Sat at the gym.....
I went to ballys with my buddies on Saturday. My friend and I signed up recently together and my other buddy has been going forever. Well because we were new, we got a free session with a trainer.
The friend who joined with me is also an egineer (AKA geek) but unlike me he doens't have years of military and sports exerience. For him this adventure into the gym is a rather big deal and so to make the experience more comfortable I signed him up for the session and then joined him in it so that we could play together.
I was actually rather impressed with the guy they gave to us. I had never seen him working in that gym before that day or I don't remember him but he was very knowledgable and he made our time fun. We did not work out very hard but we did learn a lot. He took us over to all the equipment (the stuff in the non-free weight area) and he gave us a nice tour. He explained that these machines served a good purpose to help people to learn which muscles to use before going to the free weights. He said the machines gave more stability. My trainer doesn't use the machines from what I can tell so this was a good thing for me to learn about.
We walked through about 10 of the different machines and how to do the movements correctly. This guy was really big on form and very knowledgable about the body and muscles that are in use and how they all interact. He explained concentric, ecentric and isocentric movements to us and many other bio-mechanical things. Once we learned the 10 different machines he had us do them as a circut. That was fun. We did lat pull downs, rowing, leg press, overhead press, butterflys and some others. Then he had us finish with the plank (I finally know that that is now). He put us in the plank position and then asked if we felt we could hold it for 20 seconds. I laughed at him and asked if he was serious. So he told me I could do it with one leg. So I did and then he let us hold if for 60 seconds.
He also showed us some cool moving stretches before the circut and he finished us off with some balancing exercises that were fun and challenging. After watching some training sessions in this gym I didn't have high hopes for this session. This guy exceded my expectations. It is a different type of thing than what my trainer does but it was still a great learning experience. My trainer talks less and works me a lot more....
Still, I'll count this as a workout and log it...