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Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 322
S/C/G: 234.3 / 232.6 / 130
Height: 5'3"
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Anyone else have a trainer?
As I was making my last post on the strength and resistance thread, I realized, maybe I'm not the only one who takes notes from training sessions to do on my own and share with others. Does anyone else have a routine taught by a personal trainer that's good for gym or home? Instead of paying $30-50 per session, we can swap routines. Here's mine from last week (copied from other thread):
Materials used: Arc trainer (similar to elliptical, easily substituted for any cardio warm up), stability ball, hand weights (she started me on 5 lb), a small stability ball (can be subbed for a pillow), a floor mat, a step, and a BOSU ball (can be substituted for a step or nothing at all).
1) Warm up: 10 minutes on arc trainer or any cardio to get the muscles warm so you don't hurt anything. You don't want to just jump into weights or resistance with cold muscles.
2) Stretch: Calves, quads, reach for toes, arms (across the chest, then that one where you stretch your triceps by stretching your elbow over your head?)
3a) Arms. Grab your hand weights. Get on the balance ball and roll forward til only your neck and shoulders are on the ball. Bridge position. This is when you keep your butt and tummy flat, pressing toward the ceiling at all times. Squeeze your buttcheeks the entire time. First, with your weights in hand, do chest presses. Start with hands at shoulders and press the weights straight over your chest until they touch. Note: For all exercises here on out unless otherwise mentioned, do 3 sets of 12.
3b) After 3 sets of chest presses, do 3 sets of hammer curls on the ball. Start with your elbows at your sides (touching!) and curl up to your shoulder in a hammer press. (It's like a bicep curl with your hands facing you). When you curl back down, don't straighten your arm all the way, but keep some resistance for your triceps.
3c) After 3 sets of hammer curls, start again in the same position you started hammer curls. Only this time, keep your arms straight and reach all the way over your head and back down to starting position. 3 sets. Stretch arms again.
4a) Abs. Bring the ball over to a wall. Walk it back so when your lower back is on the ball, your feet are on the floor but toes touching the wall, knees bent slightly. I'll mention because I noticed this with a friend--when crunching up, keep the ball and legs steady, and use your abs for the work. She was bending her knees and rolling the ball under her with each move. First, 3 sets of 12, crunch forward and touch your fingers to the wall with each crunch. If you're not feeling it (I have strong abs under all my blubber so I complained at first that I felt nothing), walk the ball back a few more inches and keep trying until you feel it in your abs.
4b) Side crunches. Stay near the wall. Get on your side on the ball and scissor your legs out. I don't know how to explain than to say put your top leg forward and your bottom leg behind you, keep them straight, and use the wall for balance. With the ball under your side, crunch up and touch the wall like before. You can put your wall hand on your hip between wall touches. I know I butchered this explanation... 3 sets on each side. It will burn.
4c) Jack knife. Lay down on the mat. Put the SMALL stability ball or pillow between your ankles. Stretch your arms straight overhead. Crunch your legs (straight) and arms (straight) overhead, pass the ball or pillow from feet to hands, and bring it to the ground over your head. Then crunch back up, pass it back to feet, and down. This is 1 rep. My trainer had me do 2 (not 3) sets of 8 (not 12). I prefer to do this before leg exercises, because it involves upper leg strength and to be frank, my trainer's order was different and I couldn't complete the 2nd set when my legs were sore and tired first.
5a) Legs. First, hold on to a chair or a bar or something at your side for balance. With your right hand on your hip, bring your right leg straight at about a 45 degree angle from your body. Make circles in the air (I aimed for dinner plate size, but for more burn, make it slightly larger). 12 forward and without putting your leg down, 12 backward. 3 sets on each leg.
5b) Lunges. I did these on the BOSU ball at the gym (It's like a half stability ball on a sturdy base). You can do this on a step also, or just on the floor. Stand a good distance away from the BOSU ball and lunge forward into the middle of the ball, and then stand up. 12 lunges on one leg, 12 lunges on the next. 3 sets each.
5c) Step exercise 1. You can modify this as needed, but your heart rate will probably skyrocket on these last 2 exercises. You can do a basic step, but I did a knee-raise step, alternating knees on every other step. My trainer put 3 lb weights in my hands and when my left knee was up, I was to punch (with the weight) across my body with my right arm. Vice versa. 3 sets 12. On my own, I did this without weights. Less of a shoulder workout, but the cardio and legs made up for it in my opinion.
5d) Last one! Very hard, but if I can do it with my weak knees and all, you can too. Turn the step so the short end is facing you and it's all longways in front of you. Get on it. Jump down straddling it, and jump back up into center. 3 sets 12. You can do jumping jack arms if you want to, I didn't. Also, at home, jumping jacks would substitute it perfectly.
6) Stretch out everything one more time and relax!
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