Working on Working Out

I had my second of two free personal training sessions at the gym tonight, and I am feeling awesome. I have skinny arms and shoulders, but otherwise I am fit as a fiddle! No really, I passed all the "tests" with flying colors. Here's a sample of what she had me do:

• Balance on one foot with my eyes closed for 30 seconds. I made it 29 seconds on my first try--so close! It's way harder than it seems, but on my second try I felt like I could've stood there for minutes.
• How many pushups could I do in one minute? Answer: 30. The challenge was to do as many as I could with proper form while on my toes (real pushup position), only dropping to my knees as necessary (for "girl" pushups--and I am calling them that only because that's how other people describe them, not because I think girls can't do real pushups). I didn't ever drop to my knees. My last five pushups were pretty minimal, but at least my form was good.
• Running on the treadmill to get my heartrate to its target maximum rate. And happily, that took a while. The trainer asked what kind of exercise I usually did and how often, and I said I tried to run a couple times a week. She then had me run sprints and inclines on the treadmill and commented that she could tell I actually do run, since my heart rate stayed low. Apparently people often lie about how much they exercise, and their heart rates give them away every time. :)

Other than that, we spent tonight doing exercises with hand weights (lunges, planks, squats) and machines, including rowing. She told me that I may be small, but I shouldn't let anyone relegate me to the coxswain's seat! The one depressing part of the night was when she told me to try the seated press, starting with 10 reps at 20 pounds, and I could barely handle that weight. It made me so sad to hear her revise her instruction to "Give me 10... if you think you can." Of course I can! I may not be able to move tomorrow, but I did it, and now I have a clear fitness goal. Stronger arms. So I can move my own stuff when my lease is up in July.

In other gym news, I have been steadily making my rounds through the classes. I tried a new spinning class last night, and for the last two Mondays, I've been going to Body Jam, which is like Zumba but with hip hop instead of Latin flavor. Any workout where you get to shake it like Beyonce sounds good to me. I also tried a barre class (which was not at all related to a ballet barre class but seemed to be an excuse to play with exercise props) and a ballet class (which was related to ballet). There are still several other classes I'd like to try, like Zumba and pilates and Nia dance, so my schedule is going to be happily jam packed from now until... forever. But it's so much easier to go to work on Monday mornings when I have gym class to look forward to that night! I still haven't worked up the courage to try out the 8 a.m. pilates class on Mondays, though. That's another goal: become a morning person, go to morning pilates at least once, and start getting myself into the office before 8:30.

And, well, I guess that's enough resolutions since it's not even the new year yet. Strong arms, morning person, office by 8:30. I'll let you know how I do in a few months.