Feel the burn, then have some chocolate

This week I started training at Ikei Performance again. (ikeiperformance.com)I originally started last year, when then helped rehab my ankle in Sept/Oct.. During the holidays, training went kaput... but now I'm back at it. My new traininer's name is Jonas. He's a young (early 20's) Hawaiian kid. He's super nice but I don't think he understands that 30 something fat ladies don't like to push it quite as far at the pros.

Here's the thing: this gym's owners are clients of Jay's. Their main clientele is pro athletes (on Wednesday I worked out next to Larry Fitzgerald, today there was more NFL prospectives/AZ Cardinals). Wednesday was my first session on the new program, upper body. Not only is this program WAY harder than anything I've ever done, but they actually have pull-ups on there! (maybe they forgot that I'm a girl:) They have this giant rubberband thingy they used to help me pull all the way up, but then I had to contract the muscle on the way down for a 4 count (pull up on the 1 count, go down for a 4 count) OUCH! 3 sets of 10! My arms gave out a couple of times and poor Jonas had to basically push me up a lot of the time...still.. no mercy. Of course, these torturous pull-ups were only part of an equally evil workout: bench, lat pull downs, arnold presses, triceps, reverse curls.... blah, blah, all with more weight that I could manage. Apparently, they think that if you can complete the second set without help, you need more weight. If you get through the third set without your muscle giving out, you probably could have worked harder.

After my workout, my arms had the biggest knots in my bicepts. Immediately, I couldn't straighten my arms all the way. Still, two days later, the knots are painfully there. The way I hold my arms makes me like one of those meatheads on Venice Beach, only in a fat non-muscular body. Today was lower body....complete with shaking legs and almost puking.

Maybe the pros like to push to the point when your muscles totally give out, and then do another set... but I don't. I hope next week is better. Stupid me, I'm going again on Tuesday to repeat the upper body torture. When I asked about the level, the pain/knots, etc., Jonas said that they like to shock your muscles with the first program (lasts about 3 weeks). After that the weights go up but there are fewer reps and longer rest times. A lot of "beginners" experience the same thing. Oh goody!

You should know that I'm no wuss in the gym. I always work really hard and push through the pain, especially when I've got a trainer with me. (Kami should be able to vouch for me on this one) But this is a whole new ballgame, people. I'm trying to be optimistic and think of this like a giant experiment. If this summer's triathlon is exponentially better than last year's, I'll know that the strength training paid off. Last year I didn't do any strength training with the triathlon training. Until then, I'll suck it up and only vent silently, on my blog:)

With all this work, I need some chocolate. Yesterday was not only Valentine's Day, but Jay's birthday. I made a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting, and then we all made truffles. It was really fun to get our hands in all that chocolate. My Swiss ancestors would not be pleased with the way they looked, but they were SINFULLY delicious.Chocolate makes everything "all better" (most of the time). I think I'll go have another... and then try another Sun Salutation.