Kickboxing Chic’s BodyBlog

Very exciting news… I passed the ACE Personal Trainer exam today and can now refer to myself as a "Certified" Personal Trainer. So the text books are going back on the bookshelf. Now the real work begins in getting a business entity set up so that I can actualy take on clients. I got a business license (that part was easy), and now I need to get some marketing stuff in place (i.e. a website), forms that clients need to fill-out/sign, etc. I really don’t have a place of business yet either, so I will need to figure that part out too. Anyway, I’m not worried… this is not my primary source of income… it will be a side gig I do in my spare time. With the goal of eventually making it my primary source of income. Getting the certification was a first step in my career-change journey. So I’m super-excited about today’s accomplishment.

As for my over-training drama… I’m learning that I’m an over-trained text book case. Everything I’ve ever read about the signs of over-training and what it takes to overcome it is coming true for me. The only symptom I haven’t encountered, unfortunately, is the lost appetite. Anyway… last weekend I pulled a hamstring. I was doing sprints up my cul-de-sac, and half way through my LAST sprint interval, I felt my right hamstring tighten up with sharp pain, bringing me to a screaching halt. I then read in my ACE PT text book that this is a common scenario when the body is over-trained. While I’ve built in more time off and reduced the intensity of my training sessions, it is not enough when you are truly over-trained. Recovering from being over-trained takes several weeks of serious rest/recovery time. I’m learning that now. I did take off nearly a full week a couple weeks ago and (mentally) nearly went insane. So I think June is going to be a really low-key training month:

• Lower weight/higher reps (I haven’t done this in a while so it could be fun to dust off old/come up with new training techniques using a higher rep range.)
• Light leg work since I need to let this strained hamstring heal
• No HIIT cardio sessions at 90% of my max HR; I’ll be bringing this down to 75/80%
• Spend more time stretching
• Getting more sleep (don’t need to get up at 4:30am 5 days a week)

I actually have another reason for needing to bring it down a few notches, which I will share in a later post.

So a bit of good news and no-so-good news today. The way I look at it… with a potential career in helping others make fitness part of their lifestyle, it is good for me to actually experience this stuff on a personal level. Now I can really tell people don’t go to such training extremes as you’ll end up a wreck physically and emotionally… and personal experience carries a lot more credibility.

It felt like a high school BF/GF relationship all over again. You may be familiar with the ‘break-up-on-Monday-get-back-together-on-F
riday-at-the-football-game’ scenario that often occurs in teen relationships. It kind of felt like that last week when I temporarily broke-up with training. I’ve known for a while now that many of my fatigue/exhaustion issue, sleeping challenges, and other aches and pains are due to being over-trained. It was so bad the other week that I decided that I needed to take off more than one or two days. So I took off 4 days IN A ROW! I hadn’t done that since giving birth to my son. At which point I started easing myself back into the gym after 2 weeks. On Monday, I told training I needed to temporarily “break-up” with you. Then on Friday we got “back together”. So what did I learn during this 4 day break-up:

1.       I could actually commit to the time off without going crazy or giving in. Early in the week I did try to negotiate with myself that if I took off Monday and Tuesday, I could do something light on Wednesday. But I did not give in to my 4 day commitment.

2.       Sleeping problems are indeed a sign of over-training. I did actually sleep better by day 2. That is, I slept more soundly and did not wake up several times during the night.

3.       Exercise is a HUGE stress reliever for me. I felt tense and anxious all week because I didn’t have my normal outlet.

4.       The body needs rest in between training sessions in order for the next one to be productive. When I headed back to the gym by Friday my training was strong and I felt good. I didn’t lose any strength or endurance gains in 4 days. In fact, I felt great the entire day.

This was a good experiment for me. I probably don’t need to take off that many days in a row going forward, but I now know that building in shorter, more frequent rest/recovery periods is critical. I’ve always known these things, but have had a hard time actually doing it. After all, we all have an addiction to exercise to some degree which can have its mental challenges like any other addiction.

The other big convincing factor for me was I used my time from training to prepare for the ACE PT Exam I’m taking on May 30^th. Changing my career towards my true passion is VERY important to me, so it was an easy trade-off. But I’m glad that training and I have made up and we are back together now.