What is personal training like?

Hi, my name is Esther and I've got a personal trainer. Sounds like an AA meeting, luckily its not! ;)Ever since my boyfriend asked me to take up a training challenge with him, I've been nervous for January 2015, when we would start training together... Because since I was three years old I've been taking dance classes instead of doing push-ups or aerobic classes in a gym. By the age of fifteen I was part of a few showballet teams, plus I became a street- and jazzdance teacher. At some point I was dancing five times a week.

My before picture

Five years ago I moved to Amsterdam…I Couldn’t be happier because I love this city, but dancing wasn’t part of my daily routine anymore. My body has always been fit and healthy, but of course it changed because I started to miss out on dance classes. I’m even seeing a physiotherapist because my body is too flexible and my muscles are not strong enough anymore to handle it. I kinda feel like an old lady writing that, but I just turned 28, so time to change things around…

Anyway, in the next 5 weeks I’ll be training twice a week with Mr. Boyfriend and our trainer Joe. I’m scared but excited and will be sharing my thoughts and progress with you guys! Just an extra motivation for me to train like never before and show you some awesome before- and after pics ;)

WEEK 1 PERSONAL TRAINING

I expect this Monday to be the day that will change my life into a daily 'Muscular Pain Party' for the next 5 weeks. Yippee, can’t wait…

We’re starting our training with an extensive intake. Since we want to get the best results for our bodies, our training schedule has to be personalized. The health- and movement analysis contains tests to check up on muscle strength and flexibility to find out where the body needs extra care before it can strengthen.

Joe also checks up on our goals: mine is to get as fit/strong as possible and, if possible, loose some on my legs and get back the round shape of my bum…Joe said I’m quite strong for a girl (yay!) but noticed my back needs extra training. I’ve got an office-job where my daily posture isn’t as it’s supposed to be so my back is indeed in need of help.

The principles of our coaching studio are based on three phases:

• Powering up (get back the basics your body needs to get strong);
• Real Power (strength and dynamics, starting to get stronger);
• Unlimited Power (extend everything as much as possible/needed).

Since my back needs a lot of ‘powering up’, we’re going to focus on getting my body ‘back to strong’ first. A lot of people start lifting heavy weights immediately and turn out to have injuries, because other parts of their body weren’t ready, but actually it’s as simple as ABC: start from the beginning and build up.

We ended our first ‘training’ with some exercises to practice at home and Mr. Boyfriend got answers to his questions about vitamins and supplements. I’m quite happy about my nutrition so we didn’t talk about that, but if you guys have questions about that: please ask!

Thursday was legday
Oh lord, I heard stories about it, but never experienced muscle pain like ‘the 2 days after’…Because I have a little knee injury Joe didn’t let me train with heavy weights. Fine by me, since walking lunges without weights kill me already.

We focused on acidification with a lot of asian squats (feet turned out instead of pointing front to focus on the perfect posture and exercise), split squats, cross-behind lunges and step-ups. Imagine: Mr. Boyfriend, who is 6’4”, stepped up on the same wooden cube as I did, so I (5’4”) felt pretty awesome!

Cycling back home my legs felt like spaghetti and the usual 15-minute-drive now took me around 25 minutes, but I’m so looking forward to next Monday! After these two classes I’m definitely happy I made the decision to take the challenge and I’m super excited for the next weeks.

If you have any questions about my training, nutrition or anything else, please let me know because I’m happy to share everything I learned with you Fit Girls!