Page 20 of Resistance Training
I growl out an exhale. Not on purpose. Well, maybe a little bit.
“Keep an even pace,” he says, watching my movements so closely. “Don’t fling your arms to the side.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re creating momentum by flinging your arms instead of using your muscles to lift them up.” He walks around behind me and places his hands so gently around my wrists I barely feel his touch. But I feel the heat and mass of his body behind me eventhough he isn’t touching me with it. “Slow it down. Inhale now. Keep your elbows a little bit bent as you use your exhale and your shoulder muscles to lift up and out. Stop when your arms are parallel to the floor.”
I do that.
It’s harder and I don’t like it, but I do it.
“Good,” he says, letting go and coming back around to the side of me to watch my form. “Good. This move primarily targets your middle delts. Also the front delts and rotator cuff muscles. We’re building out that shoulder line to make your waist appear smaller.” He reaches out to touch the side of my shoulder. “You feel this working?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Good. If you feel it here in your traps”—he drags his fingers down the back of my neck and upper back—“you’re lifting too high. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Your form is good now. Two more reps.”
I do not want to love how good it feels to earn his praise, but it does feel good, so I give him two more reps at a balanced pace, without flinging my arms out.
“Great,” he says. “Now give me ten lat pull-downs. You want to stick with this weight?”
“Yes.”
I stick with the ten-pound weights through the next thirty reps.
When I’m done, he says, “Good. Did you bring water?”
“My water bottle’s empty.”
“Go get it and fill it up at that water cooler,” he says as he puts my weights away and then carries a bench over to the center of the room.
Once again, I do not love that he’s telling me what to do and not saying please, but I also don’t hate it.
I fill my water bottle with plain water from the cooler near the door. I am already parched. “So, tell me about the four F’s.”
“We can talk about them after you’ve started using the journal.”
“Is one of them forfrankdiscussions?”
“No. Let’s move on to the lower body.”
“Buy a girl dinner first, will you?” I joke.
He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile. He sits on the ground, back against the side of the bench, arms spread out to the side, then slides up so his upper back is flat against the top of the bench and says, “Starting with hip thrusts. We won’t add extra weight today, we will work on proper form. Bottom of the scapulas against the edge of the bench. Feet planted firmly on the floor, toes pointed out. A little more than hip-width apart. Chin tucked, looking forward, drive through your heels to activate the glutes, squeeze your glutes hard at the top.” He points to the sides of his butt as he squeezes and thrusts upward. “Exhale on the way up. Control the descent. Drop all the way back down.”
He lowers his butt to the ground and then stands up without the use of his hands. Core strength only. Then he goes back to the rack to grab a pair of weights marked12. He demonstrates a Romanian deadlift, followed by Bulgarian split squats, and then a weighted sumo squat. “Any questions?”
“Did you delete the emails I sent you?”
He blinks. “No,” he says, as if that would be horrendous of him and he’s not a monster.
“So you saw them, you just didn’t read them?”
“Take a seat on the bench and then slide down until your back is flat against it with your feet flat on the floor.”
