YOURBeFit LIFE

When I came to see Rhonda last April I was already a veteran of a half a dozen personal trainers over the last 10 years. Some were very good, some were plum awful but none of them seemed to get it that I wasn't looking to beef up to Schwarzenegger size, qualify for an Iron Man, or prove that I could make in the SEALS training. I just wanted to be in shape, able to walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing, able to move some furniture around without rupturing a disc, able to hike and bike without needing a rest stop every fifty yards. Plus I had a problem, at age 65 I had experienced a slow decay in my back support and was told by my physician that i had "degenerative disk disease". 

Rhonda seemed to get it right from the start. We started out slowly, trying exercises that built core without exposing my back to undue stress.  I was surprised by how well this worked. Instead of finishing each session exhausted with my arms to tired to lift, I left feeling like I had been exercising where it counted. At first it seemed I wasn't doing much, just lots of lunges and twists that focused more on my torso than anywhere else. I wondered if this approach was going to produce any results and felt kinda wimpy that I wasn't demonstrating more brawn. After a couple of weeks i stared to notice a new strength in my walking and climbing, a solidity I had never experienced before. This sensation continued to grow over the weeks, giving me a feeling of having a "new chassis" to hang my extremities on.  As the exercise broadened I began to fell physically different, not just stronger but more focused and more versatile. And, most gratefully, the pain and distress in my lower back began to subside. 

I learned that the key was precision, knowing exactly which muscles to move and how to move them. It amazed me that leaning forward or backwards a couple of inches or lowing my lunge a another few inches could make such a difference. i also learned that standing flat-footed on the floor and doing bicep curls was very different from doing the same curls while trying to balance on a Bosu ball.  This notion of engaging your whole body in the exercise was and is new to me. It seems to pay off in dividends and bring more value to each routine.

As for motivation, I was used to being brow-beaten into "give me 5 more," often getting nauseous in the middle of the routine from over-exertion.  Once I even had an "exertion headache" that felt like my skull was going to explode from trying too hard to lift heavy weights.  But  with Rhonda's approach is to set a goal and let me decide if I want to go beyond it. It is surprising to me how effective this is at getting me to gradually raise the bar in terms of weights and reps. By taking direct control over the exercise I started to learn something about myself, that I could tune-in and  learn my limits as well as my capabilities.

I mentioned that I had previous trainers. While I gained some benefit from all but a few, little of what they taught me stayed with me, perhaps because I was just defaulting to whatever they said and not even thinking about what I was doing. A true partnership is not like that, in a true partnership you are both  shaping the program as it evolves. I've heard that exercise is at least as much a mental game as it is a physical one but never appreciated how much that is so until came to BeFit. 

Oh, and for those of you who grew up in the 60's, I refrained from even mentioning the Beach Boys song for 4 months, as difficult as that was for a dedicated fan like myself. Still, it's not a bad catchphrase to get you going...