Been awhile since I did an update on my fitness workouts. As previously mentioned, I had a personal trainer at the community center last year, then had my hand injuries, and by the time I got back three months later, he had his own studio, and was no longer working at the community center.
But before I’d injured my hands I had purchased a PT package of 6 hours, and still had 90 minutes on the previous one. I wanted to get my money’s worth, so I applied for a new PT.
I had my first appointment, he took my slip for the 6 hour package plus 90 minutes, and drew out a list of slots — one per session. Then he forgot my second appointment, didn’t write me in. We got through that — he said he’d give me an extra slot. But after using the 90 minutes, and the extra, he mentioned that we were through.
What happened to the 6 hours I’d purchased and given him the paperwork for? I just didn’t feel like trying to correct him, after working so hard to get him already trying to explain why I was doing the sessions (supporting my swimming strength and general health — and someone to help motivate and show me how much more I can do that I think I can do).
So I let him call it quits, and called the fitness coordinator, to ask for a new PT. She said she would have someone call me, gave me a name. I waited two weeks and called back. He finally called and left a message saying he had called me before and was waiting for my response. I don’t get that many phone calls so I checked — I hadn’t gotten a phone call from him — but that wasn’t a problem, he might have misdialed and thought he’d left me one — the thing is we were talking now. But when I called him back I mentioned my best times are early mornings, and after that I can do evenings after work, it is just harder to control my work schedule for getting out at a set time.
He responded with his not being available early mornings — getting in at 9 a.m. — so would go back to the fitness coordinator to see what to do. But the fitness coordinator knew my availability — I had mentioned it to her — so why would she have someone call me whose schedule didn’t work with mine. Of course, he totally overlooked my afternoon availability.
Either way, it has been two weeks since my last session, and I still haven’t made a connection with someone. I’ve been contemplating seeing who I need to talk to about turning in the package and getting a refund at this rate. I didn’t think it would be this hard to use my PT package.
In other fitness news, During those two weeks, I had my first swim lesson since coming back from the hand injuries. I get my lessons from the aquatics center coordinator, and she is a very good person to train with and get lessons from. I have taken lessons from her for at least 3 years. She gave me a good workout routine to help train for the Individual medley and the one lap single stroke events. I found my times shrink instantly after my lesson — not to where I was before the injury, but much closer than I was before the swim lesson.
Wednesday was a swim day, and I found that while my times were close to normal, they were a little slower. More than that, while I was getting the strength out of my strokes, I was feeling a little fatigued, and I wasn’t “feeling” the water like I have been. It is a hard thing to teach or explain, but you need to develop this “feel” for the water to really be able to swim well. I could tell my feel was off yesterday. But I kept driving myself through my drills — concentrating carefully on form and technique. (I have learned sometimes, if the form really falls apart, it is best to stop, rather than to keep practicing the wrong thing.)
I have a swim book that encourages you to practice your form out of the water, to have the right form in the water. I had it before my injuries, but neither then, nor now, have I been able to get together with a PT, show them the materials, and have them help me develop a workout that would give me that training that I want. The equipment specifically made for swimming technique is expensive, and it takes a little planning to “jury-rig” other equipment to give you the same effect. I haven’t been able to have someone help me put that together — part of the reason being I don’t fully understand what my book is saying — the other part being I can’t get a PT person together with my swim coach to make sure they understand the swimming ideas when designing my PT training.
I’ll update more in a week or so when hopefully i have more fitness news to report.
At The Rainbow 