My Journey With Health And Fitness – I Think It Is Working

Well I did it today, walked 5km to the gym. Then, I did the strength training class. Right after the class I walked home. According to the instructors walking before and after strength training helps you get the most out of exercising. For me it was a chance to try something new and do an entirely new walking route. Oh, and the instructor who got me to do this was right, I can walk there in an hour because it is exactly 5km.

Saturday we did our deadlift training. I do find this one a bit challenging because there are so many things to concentrate on when doing the lift. However, the instructor is awesome and ensures that your form is correct. As a matter of fact I truly believes she has eyes in the back of her head because she immediately goes to participants who need some adjusting. She worked with me on making sure I was really lifting with my glutes. I realized yesterday as I was walking up a steep hill that I had absolutely used my glutes because holy cow were they screaming at me while doing that hill.

Today was squats which I hate. We started off with low back squats which is where the barbell sits below your shoulders as you squat down and come back up. As we were increasing the weight this week I got a little concerned. Funny, I did the 1st of 5 sets and thought ok, something in my form isn’t right. And so I adjusted on the next set and I knew I had done it correctly. You see, doing those squats correctly you feel an enormous relief at the front of you shoulders when you put the bar back in the rack and that is exactly what it felt like for the remaining sets telling me I was definitely doing it correctly. Oh, and the extra 5 lbs, didn’t even notice it.

We also got to do front squats today which I had never done before. For this you hold the bar with the tips of your 4 fingers on each hand, pull the bar as close as possible to your throat (it is supposed to feel like you are choking), rest the bar basically across the top of your shoulders, point your elbows as high up as possible, look up towards the ceiling and do a squat. Now during our warmup we worked on loosening up our shoulders using a dowel. The instructor noted at that point that she already knew some of us had really tight shoulders and this would be challenging. I started my first rep and she came running over and told me to stop. She said there was no way I could successfully do this exercise without a modification because my shoulders are way too tight. So instead I used a crossed arm method which allowed me to point my elbows up and successfully do the move. I was absolutely ok with that but still a little uncomfortable with the feeling that the bar is choking me.

As we were finishing up today the instructor came over and told me I am doing really well. I often joke during the strength classes about being an old lady because I have at least 20 years on most of the participants but quite frankly that doesn’t stop me from trying. Ok, some of them lift really heavy weights but I am holding my own. I have improved each week and have built a lot of confidence. Bottom line, I think this training is really working for me.