It's fun to stay at the...YMCA

Well, I just wanted to use a snappy title - though it is true to some degree.  I have joined the Y!  I am finally starting to feel myself, though all my fitness is completely gone.  I know when I need help, and this is that time.  So our local Y had a special summer rate, and I joined.  Thus far I have taken advantage of their free session with a trainer, and have signed up for a few sessions with him.

Taylor is very good.  He listened to me and devised a circuit-type training incorporating the types of training done by football players.  I told him that I wanted that kind of fitness, because that will get me to the starting point of where I want to be.

The first session was Thursday last.  We went down to the stadium near the Y which has a football field as well as a track.  He had me do lots of really interesting plyometric exercises (I knew some of them, and others I had just seen in pre-season football training on tv).  Two days later I was really stiff.  

The next session was this past Sunday, and boy was it tough.  I was a bit tired as I had spent the day with my sister in law and her husband going around the shops (they are visiting from the UK).  We started off with running 10 rounds of the bleachers.  Yes, at 8am on a Sunday morning.  And that was the warm up.  I was drenched by the next exercise which were press ups, then sit ups, then bridges, planks, squats, running to the end zone and back, on and on it went.

By the time we were finished, I felt as though I had done something.  But more than that, I am slowly starting to feel excited about this kind of training again.  I think I was a bit off it, because maybe I had overdone it a bit in the past.  Today I was actually looking at my old books and thinking about what I want to do tomorrow.  This is a very good sign, and I am very pleased.

There is not much running going on, because I feel like I am in such bad shape.  I can manage 3.1 miles, but they feel like 'poor' miles.  So I am trying to get fitter, because I know I will have more stamina to run faster and hold better form.

My next session with Taylor is Thursday, so I have some homework before then.  I was shocked at how poorly I did a squat thrust.  I managed 5 before collapsing.  I could do 3 sets of 10 before.  This was never a favourite exercise, but I could get through it with relatively decent form.  But if you want to see you non-fit you have become, try 5 of those.  If you can do it, then you are a fit person indeed.

The horror story goes on.  From being able to hold a plank for a minute, I can now only manage 10 seconds - let alone a lateral plank.  When did that happen??!  It is quite amazing and not in a good sense.  How does one lose one's fitness so easily?  Still, the advantage is that I can push myself because I know I have done these exercises before.  And that is where Taylor is such a blessing:  I need him to there counting, telling me what to do, because it would be so much harder to just do it all on my own.  And how worthwhile.  After just 2 sessions, I am feeling a lot better about myself, and since I am actually thinking about doing some "homework", I will take that as a sign that my motivation may be peeking on the horizon.

Well, baby steps, but at least I feel a lot more driven than I have been in a long time.  MInd you, I even whipped up a Green Monster (spinach, banana, almond milk and flax or chia seeds).  That can only be good, right? And it is fun to stay at the YMCA