and I kept grabbing my towel to mop up...so obviously you CAN get a good workout without having to take a fitness class that causes you to do burpees or jump from the floor to the ceiling!   This is great news. As I've gotten older (I am 41 now) I have been realizing that I don't want to be 'jumping around' till I'm 60, yet, I still want good workouts to stay in shape. Learning to work within my target heartrate zone (fat burning), as I spoke about before, and learning to do workouts that involve more weights and machines instead of bootcamp and high intensity stuff, as well as trying to incorporate more fat burning activities into my life , MAY be the ticket that allows me to keep in shape as I age, but not 'overwork' out and thus see no results, AND maybe lessen the effect of gravity with all that jumping and running. Let's face it, when u look at a serious runner who is older, its not a pretty sight. Their skin is sagging all over the place from all that jarring motion. That same jarring motion u get from a lot of fitness classes. Say NO to the SAG! ha ha.  Anyway, hope it doesn't sound lazy, but its just not possible or important for me to be jumping around 20 years from now. I've heard lots of people talk about the benefits they see from pilates and yoga and that they are becoming more toned than when they did all that jumpy stuff.  I admit its hard for me to really enjoy that yoga stuff (still to slow for me), but I am trying to keep giving it a shot as I  think it probably really does have good benefits. Well, that's my thoughts for today. Oh by the way, I saw yesterday on one of my emails from the fitness manager here at Lifetime that there are now 116 (!) classes each week! Wow, its amazing. Obviously, I will still do classes, but it is so great to have so many options. Just like I was saying if I want to do a group class but don't want to do the jumpy kind, there are SO MANY other ones to choose from including weights, hot yoga, core, etc. Awesome choices! If you have a Lifetime fitness near you and are looking for a gym I highly recommend u check them out. They are awesome! 
Learning today to use more of the machines also gives me the option of doing that after my first class during these summer months when the kids are with me (there isn't enough childcare hours allowed to do 2 full classes unless one of them is 30min, or I leave early). So I can do one class and then do machines till my time runs out in the childcare area. We have used the pool with the girls a couple times, but still haven't been there when the slides or outdoor cafe are open. We will be there Fri, so weather permitting we will hopefully be able to enjoy that amenity as well. Especially since that was one of the main reasons I even considered joining Lifetime (something fun for the kids to make up for bringing them to the gym day care)...of course that's not why I'm staying,....everything else has totally hooked me, but that was one of the original reasons I contemplated changing gyms. Well, I am sitting out by our pool watching my girls swim and play Mermaids as I am typing this, gotta love wi-fi  :P

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