“Yeah, well, I really know nothing about the machines at the gym, I’m the n00b, remember?”

Believe it or not, I was the n00b in October. You’ll pick it up really quickly as long as you stick with it.

“The machine went to 20, so I figured 10 was half-way hard. Boy was I wrong!”

Well, no, that’s exactly right. But 20 is basically sprinting up the stairs as fast as one possibly can…

“Today Ashley taught me some free weight workouts, so I did two sets of 20 reps each doing a one-knee-on-a-bench thing and lifting the weight with one hand up beside me.”

If you’re bending over while doing it, it sounds like rows. There’s different ways to do rowing, which is a key part of a weight training workout. Trainers like to mix it up, so there’s a combination of free weight rows, barbell rows, cable machine rows, and low rows. If you’re straight up pulling the arm wide, that’s a lateral raise. There’s also a bunch of other exercises in that area…

“Another two sets of 20 reps doing the sitting up a pushing them over my head.”

Shoulder presses. Works the shoulder muscles. Another key workout step. There’s also chest presses, which involves lying down with your back on the bench and bringing the weights up to your full arm extension above you, and bench presses, which is basically the same thing but with a barbell.

“And one set of 20 reps lat pulldowns at 60 pounds and one set of 12 pulldowns at 75 pounds (I just couldn’t push myself to do any more).”

That’s actually pretty strong. One thing a trainer will help you is to both standardize and mix up the number of reps. By-and-large, my trainer has me doing 10 or 15 reps, the former for strength (at a higher weight) and the latter for endurance (at a lower weight). There’s also the cable pulldown machine if you want to mix it up.

“The soreness has mostly gone away, except for yesterday afternoon I tried two new things: leg presses (20 reps at 135 pounds, then 15 reps at 215 pounds) and I did some work with the free weights back at a 70 degree angle which sure made it a lot harder!”

Is that 135 pounds total or individual leg? If it’s the former, damn. I’m up to 115 pounds per leg pushing up (there are two leg press machines, one of them has your back basically offset from the floor, which is harder — and which my trainer makes me do), and I’ve come to call that machine the “Soul Sucker” because of the effort it takes.

Anyway… one thing to keep in mind is if you’re doing heavier/challenge weights, especially with free weights or barbells, have someone spot you. Once you’re in the swing of things, your body doesn’t get sore as much, but you just hit a wall; it’s pretty remarkable, but a little scary if you’re by yourself. I’m guessing Ashley’s watching over you, right?

Also, when you start doing it regularly, take notes. I do and it helps me figure out what weights to do the next time I lift. Unlike cardio, I can’t memorize my level.

Keep it up! Also, I will say that after 5 months of going nearly every day, I can’t say I look forward to actually *going* to the gym. But when I’m there, after the workout stretching (make sure to stretch!), I feel much much better.

This week was supposed to be the week I started going every weekday morning with Ashley, but last night and this morning (and, actually, all day today) I just felt completely destroyed. I don’t know if I over-did it yesterday or what, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to work out this morning. I’ll try for daily workouts next week, but I’ll be working out tomorrow and Friday AM. I’m finding that I’m doing a bit better on the treadmill now, I’m making it to the 8 minute mark because I feel like I want to rip my legs off below the knees.

Congrats on staying with the work outs! So has it gotten to the point yet that you are actually looking forward to them yet? Wow you are an ambitious guy aren’t you!? 10 on the Stairmaster…..I don’t use many machines but from the folks I have talked with in the past, yea I can see how it kicked your ass. lol

Has the soreness gone away yet the next mornings after the workouts? I just started back using our Bowflex a couple of weeks ago and even though I have been doing cardio like crazy for the past 9-10 months, that first day downstairs on the Bowflex had my body aching like it hadn’t in a long time.

Are you stretching at all before and more importantly after the treadmill and/or Stairmaster? I hate to stretch, but when I wasn’t stretching after a few months of running I developed ITBS in my right knee and it knocked me out of doing any running for almost two months. So make sure that you are getting some stretching in at the very least after the workout.

I can’t tell you how happy and excited I am for you. I don’t know you well, but any time I see someone make a true effort to start working out and getting healthier I am always happy. Stick with it and keep having fun.

-Eric

Another strategy I see a lot of people do, at least initially, is to have “slow periods” where you don’t stop walking, and then to scale it up again. I personally don’t do this, and go for sustained endurance, but that’s another trick you could use, e.g., go down to 2-3 km/h after 12 minutes, get your breath back to normal, and then scale it up again, etc.

Re mph/kmh: I think it depends on your stride. I can pretty much walk (really fast) at 4.5mph, and have to only start jogging when I go faster than that — so I do my warm-up walk at 4.4mph before I start running. Of course, everyone’s stride differs.

BTW, the speed of 4 — is that km/h or mph?