Day 11

Happy post-Memorial Day! I had a wonderful time at the beach this past weekend. My friend Kathie was nice enough to invite me to spend Memorial Day weekend with her and her family at Ocean Isle beach!

  

Kathie has magic hands! I love the braided-hair look on the beach and when I found out she learned through Pinterest how to do a fishtail braid, I put her to work! More on the beach trip to come :).

Back to reality, I had an early morning client at State’s gym then came straight to work, but not before a scrumptious bowl of overnight oats (how I’ve missed my breakfasts!). It was slim pickins at the beach so I opted for peanut butter toast and fruit every morning. When I’m a guest, I try not to be the high-maintenance picky eater that I tend to be when it comes to meals; I make the most of what’s available, keeping portions appropriate and choosing healthy alternatives.

I attended a seminar on Strength Training for Runners and thought it was very educational, especially as a runner myself. She highlighted several studies on the benefits of runners adding a strength training routine into their regime:

• reduces the risk for injury
• increases power and speed
• improves running economy

A lot of questions were asked but the most important one, I thought, was “when should you do your strength training?” It all depends on your goal; if your goal is long-distance (10k’s, half-marathons, marathons), you’ll want to focus on lighter weights and higher repetitions so your muscles adapt to the repeated contractions. If your goal is shorter distances (100-400 meters, 5-8k’s), you’ll want to focus on power; plyometrics are a great way to increase your short distance PRs (form and experience allowing!).

 

During the seminar-LUNCH!  I left an avocado in the refrigerator (oops) over the weekend and went to slice it into my sandwich only to find slicing wasn’t an option. An impromptu avocado spread it was! Mixed with a little garlic humus and lemon juice-this blunder turned out palatable :).

 

 

This week in workouts:

• Tuesday- Body Sculpt & Stretch
• Wednesday- Aqua Kickboxing
• Thursday- Interval Training & Low Impact
• Friday- Body Sculpt & Step

Body Sculpt & Stretch: A typical today body fitness class that utilizes various pieces of equipment; a piece in particular I was intrigued to use are the booties! These booties that cover your shoe allow you to slide across either a sliding board or wood flooring. Great for abductor (outer thigh) and adductor (inner thigh) work, as well as lateral movements, agility, and endurace. Some of the exercises we did are shown in this video:

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Day 10

This picture reminds me of the riddle:

“Do you like seafood?”

“I see food and I eat it.”

I promise it was much more appetizing than it looks! Dippy eggs with sautéed spinach and salsa with a toasted/buttered/humusfied bagel thin. My favorite part about dippy eggs is breaking the yolk and watching it ooze out, then taking the bagel and sopping it up. Deeelish. Apple on the side!

I went for a morning run just as the sun was rising-so beautiful! It makes you appreciate the little things in life and puts things into a positive perspective for the day :D.

Today’s probably the busiest day of this particular week; lots of personal training consults that I’m sitting in on. Coming from a college atmosphere, the most tragic/stressful event that took place was  a break-up with a boy/girlfriend, failing a test, missing the bus, or skipping class. In a corporate setting, employees are dealing with real-life personal and work problems and it shows how much it’s affecting their health. One of the main reasons why I decided to intern here is because I wanted to the experience working with a different population and see first-hand how exercising has so much more of a meaning than for aesthetic reasons. As I’m sitting in on these appointments, I’m constantly jotting down notes on how the trainer is speaking to the client, their body positioning and non-verbal cues (eye-contact, posture, facial expressions), what types of questions they’re asking, and their choice of words or phrases. It’s boggling to me; in the PT class I assisted with, we’d have participants “pretend” to have a health issue or a joint problem so the trainer would understand how to exercise that client. Here, there’s no pretending! As much as I’m all for body-weight exercises and functional movements and getting clients to utilize equipment rather than machines, a majority of the population here has to use machines initially, and for quite some time, because of past/current injuries, limited ROM, or basic knowledge. Once they’re confident enough in themselves to perform exercises with proper form, then the trainer advances them. But again, this advancement takes time and that’s a huge factor employees in a corporate setting may not have. Machines are there-all they have to do is put in their setting and weight preference, knock out a couple of reps/sets, change machines, and back to the office they go. It’s thought-provoking..

I observed Body Sculpt (with a different instructor) and Step today. It’s informative for me to see how each instructor teaches the same class but formats it differently to match their respective style, personality, and strengths. I’m like a sponge; I absorb new phrases, terms, exercises, and cues with each observation! The woman who taught Step was astonishing! Hands-down the BEST step instructor I’ve seen. I began the class taking notes of her combos and had to put my paper down 1) because I couldn’t  keep up, and 2) it was so cool to watch! Seeing her makes me want to teach step!

..and FYI- sitting on a cycling bike for extended periods of time will make things go numb.

That is all 🙂 Have a great Memorial Day weekend!