I’m addicted to the pain…
There, I said it!
Oh, you wipe those dirty thoughts out of your perverted mind!
I’m talking about the pain from working out at the gym.
Officially, I joined the gym on April 23, 2012 and my life has changed forever.
I started going daily in the mornings. Joined the free classes offered there. From Pilates, Aerobic and Body Language (now this one is not well known outside of Indonesia but it’s close to Pilates with the focus on tightening the pelvic muscles). One class I haven’t try is Yoga because it started at 11am – way too late to my liking plus, this mama have to work, yo!
Then I decided to step it up a notch and hired a Personal Trainer. His price was reasonable and I could really use someone to push and help me work out. I still do the free classes tho because I enjoy them too.
So starting last Monday, I dragged my excited behind to the gym before 6am to start my very first session with the PT.
He seriously meant business! I was measured and weighed. Uhm, my body fat was 30.something percent so that’s still about a normal range (still need to be lower). But but but I have a high water level of 40.something percent! Maybe I was a camel in another life! Hah but yeah, I do drinks lots of water.
My first 1.5 hour session started with 20mins of cardio by doing the fast walking on a treadmill. Mr. PT brutally added the speed to 6.5km/hours with some inclines. Although I’m used to do power walk, treadmill was different. I burnt 110 calories and sweat a ton!
After some stretching, next stop was the lat pull machine, which I love! Second machine I got to slave at was the Butterfly machine. Now these two are my current favorite machines!
Source: bodybuilding.com via Maureen on Pinterest
I cringe when Mr. PT told me to lay down on my back at a bench and handed me a 5 kilos (11lbs) weight. Had to hold the weight straight above my chest and bring it straight over my head until I’m laying there straight with both arms right next to my ears. Ouchy…ouchy…ouchy! Kid you not, for first session I was tortured with 5 reps of everything each contains 12 movements.
From there I was told to move to the cable crossover machine. “To work on your triceps!” he said and adjusted the weights to 10kilos (22lbs). Looks easier when he showed me how to do it but after one reps, I feel my arms were screaming from pain.
Then he told me to go downstairs to the first floor and handed me a 5kilos (11lbs) weight. With legs opened shoulder wide, I had to twist left and right from the waist up while holding the weight. Sounds easy huh? Not so much!
When we were done with that, again he pointed me to a bench. Reverse crunches! Oh the holy crunches. After another 5 reps, he told me to scoot over closer to the edge of the bench, I had to do seated abs crunches. OMG! I was ready to crawl to a corner and cry.
We’re not done. He gave me 5kilos (11lbs) each of dumbbells and there go another 5 reps. He said he’s using a cross training method with me. Being a gym newbie, I actually had to google this one out.
Last torture was the treadmill…
Best part of the session? When we were done, he helped me stretched and even pushed my back and you can just hear my joints cracking from a few blocks away!
“Are you coming back tomorrow?” He laughed as he saw me literally look like a drunk lady walking out of the gym. “Hell, yeah!” I tried to laugh while my thighs were shaking and every part of my body felt it’s been pulled apart wanting to give up.
Did I give up? Nope! I came back the next day for our second session. I was still so sore and tired from the day before but again, he had no mercy. When I stopped at one of the weight machine he asked “Are you going to throw up? Or Faint?” I said nope. “Then keep going!” he said.
So there, I just finished my third session of nearly 2 hours on this lovely Saturday morning. He said since it’s Saturday and we have more time, then I deserves more work!
From someone who hated to sweat, I’ve been pushing myself way beyond my comfort levels to tone up and be healthy. Seeing a bit of a result when the numbers on my scale went down felt great, the aching and soreness? It just means all those things I did at the gym really work and – somebody hold me because I never would’ve guess in a million years that I would say this – I totally enjoy working out at the gym! Also, my arms started to show some results – still a long way to go but man, I feel great!
