Personal Trainers

I feel so trendy. I feel so Hollywood. I've had a session with a personal trainer. I'm in. A PDA and a bluetooth thingy in my ear are soon to follow. I'm going to flit around the tennis skirt Kroger in my warm up suit and talk really loud in my bluetooth thingy about "doing lunch," "touching base," "networking" and "revisiting this issue next week."
That's laughable. I'm not a bluetooth thingy in my ear kind of a guy. And I probably won't be a personal trainer kind of a guy. Part of my new membership to Gold's Gym included 2 sessions with a personal trainer. They're a bit out of reach for our budget right now. But it would be good to continue the sessions. The young man assigned to me pushed without being Vince Lombardi. He asked the right questions and suggested a smart path - a slow start, some cardio, some resistance. He understood that my upper body is strong, but my lower extremities are still feeling the brunt of carrying so much weight for so many years. So most everything was on a bench, toning upper body and letting the cardio work (on a bike) gently tone the legs.
It's hard to believe now, but I used to be young and enjoy athletic endeavors. It felt really good to be working up a sweat and tweaking muscles that have sat dormant for so many years. It felt good to go to bed stiff and sore. But I must admit some trepidation. We were doing some band training (a new one to me...last time I worked out it was either Nautilus or free weights.) He was pulling one on end of these bands and I had the hand grips in the other. My fear was that the grips would slip out of my hands and I'd send this kid flying across Suwanee, Georgia like somebody in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Fortunately, it didn't happen. When he suggested this band training I thought "great...I'm still being treated like an old, fat guy and I'm going to have to do some wimpy rubber band training..." I had images of old folks in wheelchairs wearing sweatbands, coach's shorts and dress shoes passing a big rubber ball back and forth as part of their physical therapy. I was wrong. It was a workout in every sense of the word. The kid knew what he was doing ("kid"..he was probably 30 years old...ok, so I am old.)
You know what the highlight of the afternoon was for me, though? He sat us in front of the mirrored wall for our workout. I cringed, still living in a time when I avoided mirrors. But you know what? I wasn't sad about what I saw. In fact, trying to push out one more rep on a particular exercise, I gave myself a bad-ass grimace in the mirror. "Private Joker, let me see your war face!!" Turns out there's a drop or two of testosterone left...the countdown to the tattoo has begun!