The First Week is Always the Hardest... or is it?

Last Monday, I showed up for my first day of personal training with Jared.

I didn't know what to expect, but I had prepared myself for the possibility that I would be going home in an ambulance, curled in the fetal position, whimpering something about "never again... never again."

This is what I expected to ride home in.

It turns out, I didn't need to be worried.




Jared started me out by explaining the basic goals of the program, walking me through the diet plan, answering any questions I had... He really wanted to make sure that I had a good idea what we were going to be working towards and how we were going to get there.

Then Jared took me through an upper-body warm-up routine with some resistance bands in order to get the blood flowing and get my muscles warm.

Next, he took me over to the weight bench and showed me the proper technique for bench press. Jared and I went to the same high school, and we learned to bench press from the same football coach. It turns out, he taught us TERRIBLE form. Wanting to make sure that I didn't get hurt, Jared took the time to walk me through the proper technique with just the bar for resistance.

When I had the technique down, we started adding weight. Nothing too crazy, but enough that I was sore the next day. We did three sets of increasing weights, and then we were done.

That was it for Day 1. And the rest of the days that week were pretty similar. Come in, stretch out, warm up, do three or four sets of one big compound lift (bench, squat, shoulder press, deadlift), then go home.

Jared explained that he wanted this to be difficult for me, but no so difficult that I would hate it. He said "Whenever I've started someone out with a really difficult first session, 50% of the time they never come back. And it's not only bad for me, because I don't get paid anymore, but it's bad for them, because they have a bad impression of what it means to stay fit."

I see what he's saying. Every morning I would wake up sore, but not so sore that I was looking for excuses to skip the next workout. And as each day went on, I got more and more confident, more and more excited about going to the gym. So when Jared started adding exercises this week, I was not only ready for them, I was excited about them. Instead of wishing I had never gone to the gym (like the clients who trained too hard their first session), I was looking FORWARD to working out.

Maybe Jared's using some crazy bodybuilder strain of reverse psychology, but I think it's working.

What about you? Have you ever been demotivated by an overzealous trainer? Have you ever been underchallenged by a trainer?