PERSONAL TRAINING

Today Gary and I went to visit our new gym (L.A. Fitness on Hollywood Blvd) for the first time since signing up earlier in the week. The place is incredible, it's brand new so it doesn't have that sweaty smell yet, sort of smells like a new car. In addition to all of the usual gym things, it has basketball and racquetball courts, a smoothie/ juice bar, a huge aerobics room and the pool and jacuzzi will be finished soon. So we were excited to go in for our one free session with a personal trainer. I figured that they would probably weigh us, take our measurements and maybe tell us our body fat percentage to make us feel bad and then try to sell us some sessions. Instead, this guy Mike takes us over to the mats and starts us doing jumping jacks, mountain climbers, squats, jogging-in-place, and all sorts of other forms of torture. We were both out of breath and red in the face within the first two minutes. Then he takes us to this pull up machine where we're supposed to do reverse pull ups. Start at the top and then lower yourself down. Gary made it through those okay, okay meaning that he was capable of doing them but then wanted to die. I was not so good at those. I basically just climbed up, jumped up to get to the bar and then plummeted back to the earth 10 times. There was no gentle lowering going on. I actually thought my shoulders might detach from my arms at one point. After that exercise Mike decided that if we threw up on him it might not be good for business so we all sat down for the sales pitch. After some deliberation, Gary and I decided that although having a personal trainer sounds like a great idea, we want to actually start going to the gym first. Start slow, work our way up. So tomorrow we start our own drill instructor-less exercise program. Maybe we'll get the trainer down the road a bit when we can actually hack it without wanting to puke. :)