15% Body Fat?!?!
15% body fat! At least that's what the little hand-held "body fat testing machine" told me today. For all intensive purposes I can't for the life of me understand how a little metal and plastic machine that you hold between your hands can determine your body fat percentage but that's what popped up on the digital screen after I held it for the alloted 15 seconds. To be honest this might be the first time that I can ever remember doing a body fat testing... if it's not I'm going to assume that I just purely blocked out a number that was somewhere between Lebron and Shaq's jersey number.
I spoke to Todd about this a few days prior and he pretty much allotted me around 2,200 calories a day. We figured that I run every morning for 2.5 miles, (400 calories according to my Nike Plus shoes and ipod) plus another 1,000 calories burned during our daily hour workout and a good 2,000 just based upon metabolism throughout the day. Taking all this into account you'd think I'd be a lean, mean blogging machine in just a few days but if you bother to take a closer look at food portion size and actual calories and you've got a completely different story.
For the sake of brevity I'm not even going to look into my portion sizes and how many calories I'm ACTUALLY taking in. But based upon the fact that I'm very slowly dropping weight lets assume it's not enough. I am however gaining muscle mass and definition in target areas so we'll go ahead and assume I'm keeping up with the much needed protein.
Thus far it's been a slightly irregular week of workouts as I've more than tripled up on chest and bicep exercises thanks to Todd's recommendations and have neglected agility and leg training. Tomorrow I'm switching it up with a 10:30 workout so we'll see how that goes and I'll be back to update you all this weekend!
The New IT Place
Brookside Head Professional Piper Wagner
It's officially a month into working out at Fitness 360 and if I can't already seen some major changes than I can at least feel like I'm on the right track. Todd's been putting me through the paces on average a good four times a week and we've really started looking at the areas that I'm weak and making sure that I double up on them. For instance he noticed that my bicep and chest were particularily weak and that I should get more definetiion in those areas. For that he put me on a program of incline bench, shoulder raises, lateral raises and plate lifts. No, not the dinner plate. The 45-lbs variety! He had me do this either before or after our customary workout each day for the past week. It's Thursday morning and saying that I'm feeling the burn would be a mild understatement. And that's just while I'm typing here at 6 in the morning!
It's true, I have noticed some small physical changes with my workout and my energy levels - not to mention some added muscle in the target areas. But more importantly what I've noticed at Fitness 360 isn't what's going on becasue of Fitness 360, it's going on INSIDE of Fitness 360. Now I understand 5:00 PM is a pretty peak time to workout, everyone's getting down in the afternoon with work and trying to hit the studio before they head home; however, the doors were just about busting loose last night!
Count 'em down. Lurysol had two clients in the front corner. Ben had the entire Pacific golf team join his group that was already at least a bakers dozen strong, Desmond was working out with a group of four in the back, Christina's girls were working over the heavy bag and Todd was still conducting a small group of his own. You'd think a cozy location like Lincoln Center wouldn't be able to hold everyone and it would be cluttered but to tell you the truth I think people really feed off of the energy level that comes from that type of atmosphere. You really can't afford to slack off because you're partnering up and let's be honest.... who wants to look bad when the 45-year-old-mother-of-two is kicking your butt in medicine ball slams!
Not that that is the only motivation... but it is a good one. I remember the first few times coming to the studio when it first opened and you'd be lucky to see one trainer and more than two clients. Those days are long gone; it truly has become the IT place in the 209.
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…
Yes, you're reading the date on this post correctly. Christmas Eve and Todd was there at the studio willing to put me through the paces before the holiday season. I know it's been a week since the last post and I apologize to those out there just chomping at the bit to see the next chapter in this ongoing story but to be honest, writing would require me to sit down at my desk and frankly we've just done way too many squats over the previous four days!
Or maybe I'm just not in great shape yet... Hmm.. Regardless it's been a great week at 360. I'm found a rhythm working out in a group every atternoon with my two boys from St. Mary's. Each day is a little bit different than the next and Todd's been great about working different areas of the body so we're all getting a total body workout. One of the highlights of the past week has been an increased attention on pushing myself through Todd's guidance. There have been exercises such as agility and jumping that I'm excelled at and we've been able to make it harder and incorporate different techniques such as throwing a medince ball back and forth to me while I do ladder jumps and making sure that I'm not getting to comfortable. I love these exercises more than anything because it closely shadows basketball workouts I've done in the past that require you to do more than one thing at once.
Very rarely are you playing a sport and only running or jumping. You're dribbling, looking to score and also looking to pass so multitasking is at a premium. On the flipside Todd has also worked me up in areas that I'm weak in; most notably the fact that I couldn't do a proper squat, clean jerk or push-press - some of the most basic exercises that weightlifters learn early on. We started me at a very light weight and got my technique solid before I started working up towards heavy weights to see results. That example right there best exemplifies why personal training is so great in my mind. The fact that you've got someone looking at your form and realizing that you might be ahead or below the curve and adjusting accordingly.
Just Getting Through The First Week
