Journal Week 2

Monday morning was a day of leave for me, and I was still in Jakarta. I went to the hotel gym and did my lower body workout, no problems except that they had a different leg press machine based on cables. It wasn't as hard as the 45 degree leg press of my Singapore gym, because the effort tapered off towards the full extension of the legs. The free weight exercises were the same of course, and I'm certainly convinced of the value of using free weight exercises where ever possible. I tried the one-leg calf raise on a step, and it was sensational, a very good calf exercise, particularly when you stretch down and up. I'm very pleased about this. My first attempts at calf exercises, using the angled raise and a machine, didn't seem to do anything much. I couldn't hold weights heavy enough to make the angled raise intense.

I still haven't got the knack of the dumbbell lunges; I don't really feel it in my hamstrings, although I certainly feel my legs in general during that exercise. I noticed at my Friday lower body workout a woman doing the lunges with out stepping back between reps; she was just going up and down. The lunge video demonstration by the male model (Mike) on the bodyforlife website also uses this technique; next time I'l try it.

The trainer at the Jakarta gym was fascinated by the Body for Life program; she hadn't heard of it. Books being so expensive in Jakarta, she won't be able to buy it. Perhaps her employer can.

Wednesday night I was back in Singapore. I went to the gym for my upper body workout. The week before I decided to take advantage of one of the free sessions the gym provides with a personal trainer, and the only time I could get was 7.00pm, peak hour. It was a miserable session. I was two minutes late, which my trainer used as an excuse to be ten minutes late. While I was waiting, I noticed a whiteboard in the trainer's office marked "Appreciation". There were three columns for each trainer: points currently awarded, the projected total at the end of the quarter, and a target. The projected totals were about 60% of the targets. Thinking it was some measure of customer service, I asked someone behind the desk how we nominated trainers for appreciation points (one of the trainers had several times been quite helpful to me). She smiled, and said that it was a measure of the "company's appreciation", meaning the number of clients each trainer had signed up for fitness sessions.

My trainer turned up eventually. After some preliminaries, we headed off to the weights room. He looked at my program, and said he didn't think much of it: it was too ambitious, and it was better for a beginner to alternate sets from different muscle groups, rather than repeat sets. Nonetheless, I said, this is what I want to do. Please check my form, I asked. Well, I was doing everything wrong. Lifting my left shoulder too much during the dumbbell bench press. Something else wrong with this exercise. And so on. I really should sign up for ten lessons for $600. Or 25 lessons, then it's only $50 per session (paid in advance; the way gyms want everything paid in advance ... if it was any other company, you'd have grave concerns about their cash flow position).

When 8.00pm came along, that was the end of it. I had completed none of my exercises properly, with only a few sets per exercise. I walked out of the gym in a very dark mood. The trainer wondered if I wanted to book my other two free sessions. "I'm coming in at 6.00am" I said. They don't start that early, so that was the end of that.

On Friday I arrived for my first 6.00am workout, thinking that if going to the gym is going to be part of my regular life, I'll have to do it in the mornings. Almost no one was in the gym. The aerobic exercise first thing in the morning is hard, at least for the first ten minutes, so I wondered how my sleepy muscles would cope with weight training. Surprisingly, I didn't notice a lower performance. I have a 10 minute walk to the gym, which may serve as a small warm-up. I finished in 55 minutes, tolerably close to the theoretical 43 minute workout. Back home for a shower and breakfast, and off to work.

During this second week I discovered some of the web resources for Body for Life, such as the Yahoo club and http://www.clubbfl.com. These sites have been very helpful. On Saturday I realised that I had misinterpreted the rule on portion sizes; I was choosing serving sizes as big as my hand, not my palm. My weight is the same as when I started the program; so while I have probably lost a small amount of fat, I haven't done very well, and that has been nagging at me. For my third week I will reduce my portion sizes. Also on Friday I ordered the Body Calliper, a body fat measuring tool, and I look forward to that arriving to help me with monitoring my progress.

At the end of the second week, I haven't noticed much muscle development or fat loss. I'm sure I have been eating too much, and the arrival of the callipers will help me track fat loss. I still have things to learn about the weight training, and I have not yet mastered the intensity aspect. Apart from my calves, my lower body was not sore at all after the workouts I did this week. I thought by the end of the second week I would be in the groove, but I'm not at all happy about my upper body workouts, and important aspects of my lower body workout are not yet satisfactory.

On the bright side, I now have many more support options than I was aware of, and I've bought an excellent book, Weight Training for Dummies, and I'm investigating a magazine subscription and other sources of help. One of my friends here, who is a very experienced body builder, will help my next week with my upper body workout. And the golden rule: I don't care about any results until the end of the fourth week...