back to the trainer i go!

Thursday night was my first session with my personal trainer since my surgery in February.

I worked out Tuesday and Wednesday, despite the sore muscles. Same routine as Monday:  20 minutes of walking on the treadmill, followed by three sets of 20 squats, 20 lunges, and 10 dumbbell presses with 10 pound dumbbells. It was a tiny bit easier this time around, but I was pretty tired when I was done. As expected, Monday's post-workout muscle soreness had fully set in by Wednesday and I was VERY sore!  My legs were sore in general, but my quads were really sore. So much so that it was a project to use the toilet. I made sure to use the handicapped stall, because it has railings I could use to lower myself down.  I am SO glad that I started working out on my own earlier in the week. I got the worst of the soreness over with and it got me back into the mindset to workout.

When I went to the trainer Thursday night, he had a ton of questions about how the surgery went, what they did, how I felt afterwards, how I feel now, my range of movement, etc.  He started me off with a warm-up:  three sets of jogging in place, jumping jacks, and very slow mountain climbers. Mountains climbers weren't hard, but I definitely wasn't able to do them the proper way. He then had me do four sets of lunges, with each set being three complete round trips across the studio.  Next were three sets of 10 squats holding a 5 pound weight. I then did three sets of 10 sumo squats with a 15 pound kettle bell. Finally, it was three sets of lateral pull-downs with a very light weight (not sure what it was). I honestly didn't feel anything in my abs until it was time to do the lateral pull-downs. My squads and thighs were killing me, but that's it. The pull-downs weren't difficult, but they tired me out and my abs were sore. Actually, it wasn't pain, really. It felt like a punching when I pulled down on the bar, and like I was being stretched out when bringing the bar back up. After that I was done for the night. He gave me A LOT of rest periods, but I was still pretty beat.

Basically, I'm pretty much starting from almost the beginning again. He estimates it will take me at least a month or more to get back to where I was before surgery. For now, he wants me to work out only three days a week. It will give me plenty of recovery time and will help me to slowly get back up to speed. He didn't make me do any squat jumps (thank you!!), since those bother me right now. It's the combination of jumping up and reaching up with my arms at the same time, I think. And no push-ups. (Darn....)  He said we'll try a push-up in a few weeks once I've gotten back into the swing of things and my ab muscles are healed a bit more. Knowing how I felt last week doing that one push-up, I'm already pretty nervous for the day when he has me try again. Logically, I know I'm not a fragile flower and I'm pretty well healed, but I can't help but worry that doing a push-up will tear apart my surgically repaired ab muscles. It won't--it's just me being a big ol' baby.  And I have to get over it if I want to move forward.