Strap me down, I’m gonna lose it

Dead Lift for Sweet Booty

So I kind of hate dead lifting but we’ve been doing it a lot lately. It makes my lower back sore and my neck and shoulders. I have the laptop disease so it’s always a mess in that region. “Well that’s probably why you should be doing dead lifts,” say World’s Most Sensible Personal Trainer Mike Welch.

No need to soil the screen with my internal reply to that.

So it turns out there are two great things about doing dead lifts. Number 1, getting strapped down! I live on a laptop so in addition to my neck and shoulder issues, I have to be careful about the carpal tunnel parts. In other words, my grip can not keep up with my ample banging-trained booty.

And here’s where it’s great to be in a gym with World’s Best Take-No-Excuses Personal Trainer Mike Welch. I say “I can’t do it!” and he says, “Let me strap you down.” Yes please! Once I take the focus - both physical and mental - off my grip, all the sudden I can dead lift! Being strapped in allowed me to lift a TON more than I would have without them.

Strapping Biz Down!

So look for straps in your gym and ask a friendly fellow banging trainer to strap you in. You won’t regret it! Check out the pics to get an idea of what they look like - I’d seen them before but not known what they were about. 

The Number 2 reason to dead lift, watching Biz max it out. AMAZING! She is freaking strong and in the sexy freaky way. We put plate after plate of weight on her bar and she murdered them! She left me in the dust and I believe I have mentioned my ample banging-trained booty. If you ever need a car lifted off your baby, call Biz. If you need to save the Wicked Witch of the East, Biz can hold the house while she escapes. I will not say she’s at Atlas level but a few more weeks with World’s Best Yes-You-Can Personal Trainer and I might put the whole world on her shoulders - but only if she’s strapped in!

Hey everybody! I am the new girl, Christy.

You will have to be patient with me as I learn how to do this 'blogging' business.

I have never been a real athletic person. I tried when I was younger but it never stuck. It was hard, it required running (especially track, go figure) and I wasn’t particularly coordinated. It was after a track injury in middle school that we found out I have accessory navicular syndrome in my feet (essentially an extra bone). And here is where my life doing exercise ended. A doctor’s note to get out of PE for the rest of my awkward teen years? Heck yes!

We won’t count how many years went by until I decided to be a more active and fit adult. Fast forward to the present, through an injury or two, chronic workout relapses and here I am, back to the gym with Mike. I need the extra push to work outside of my comfort zone. I mean sure I could feel pretty bad ass doing 1000 reps with my 3lb weights but how far is that honestly going to take me? Fortunately, he is able to cruise along unscathed with my eye rolling and grim
acing. Be warned though, his negotiations are tough! I managed to negotiate instead of doing a set of 20, a set of 10, twice, with no break in between….not sure that was a win.

I am scared to admit that I was less sore after my Monday session than I was after the session the Friday before. Mike encouraged (made) me bust my butt on Monday. There was a healthy sprinkling of reverent, exhaled swear words. Just a hint, my favorite rhymes with ‘bucket’ and was often expelled when I thought I couldn’t lift anymore heavy things.

Customary bathroom before pics!

It’s an odd sense of pride you receive after working out hard. You’re tired, sweaty and smelly (my apologies to all who had to endure my stank at the store. I was tasked with getting lettuce and heaven forbid I forget that!). But after all that, it’s like your body sighs with the satisfaction that it did SOMETHING with all those amazing muscles.

My fiancé doesn’t seem to find my gym stories as entertaining as I do but now I can share them with you! Thanks for reading and I hope to share more stories with you soon.

Schedule Swapping and Consistency

Heather doing whatever they are called...
but they make her butt look amazing!

So just as soon as I get back from my snowboarding and think we can finally get back to a normal schedule I remember that I have to go out of town for work... sheesh. Then it turns out Heather will be gone as soon as I get back so our reschedule options are limited. I will say that getting the three of us on schedule is one of the harder parts of partner training (the rest is super easy?)

Thankfully Mike is always willing to work with us to find times to train (even when they are inconvenient for him). He was willing to squeeze us in just before I left town for Montana and right when I got back so we managed to keep 3 sessions in 3 week. Once again he is working with us and is now sacrificing his Sunday morning to train us before I leave so we don't have to miss a week. I am less than excited about giving up my bloody mary but sometimes you just have to makes those tough sacrifices. This leads me to some thoughts on consistency of a training regimen. Consistency seems to be critical. We've been able to keep our weekly session going for around 5 months with minimal interruptions... although I seem to remember Shannon (who's awesome) coming once to save me when Heather abandoned me for what I'm sure was an awesome work trip.

Bulgarians.  Not to be confused with Bulge-atarians

As usual I did a little googling and I found this that seemed to ring true:

For some people, it is common to become energized about working out and jump right in. In these cases, unless there is a long-term plan in place or some thought has gone into how the fitness activity will be sustained, there is often a drop off in enthusiasm, resulting in inconsistency. A well thought out fitness plan will go a long way in helping you to reach your goals.

I'm waaaaay to lazy to plan so Mike is my plan. I'm very much the type to go all in and then when unable to maintain it to give up. Having training once a week is sustainable and has allowed me to maintain consistency with a strength workout that I have never had before.

Having a partner is also key. Heather will yell at me if I try to flake out (yeah, she's pretty mean). Seriously having 2 people counting on your being there makes it a lot easier to keep it up and knowing there will be 2 smiling faces is a added incentive (and yes when Heather isn't yelling at me she does smile for about 30 seconds until we start swinging kettle balls).

For optimal results, you will want to build up to higher and higher levels of cardiovascular strength, flexibility and strength training. A gradual increase in intensity will allow your muscles, tendons and ligaments a chance to adjust to the strains and challenges of a fitness regimen.

Training with Mike each week allows for the gradual increases in difficulty. I am getting stronger even while I've been working on some injury recovery, travel, holidays... life in general. This is because of the consistency we've achieved (and good training of course).

~Biz

Banging training v 2.0

Tears in the Gym

So on more than one occasion I have exercised myself to tears. I’m sure I’m not the only person out there (right Biz?). Pull-ups and squats so far have been the big ones. Sometimes I just want to cry and sometimes it’s like I blew a fuse and start laughing and crying at the same time. It’s the like the emotional equivalent to farting and burping at the same time. No one knows what the hell is going on.

I did some really basic googling and here are a few fun facts from good ol’ Wikipedia:

A neuronal connection between the lacrimal gland (tear duct) and the areas of the human brain involved with emotion has been established.

So crying and emotions are connected in the brain – no big surprise.

Tears produced during emotional crying have a chemical composition, which differs from other types of tears. They contain significantly greater quantities of the hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, Leu-enkephalin, and the elements potassium and manganese.

So when I cry in the gym it’s different than crying over the onions.

Here’s my favorite though:

Crying is believed to be an outlet or a result of a burst of intense emotional sensations, such as agony, surprise or joy.

I cry at the gym as a result of a burst of intense emotional AGONY. And sometimes some surprise is added in as well. And thanks to Biz there might be moments of joy, but first…

THE AGONY

I cried this time while doing squats and not just to make Biz feel better. We go deep – past parallel and past all human decency. Mike is there to support us and push us, of course. He is also present to supply loads of fresh agony.

I made it to my last set and the last rep of that last set broke me. Mike tried to give me an assist but even with no weight I was just stuck there like a frog trying to take a big dump. Even after he moved the weight I couldn’t stand up. (You don’t even want to know how I felt for the next 3 days).

THE JOY

So my camera sucks but Biz is rocking some serious tricep definition. She was doing like 20 pounds more than me for triceps pull downs. I think it’s from a lifetime of pants-ing boys but what do I know.

Also, we tried this new exercise that I can't even explain so I will let Biz demonstrate through pictures. I absolutely did cry during this one and it way definitely joy. Partner training is where it’s at! Stuff you don’t want to do but is stupid-good for you, weird awesome things you’d never do alone in a gym and an opportunity to check out your buddy’s sweet behind.