Wendy Roche – Personal Fitness Trainer – Asheville, NC

I’ve got some amazing clients.  I know I’ve said that before but it’s the truth!

For the last several years I’ve run a boot camp up until recently.  As a farewell present, a number of people that have taken that boot camp class for years wrote this amazing workout for me and did it with me.  I have to say, it was the most challenging, most perfect, terribly fun workout I’ve ever done!!  They took me through the warm up, quoted lines I say during workouts, and it was a blast!  They also filmed it with my iPad and gave me a card and gift card to a local coffee shop!  I was totally surprised.

I haven’t been able to tell everyone just how thankful I am for them but I truly am grateful.  Having a group of incredible people around you makes you stronger.  So remember, working out is not just good for your body but it’s good for your heart and soul as well.

Don’t get bored at the gym, try moonwalking…or pushing heavy things with people on them down the hallway.

I’ve got some amazing clients.  They come to me for all different reasons and they all know that I can help them achieve their goals.  I thought I’d share with you a short story of my client of the month; Carol!  Carol and I started working together back in May 2011.  She came to me for weight loss.  Although we haven’t lost a tremendous amount of weight she has accomplished some amazing things.

Carol’s knees bothered her a great deal.  Going up and down stairs were a major issue.  Her stairs at home are higher than normal stairs so they were especially difficult.  Carol’s balance was also a concern.  She walks on the weekends with her husband and she was worried about falling.  A concern for a lot of people, and knee pain is more common than you may think as well.  Carol is now able to step up on a bench and balance on 1 leg while holding a dumbbell above her head.  So, steps are not as challenging and her balance has improved tremendously.

Something else worth mentioning is that Carol had never workout on a consist basis ever.  She had never begun an exercise routine and stuck with it.  This is pretty common among a lot of people as well.  Perhaps you even.  Well, she hasn’t missed a workout since she began.  Really remarkable!  She’s been extremely consistent from the beginning and I couldn’t be prouder of her, until this past week that is.

Carol and her workout partner met me at a local gardens not far from the gym last week.  We went out there to enjoy the outdoors and get some sunshine, it was the first nice day we’d had in months!  My plan was to show Carol how she can burn a tons of calories during her weekend walks.  We did intervals of fast walking and slow walking; walking at a very fast pace for 30 seconds and then slowing things down for 40 seconds and repeating that for 20 to 30 minutes.  Since it was our first time trying this I wanted to just see how things went and take it from there as to how long to continue the intervals.  Well, 20 minutes pass and she’s doing really well, REALLY well.  In fact she did something that I didn’t think I would see her do.  She began to jog!!!!  Jog!  And she continued to jog for the duration of our workout, another 20 minutes.  During the 30 seconds of ‘fast walking’ she was jogging.  Wow.  Remember, this is a woman who came to me with troubled knees that bothered her going up and down the stairs.  This is a woman who had never taken up jogging as an exercise for any length of time and yet here she was, jogging intervals for 20 minutes!  I know she enjoyed it but for me it was the most rewarding day of my training career.  I’m so proud of her!  My job is to help people improve their quality of life.  It is a true pleasure to see someone like Carol doing great things and improving her quality of life.  Way to go Carol!  You are truly amazing!

I have a lot of women come to be wanting to do pull ups.  Pull ups are not impossible but they are very difficult. I have 6 ladies right now that can do pull ups!!!  And that doesn’t include any of my boot camp clients.  That number is much high including them.  If you set a goal to do pull up then go for it.  Don’t let anything stop you!!!  Here’s Pam doing a chin up, one of her goals.  She went on to do 3 sets of 5 reps.  Amazing!!!

Don’t let the name scare you from trying a Boot Camp Class.  They’re fun, high energy, and you get to learn new things!  Betsy has been coming to boot camp class for a while now and here she is showing off her skills.  A 1 arm ball toss.  Amazing!!

Heart rate monitors are an easy way to see if you’re working as hard as you need to be and to see if you’re resting too long.  I make sure not to let my heart rate drop too low between sets, that way I can get me most benefit from my time in the gym.  I’ve got a Polar FT7 Women’s Heart Rate Monitor w/ H1 Transmitter.  Love It!!  Your target heart rate zone is a range between 60% and 80% of your maximum heart rate.  Maximum heart rate is usually dependent on your age and can be calculated by subtracting your age from 220.

Here are the readings from my heart rate monitor from my last 2 workouts.  The first one (Monday) was a full body workout: core, power, strength – upper and lower body.  The second one (Wednesday) was an upper body workout.  You’ll see that even though I didn’t do a boot camp class or run on the treadmill for some ungodly amount of time I still burned a huge amount of calories and stayed in both the fat burn and fitness zones.  The construction of the workout and choice of exercises is what makes the different.  Also, notice the different in total calories burned in the workout that had leg exercises as opposed to the one that was just upper body and the amount of time I spent in fat burn mode and fitness mode.  If you want to burn big calories you have to work your legs!

Monday – Duration: 1hour 9 minutes.  525 Calories. Ave Heart Rate: 133. Max Heart Rate: 174. Fat Burn Zone: 18 minutes. Fitness Zone: 50 minutes.

1a Kettlebell Windmill: 3 sets of 12 reps

1b Mid Cable Woodchop:  3 sets of 12 reps

2a Barbell Jerk: 3 sets of 10

3a Overhead Squat: 3 sets of 12 reps

3b V Grip Pull Up: 3 sets of 12 reps

3c Calf Raises (just because I like them): 3 sets of 12 reps

4a Cable Crossover: 3 sets of 12 reps

4b 1 Leg Deadlift: 3 sets of 12 reps

4c Overhead Dumbbell Tricep Extension (just because I like them): 3 sets of 12 reps

Wednesday – Duration: 1hour 6 minutes.  372 Calories. Ave Heart Rate: 122. Max Heart Rate: 163. Fat Burn Zone: 40 minutes. Fitness Zone: 18 minutes.

Bosu/Ball Spiderman Climb: 3 sets of 15 reps

Kneeling High Cable Woodchop: 3 sets of 12 reps

Bench Press: 3 sets of 12 reps

Pendlay Rows: 3 sets of 12 reps

Weighted Body Dips: 3 sets of 8 reps

Military Press: 3 sets of 8 reps

T Bar Row: 3 sets of 12 reps

Alternating Dumbbell Press On a Stability Ball: 3 sets of 12 reps

Barbell High-pull: 3 sets of 8 reps

Call me to set up a no obligation consultation to get started on your own big calorie burning workouts!  828-712-1929.