January 25, 2009

90% Back

I went back to the gym tonight and met with my trainer again. I swear in the three weeks I've been out, he has been working out extra. It looked like someone inflated his arms. When I told him he was holding out on me and asked him what he's been doing, he jumped up, grabbed the pull-up bars and did 15 pull-ups easily.

"Hmm," I said, "and I can't even do one unless you're holding 90% of my body weight."

He laughed. "Let's go girl. Let's get you back." He spent the next 40 minutes annihilating my biceps and triceps. For the first exercise, he handed me one of those straight bars that you're supposed to put weights on. "Girl, can you curl this?" he asked as he gently handed it to me. As I was taking it from him, he said, "it's 40 lbs."

I really wanted to lift that bar, but it was next to impossible. My legs are strong but my arms are still lagging behind. I moved it a couple inches and looked at him with pleading eyes, "I'm thinking this isn't going to happen" I told him.

A woman who was working out nearby, with arms like a body builder started laughing out loud. "I had faith in you! I thought you were going to do it!" she yelled across the floor.

"Yeah, well that's because I still have my sweatshirt on," I told her. "Wait until you see my spaghetti arms." She cracked up again and I announced that I'm happy my weakling arms can be of some amusement to someone.

My trainer handed me the 30 lb. curling bar for what he calls "21's." I call them pure hell. I was relieved I could do it with 30, but grateful when he handed me the 20 lb. bar after a couple sets.

It is absolutely amazing how much you lose in the way of progress when you take a couple weeks off. My trainer assured me that the longer I work out, the less I'll fall back when I take a break. I just need to keep putting more time in.

I pushed it as hard as I could tonight, avoiding anything where I would have to kneel and felt good when my arms felt like jello and I could barely straighten them at the end of our session. I didn't think about my knee once the entire time except for when I told him those kneeling dips were out.

We saved abs for last, as usual, and tonight my trainer had some new torture for me. He did it all with me and I kept up just fine with him. That's the one thing I haven't let slide these past few post-surgical weeks. It was only a few days after surgery and I was sitting on the floor with my medicine ball, working it out. He told me he was impressed and that even if my arms are lagging behind, my core is getting stronger every day.

He told me he's got an arsenal of new things for me in the weeks to come. I'm excited to get to them.

When I was exchanging some work-out clothes from Christmas the other day, I was looking for some new t-shirts for the gym. There was one Nike one, part of the Live Strong clothing line. It said on the front "100% back."

I was so tempted to get it. Even if I don't wear it right away, I could keep it aside until I am 100% back. I held off though. I don't want to jump the gun and get ahead of myself. I'm 90% back. I'll find that shirt again when I'm ready. I'm going to be ready soon.