Today's Exercise: Hit Like a Girl

My friend Jennie's been working out with a trainer named Luis for a year or so, and she's always talking about his killer workout sessions. Last night he let me tag along to one of her sessions, and she wasn't kidding. He's tough, but fun. 

He had us do 10 minutes of warmups (burpees, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, etc) and then had set up little stations all around the room. So while I was doing this hopping thing on the step thing, she was working out with him doing some one on one boxing for three minutes. Then we switched. I may or may not have mentioned how much I loved kickboxing and as soon as I put those gloves on, that all came flooding back. While I was worried about punching out a poor guy who only had mitts on (since i'm used to whaling on a heavy bag), it was fun to have something that would react to you and make you duck. I was thrilled. 

This continued for several stations. At the ab station, I opted for planks and he seemed surprised when I asked if he wanted high ones with my arms extended or low ones with my elbows. He laughed that high ones are hard, and seemed impressed I could do them at all. Thank you, yoga! He did make a great station for leg lifts, where you really had to kick up almost on to your shoulders. Again, thanks to all those yoga shoulder stands, this was pretty tolerable (though my core muscles were disagreeing strongly at about 22). 

He then had us just run around the heavy bag (while he held it) and we too turns punching it for ten times before trading off. I really, really loved hitting the heavy bag. Is it wrong that I like hitting things so much? Then we did some blocking/punching/ducking drill and bicep curls with lunges. Jennie lifted that 40 lb. bar like it was nothing, but I wimped out half way and had to go to the 35. Then again, I haven't been training with him for that long... she's used to this kind of crazy. 

And for a little cool down, just some planks (regular & side) and some backbends. It was a great hour-ish long session, but I swear, if I didn't do yoga I wouldn't have survived. Hell, the 10 minute high cardio warmup nearly did me in. Guess, I need to really work on doing cardio intensity. 

Still great workout, and today (saturday) I'll be doing my four mile run. And while I was feeling a mite guilty about canceling on my trainer today, I think my arms couldn't have survived three days in a row of personal training. We'll save that for the next time I get this same brainy idea.