Trials and Tribulations of Cross Training… ver 1.1.002

I started back at the gym on Jan 4th. I see a Trainer that trains 4 of us at a time. It’s a great way to have the benefits of a personal trainer at a far less cost. Debbie Scott of Phoenix Fitness started the SED (Strength, Endurance, Diet) programs a number of years ago, and it is a pretty successful venture for her. All the groups are filled for the most part and there are waiting lists for some!

I am in the M-W-F 6:00am group with 3 nice ladies and our trainer Danielle kicks our collective @$$es to the point of exhaustion for every workout. She accomplishes this not by using the thousands and thousands of dollars worth of weight lifting equipment that’s in the gym, but by only using a ball, a mat and a step. Yikes. It’s pretty hard to fake anyone out when you actually have to lift YOURSELF off the ground, as opposed to selecting less weights than you should if we were using the universal machines.

Yep, it’s all about the body weight resistance. Oh sure, she’ll throw the occasional kettle bell and a medicine ball in every now and again, but those are usually just to cause an imbalance that we have to fight from falling over, therefore using all the little in between muscles and not just the major ones. I can tell you from current experience that when you engage those little muscles, they get just as sore, and sometimes more sore than the big ones.

Danielle really looks after us so we don’t get hurt, but at the same time, she seems to know our limits and pushes us to approach those limits on a daily basis. As for the connection to running, well, it’s all about the core exercises she is a freak about. Even when we are doing upper body exercises like dumbbell bench presses, she has us lift our legs straight out and off the bench, lifting them in the air as we lower the dumbbells. yikes, that REALLY hurts the gut after about 1 reps. (she makes us do 12, TWICE). Another good one we did last year was: Lay on your belly at the top of the stairs looking down them, pull yourself over the edge and ‘walk’ down to the bottom using only your hands while your feet drag behind and above you. It’s like a stair walking upside down push-up.

The SED plan provides a combination of Strength and Cardio in each workout. Right now we are doing lower body (and spin bikes) on Mondays, upper body(and users choice – treadmill, bike, stairs) on Wednesdays and a circuit workout that incorporates everything on Fridays. 

That is Kelly and Kathy beside me on the hell bikes, notice Kelly screaming in agony? or is she yawning… huh, I'll have to ask… hehe. (remember, this is 6:00am start time.)

This is a not so fun side plank with leg lifts. How's that for a look of major pain?

 

Here is a hip raise (an awesome one for runners, really strengths the hip and all the supporting bits around it. )

And here is the not so fun reverse leg lift on the ball.

 

Don’t tell Danielle, but this is where we try to stall and waste time while getting more water and chatting about nothing in particular.