October 27, 2008

Enter Pain

I had a personal training session today at my new gym. I expected to be tortured, and I was tortured sufficiently. My legs have felt like rubber for much of the day, and I can pretty much guarantee that tomorrow morning is going to suck, even though my Mom hates that word. There's just no better word for how it's going to feel to try to make these legs work tomorrow.

My trainer had ACL reconstruction surgery himself, so he has been in my shoes. We spent 30 minutes talking about my goals: to not be in pain anymore, to feel normal again, to be able to return to karate and return strong, etc. etc. After our talk, we got right to work.

My trainer had me do some interesting things that I think are really going to help me. I held weights and used a step to do toe touches. I balanced on some impossibly wiggly ball thing on one leg. I sat in mid-air while leaning my back against a wall long enough to make my legs burn. I did squats with my back pressed against one of those giant exercise balls that was up against a wall. I did some crazy calf exercises while balancing on some round wobbly thing. I also did some leg extensions on a machine that allowed me to use different weights for each leg. After working on extensions, he had me flutter kick on the machine slowly. That was killer, but everything he had me do made complete sense. My leg muscles burned; but my knee only protested a bit.

During the wall sit/squat thing, my legs started to shake so badly that I told him I didn't know if I'd be able to get back up, so he offered me an arm and helped me each time. Otherwise I think I would have been stuck! I asked him if he'd provide the same service for me tomorrow morning when I'm struggling to get out of bed. He laughed. I think personal trainers enjoy torturing people sometimes.

After working my legs like crazy, we moved on to abs. Yes, I'd like to get my knee back to normal, but I'd also like to get back my pre-kid abs. I really wish I hadn't told him that though. He had me work my abs like never before. I felt like a total slacker and told him I was embarrased. It freaking hurt and tomorrow I'll probably have to roll out of bed.

After a good hour of working out, we sat down to talk. I felt pretty good and my knee had only protested a little bit. It was nice to have his help because he let me know exactly how I should be doing each exercise so as not to aggravate my knee.

He tried to talk me into a training contract with him. It is insanely expensive and I just don't think I can afford it right now. I whined about buying a new house and still paying off my surgery almost a year later, so he threw in another free session for later this week.

During the inbetween days, I'm going to hit the pool, strap on some leg weights and do some underwater walking and running. I have to get this leg back in shape. I have too much I want to do in my life to have this knee issue hinder me anymore.