Personal Training and Body Attack

Today I had my last personal training session with Leanne. I will miss her a lot. Her enthusiasm and encouragement really helped me to progress with my health and fitness goals. Leanne is the one who got me running outside. It took her a while to convince me, but she did it. I'll always be grateful for that. Leanne also helped me to realise that I was giving up too easily when an exercise got hard. Now I try to do a little more than I think I can before stopping.

Today's training session was a little relaxed, as it was the last one. I warmed up for five minutes while I checked out the photos of Leanne's brand new niece. Leanne checked out my one-legged one-armed row, which has been coming along really well. We then did squats with a step - squatting on one side and then jumping across and squatting on the other. In between sets I did a very tragic version of burpees. I am able to manage the jump up and the pushup. It's the transition that I struggle with.

After that it was twisting crunches on the fitball, then the plank. I found it really difficult after the speed I'd been going at for the other activities. I felt really shaky when I started so I took a few deep breaths and thought, oh well, I'll be lucky to make 30 seconds. I stopped when my lower back started to hurt. To my amazement, I'd lasted 60 seconds. I was really pleased about that. I'm glad Leanne explains the exercises and how to know when to stop. Apparently, when my lower back starts to hurt my abs have pretty much given up, so there's not much point continuing on. On the basis of my new "don't give up straight away" approach to exercise, I try sucking in my abs a bit tighter to see if my back will stop hurting. If it doesn't, I stop.

Leanne then had me doing an abs exercise where you start in a crunch position with your legs bent and then touch your feet on one side then the other so you engage your obliques as well as your middle. That one had me giggling, but I could feel it doing me good.

Tonight I headed off to Body Attack again. I remembered to wear the right bra, so I was able to do more of the high impact stuff. It felt good. I really like being fit enough to work at that pace. I also like that my knees are holding up to it so well. My left knee has been a little sore this week, as I sort of twisted it slightly on a tussock of grass when I was running to work. I could feel it tonight, but only as a slight sensation that had me making sure my knee was in the right position when we did the lunges.

My favourite part of Body Attack is the running track, followed by the agility track. By the time we get to that one, we're half way through the class. It's fun stretching out for a run and I feel like it's a bit of a break. I'm not sure that it's meant to be one, but it certainly seems like one.

Tomorrow morning, I have my first personal training session with Krissi. I am so pleased that she's agreed to take me on. I half expected that she wouldn't be able to fit me in when I can get to the gym, as she's such a popular and busy trainer. I was going to ask her to add me to a waiting list for the first available session. Anyway, she's put herself out a little to take me on, which is extremely kind of her.

I had been going to run to work tomorrow, but I'm more than happy to be changing my plans. I'll have plenty of opportunities for my running commute and there was only one session that worked for both Krissi and me. Tomorrow night I'm planning to do Body Balance. On the weekend I want to get out on my bike. I haven't been out riding for weeks now.

Krissi and Brad are running another Outdoor Group Fitness Challenge in September - 8 sessions over 4 weeks. I'm signed up for it already. I enjoyed the last one so much.