It's time for a personal trainer

Updated 7th May 2001: Added link to Brad's website

It has been a busy last 5 days on the fitness front. It all started on Saturday when I met Brad McCullough a new client for my website company. The backstory that lead to my deciding to meet Brad (I don't usually get to meet our new clients at such an early stage in the sales process) was after hearing about him and his philosophy from Sarah. You see, Brad is a Personal Trainer and I have been wondering for some time about whether I should start working with a person trainer or coach but I had a lot of concerns. However when Sarah came home buzzing about him after their initial meeting I thought I should meet him.

Why a Personal Trainer and not a coach?

My biggest hurdles, as I perceive them, are my weight and core/pelvic stability. If I was to go out and get a coach, odds are that I wouldn't get the personalized attention I would need to diagnose what was going on and how best to fix these issues. My big concern about a Personal Trainer was that while they would help improve those issues, I need to really need to know that my technique is sound and that I'm moving efficiently. Typically, when I started training in recent years I've focussed on cardio, rather than my core and biomechanics, which has resulted in a lot of set backs through injury because my body wasn't ready for this type of training. This is something that I can't afford this time, more on that in a later post. So what was the thing about Brad that sold me? He is studying a Masters in Biomechanics. He focuses first and foremost on making sure your moving right and your technique is right before ramping up the training.

Assessment Time

So I had my first assessment on Tuesday where I was put through movements like squats and lunges to see how my range of motion was, whether I was stable in that movement and what my overall strength was like. Turns out my hunches on my stability were spot on, if not a tiny bit optimistic. I am basically totally unstable in all my movements. When it came to range of movement and flexibility, I was a little shocked how bad it had become. I couldn't even touch my toes. As someone who used to be able to do the splits this was embarrassing. The shining light was that, according to Brad, I'm still pretty strong through my legs, though my muscles the next day would beg to differ. In fact two days later my gluts were feeling very ordinary.

Today was the cardio assessment. This was a treadmill test that slowly increased speed every 3 minutes till I felt I reached maximum excursion. I made it to 16 minutes and 11.5km/h. Not great you'd agree. Though I should admit that, 16 mins is the longest I have run for over 2 years. All the exercise I have been doing over the last few months has been either walking or in the gym on a X-trainer or exercise bike. Did I mention I'm unfit? There was another shining light here though, recovery. When I finished my heart rate was 185 beats per minute, probably about 5 short of my max I think. But after just a minute of rest my heart rate had dropped to 147, not to bad for a fat and unfit slob like me.

The only way is up

The good news is that there is a lot of potential. In fact Brad seems to be quite excited by the potential and may even use me and my program as part of his Uni work. So this Saturday is when I find out the big plan and do my first proper "PT" session. I'll let you know how I survive.