Workout One: 30-Minute Circuit Training with Patrick!

I don't have a good picture of us at the gym, so this will have to do.

Patrick and I went to the gym yesterday to do the 30-minute circuit class with their trainer. (This is their real, actual, full-time trainer, not the substitute we had last week.) I really liked this trainer -- she pushed all of us in the class some but didn't go crazy. She set the weights on the machines for us and did a really good job of it -- I'm a little sore today, especially in my upper body (where I apparently have No Muscles), but in a really good way, like I worked enough but not too much. 

We started out with 15 minutes or so on the elliptical machines to warm up, then went into the circuit class. Their circuit program is kind of like Curves -- one spends a minute on a machine, then a minute doing cardio (mostly) moves with 30 seconds to transition between, rotating through the machines. The trainer was telling us different moves to do each time, which I liked, though the calf raises were a beast. 

This seems much more in-my-reach than getting a personalized program -- I have No Muscles in my upper body so three sets of 12 push-ups is simply and strictly impossible. Being told to do three sets of 12 Triceps Thingies with 10 pound weights is, likewise, really not helpful. I can maybe move that much a few times but there's no way I can do it for 3 sets of 12 without being too achy to move the next day. 

Which will not feed my motivation to go back and do it again.

I felt awesome yesterday when we got home -- invigorated and energized and happy. That DID seriously feed my motivation to go back. :D

They also have a 12-minute ab circuit that would probably be a good thing for me/us to do. I hate doing almost all ab exercises -- no matter how they're disguised they still feel like crunches, which are Hell. This probably contributes to the No Muscles in my upper body problem. I should probably do some work on that. I'd like to take the ab circuit class with the actual trainer and see how that goes.

I'm especially interested in all of this because one of my stated goals when I started this Upward Trend thing is to go to the climbing wall gym here in Laurel and be able to climb. Obviously I need muscles in my upper body to do that.

I believe our plan is to do the circuit one or two days a week (we're still discussing this: Patrick's thinking one, I'm thinking two). In a couple of months, we'll try again with the design your own program class, with the actual trainer (rather than the desk-attendant substitute). By then maybe I will have Some Muscles in my upper body, which will make that a lot more feasible.

I have a sort of an idea that if we're going three times a week we could do the ab circuit and 30 minutes of cardio one day, the overall circuit and 20 minutes of cardio one day, and 45 minutes of cardio one day. Or we could to the ab circuit and the overall circuit with just enough cardio to warm up one day, the overall circuit and 20 minutes of cardio one day, and 45 minutes of cardio one day.

I can't help but think any of the above options will help both of us be healthier overall *and* help me be a better runner. Even if I'm running less.

Next run/workout is scheduled for Monday. Weather report says I'll be at the gym. I'm not sure if we're going to be on the treadmill or doing the circuit thing. Either will work for me. :D