The first class

I attended my first personal fitness trainer class this past Sunday and I was relieved to find that I wasn't a) the oldest b) the only female and c) stupid.  In fact, it now seems that all of that biology, biochem and yes even physics are going to help me to become a trainer.  And, of course, the bachelor's and master's in nursing is going to come in pretty handy too - at some point in my life I actually knew how muscles worked, where they were and what bones they attached to. And, god help me, in the textbook there is even a short section on the Kreb's Acid Cycle and the production of ATP.

More importantly, it felt like this was the right fit.  Oh so many years ago I made a decision to be a health care provider.  At the age of 12 I remember quite confidently telling adults that one day I would be a physician so that I could help children.  Somewhere along the way I realized that medical school probably wasn't going to be the perfect fit I had always thought it would be - it seemed that to really help and improve the health of the population, nursing specifically nurse-midwifery was the way to go.  And it many ways, it has been the perfect fit.  Working in the field of women's health has been incredibly rewarding for me - the knowledge and experience that I have gained over the last 15 years is invaluable.  But overtime I began to feel dissatisfied with what I was doing - I wanted to teach and offer guidance.  In modern medicine there exists very little time to actually provide health information to patients.  The moment had come for me to do something different.

So here I am, at the beginning of that path, or really this is just a little path coming off the one I am already journeying on.  Again, the knowledge and experience I gain will only improve my life and the lives of those around me.  And, perhaps if I'm lucky I will be able to impart wisdom to ready takers and maybe even help someone feel healthier, happier and stronger.

And there's one more thing I learned - my abs need some work!  We did endurance and flexibility assessments on each other and I stupidly volunteered to be the client for the abdominal endurance test and it was HARD! Good news though - incorporating abs into a strength training workout isn't that big of a deal and there are lots and lots of exercises to choose from.  This weekend I will discuss a few of them.

Be well.