Gym Progress Report 1

First session with the new trainer yesterday. She had planned a leg session. Bad move for the first session. I have stress fractures in my feet which make leg exercises very painful, not to mention I just hate doing legs in general. I don't know why, but leg exercises make me really cranky and frustrated. Anything else and I'm fine, but anything to do with legs and I nearly have a breakdown. I just get so cranky that I want to pick up a weight and throw it at someone's head. I hate, hate, hate doing legs. I don't know why it affects me so much.

So anyway, the new trainer is probably thinking I'm a weak, whiny little bitch. I was trying not to get too cranky, but she had me doing such awful exercises (bulgarian lunges - ugh) and I really just wanted to smack her across the face. Not to mention that my feet were absolutely killing me. The fractures are in my arches, so when my foot is placed in a weight bearing position and my arches flatten out to take the pressure, the fractures expand (if that makes any sense). It is extremely painful. I told her at our first information session that I can't do an entire leg session. I said I could only have weight bearing on my feet for a max of 15 minutes (in high heels it's not an issue, for some reason - I guess because all of the weight is directed towards the balls of your feet). Obviously she wanted to test my information.

We did 20 reps of leg press, then about 30 lunges (with a 5kg plate), then another 20 reps of leg press and another 30 lunges. After the first set of lunges I was already in pain. She then tried to get me back on the leg press to do another set of 120kg, and I did try, but after the first 2 I knew I couldn't do it. I told her we'd have to put an ab set in there or something. So she tried to get me do a "plank" (or hover, or prone hold or whatever you want to call it), but because my feet were so sore I couldn't do it. I can normally hold those for at least 3 minutes, but I think she stopped me after about 30 seconds. She moved me off my feet and wanted me to do leg raises (lay on your back, arms behind your head holding on to handles, and lift your legs straight up in the air and back down again). At that point I must have seemed like the worst client ever, because that is the only ab exercise I absolutely cannot do. I have a degenerative disease in L5/S1 in my back, and any exercise where my lower back is forced into a convex position absolutely kills me.

So we did another ab exercise that she uses on old people. Fine with me. We go back to do another set of leg press because my feet feel better, and then do some more abs, as well as reverse leg curl thingies. And after all those leg presses, lunges, leg curls, etc she decides she wants me to do Bulgarian lunges! I could already barely move my legs as it was! Bulgarian lunges are where you put one leg up on a bench behind you, and then step out with the other leg, and then lunge downwards. It requires some co-ordination of which I have none at the best of times, let alone when my legs are shaking. I was wobbling all over the place, and my feet were hurting, and my back problem meant I wasn't doing it how I was supposed to (you're meant to just go straight down, but that puts pressure on the wrong area for me, so I was tending to sort of move back and down at an angle), so it was all around just painful and annoying.

I also hate doing leg exercises because I did gymnastics when I was younger, and I tend to develop very bulky leg muscles when I train my legs. I hate that. I want the ability to wear skinny jeans, even if I would never actually wear them (they are a crime against fashion). You can't wear skinny jeans with awful bulky thigh muscles. Yuck.

So yes. A very frustrating session. I wish she'd chosen arms or chest or something for the first day. I guess I'll see how I go this afternoon.

At least she's better than my last trainer. I left the session feeling very ill. That hasn't happened in a long time.

She also gave me my eating plan yesterday. I am fairly certain I put "no protein shakes" on the list I gave her of what I would/wouldn't eat. Nevertheless they're on the plan. I'm just going to leave them out and drink water instead. Those things make me gag. Literally. Not pretty.