In July I received a notification for a training client who scheduled me for a Monday afternoon. Brand new, no prior visits to the studio, and no background information. This usually strikes fear in my heart because you never know what condition or injuries this person may have.
So of course I contacted her and we decided that we’d learn everything we needed to know about each other during our initial training session.
She came in with serious back issues – herniated disk, an extra disk in her spine, what seemed to be plantar fasciitis, some shoulder tightness and for the most part had never worked with anything other than resistance bands. She didn’t seem all that thrilled with strength training but knew that it was something that she needed to do to stay healthy – a necessary evil. And she certainly expressed no interest in incorporating cardio into her routine.
Her big worry was squatting – she did not want to squat and told me that every time she did a squat for her previous trainer she would be in pain.
I ran her through the paces that first session – I didn’t give her many breaks and she was really gassed at the end. But she rebooked!
Over the course of the summer, we found ways around squatting, we worked core smartly, she picked up weights, she did pushups, planks, assisted pull-ups and a lot of other crazy stuff she’d never done before. Before long she was doing three sets of every exercise and supersetting those exercises. The weight poundage kept increasing. And we started seeing weight loss and muscle definition. She gave me feedback on every workout so that I had the ability to figure out what worked and what didn’t worked.
Early Fall we started adding biking intervals – first slow, just getting a feel for adding cardio and making sure we weren’t going to ruin her back in the meantime.
Fast forward to now. She’s doing high intensity biking intervals – jumping off the bike, supersetting weights from 10lb to 20lbs in all sets. She has lost over 17lbs and her bodyfat/body shape has changed dramatically! This woman’s core is stronger than almost anyone I’ve ever met. WIN!
But for me, her biggest change was not physical. It was the desire and confidence I saw growing in her every session – she never missed a session. You could see she loved getting stronger and was actually enjoying it! Well.. maybe not enjoy but certainly wanted to be there 😉
Her desire to get better, get stronger, and do it the right way; was and is, shining through every time she walks in the door. In addition, she’s regularly on a spin bike at home running intervals and doing weights when she’s not with me – a far cry from where we started in July. And this photo is one I received from her today. It makes me so happy!
When what you do for a living changes someone for the better, there’s no better feeling! It’s the validation that all the work you do does matter :). Thank you to this wonderful client who reminds me that this is why I love my job!