Wednesday
Power session with Debbie. She's the toughest instructor out of the bunch, and she assaulted our shoulders that night. There were a couple of participants who couldn't get the proper form for the clean and press, so she spent 5 minutes at the end of the class doing continuous clean and presses. It's like running, but on your shoulders ... so actually, it's not like running at all. It was far more painful, especially when you tacked on five extra pounds of weight in the beginning of the class.
After Power, I went into the Kinesis Studio to do the program that George wrote up for me. I had my IPod on, and I was doing my Bosu core work with Madonna ala Austin Powers. People were going in and heading out of the tiny studio, but a small group of three looked like they were there to stay. I eventually took off my headphones, said hello, and one of the trainers told me that class was about to start. The older white gentleman looked at me, and said, "If you want a good work out, you should stay." He probably didn't mean anything by it, but I interpretted it as, "I doubt that you can hang with us." Of course, I had to join to prevent the voices in my head from mocking me .
Knowing NOTHING about Kinesis, and I had no idea what I was in for. It was probably the hardest strength conditioning work I have EVER endured. It basically looks something like this ...
You go at each exercise for a total of 30 seconds or a minute per set, and you pull the cords as fast as you can. There are four stations, and we did four sets per station. The first set is done while standing at a high squat, the second set at a low squat, and the third and fourth set at a lunge position. The different positions gives it the total body component because the legs and core are actively involved with each rep.
We had a total of ten seconds to switch positions between sets, which made it somewhat cardio intensive. Since it was my first time, I had almost no load on each of the machines, which was slightly embarassing because my cables were flying all over the place and making a lot of noise. The worst part was the exercise that focused on the shoulders, which had already been thoroughly beaten by Debbie.
I'm not really sure if the pain was worth being able to say that I didn't punk out.
Thursday
I finally get to the program that George wrote up, and the tiny little muscles around the shins and ankles were screaming at me, pleading me to stop this one legged business. I plodded on, and even though my heart rate didn't go past 70%, I was sweating A LOT and it was a struggle to go through.
After the program, I engaged in a little interval.
I was originally scheduled for an easy five miler, but I decided to cover the five miles through a little interval work. This is mainly due to my nutritionist's insistance to fit it in somewhere. He had originally set up a profile that was cardio for the first half hour (65 - 75% heart rate), and three sets of three minute sprints at 95% with two minute recovery periods in between. Since it was my first go, I decided to hang at 90%. Next time, I'll probably push for 93% ... 95 kinda scares me. There seems to be something supremely unnatural in pushing the heart rate up to 190 beats per minute, when your inside ... on a treadmill. Actually, it's unnatural even outside in the middle of anywhere, and you're not being chased by a bear.
In any case, I finished both work outs, and I'm looking forward to having a day of rest.
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