Paying good money for torture

Not much going on in the world of pre-nursing. Our next test on the skeletal system is not for two weeks. I did however decide to finally get motivated to get my butt to the gym and hire a personal trainer.

I chatted with several and ended up choosing a woman that had credentials from the university I am going to for nursing school. She did her initial assessment which included body fat caliper measurements, taking weight, as well as shoulder, chest, thigh, calf and waist measurements. We then covered where I am now physically/weight wise, and what my short and long term goals are. Felt almost like a medical history with all the questions I was answering, but I'm pleased they are thorough.

It was then time to move out onto the gym floor. I'm pretty out of shape and I have not ran since highschool but after 15 minutes of warmup on the treadmill she had me running 20 seconds on/20 seconds off at a 7mph speed to see where I was at physically. For me, 7mph is pretty damn fast, lol.

Before I continue on to the next part, I feel like I need to say that 6 or so years ago I went to the gym 4-5 times a week for at least an hour at a time. I knew what I was doing with the machines as well as how much weight I felt was appropriate.

Or so I thought.

We did a circuit of weights, she would ask at each location what I felt was an appropriate weight to lift. Asked me to lift that weight and then in almost every case doubled what I was lifting. For example, on the leg extension machine I had 105lbs on, did 10 reps and was told I was doing that way too easy. She then put another 80 lbs on (for a total of 185) and had me proceed with doing three sets of 10.

Yikes, by the last set of 10 I was barely able to lift the final 3 reps.

The entire workout went something like that, me telling her where I was comfortable, and her telling me that wasn't good enough. I signed up and paid for 15 1 hour sessions with her, we will see where I am after those sessions, but I'm excited to be pushed that hard.

I have a fitness goal I want to reach before I enter nursing school, and I've got until fall 2012 to get there.