Week 2 Reflection

My second week was yet again filled with plenty of awesome learning experiences. From an athletic perspective, I really felt much more adjusted to the workouts than I had been the week before. The first week was a bit of a feeling out process and getting used to all of Joe's exercises again. That being said, I had to spend a lot of time emphasizing my form and asking questions. That made the lifts take a little bit longer. Once I had my form down and knew what all the new exercises were,  I was able to go up in weight and cruise through the workouts. From a nutritional standpoint, I feel like I did better, but not my best. I was certainly eating better because I was at home and had my car available to go to the grocery store, but I definitely feel like I could have done better. For example, I would not go to bed until 12 some nights and not wake up until 11, which means that there was a span of 11 hours where I did not eat. I need to start going to bed earlier so I can get up earlier. Also, My meal schedule (posted in a previous blog) states that I need an early morning big breakfast, a snack in between (sandwich with chobani and granola) and then a relatively big lunch. However, if I slept late and ate breakfast at 1130am, I could not possibly stomach all of that food. Therefore, I would end up having a big breakfast, skip my snack completely, and then have a small lunch because I was still full from breakfast. Last spring, I put on 13 pounds of muscle when training with Joe, and I credit a lot of it to my nutrition routine. The key word is ROUTINE. I would be up early for school, know exactly what class to have my 10 am snack in, have a Sunday routine of making food for lunch for the week (usually chicken, brown rice, and broccoli), know to have my after school snack on the way to the gym, Stop at the same place for my post workout meal, eat again when my mom made dinner, and then have my other snack before bed. This is only my second week home, so I still need to figure out a routine and stick with it.

From a working perspective, I really feel as if I did a lot to help out around the gym. I think my best contribution was the day the other intern, Mike, and I painted the foundation. I drive in every single day and see it, and I know it is going to be there for a while and I certainly think it looks a lot better than before it was painted, but that could be a bit bias. Also, I realized how many small errands are needed when operating a gym, way more than I imagined. I feel like every day there was a Staples or Home Depot run needed, and most of the time they were needed for small and unnoticed, yet important things, like the nutrition packet for athletes or screws to build the shelves people can put their things on when working out. I could not speak more highly of Joe, Dean, Mike, Marty, and all of the other trainers for how much time and effort they invest in their athletes. I realize this especially when I am helping out and observing the gym, not working out and only focused on my lift. They constantly push their athletes to reach their highest potential, and are always there to answer questions and help people when needed. It is easy to see each person simply as one client out of hundreds, but they really do make an effort to build a relationship with each and every person in the gym. Being able to grow a relationship with a client in order to get the best out of them was certainly the biggest skill I learned in week 2.