Trainer Notes: Week Two

We've now completed our second full week of training with Michael here in Delafield and it was another good week. While last week was mainly focused on learning the exercises, routine, and establishing good starting points for resistance levels, this week was focused on progressing and building off of that baseline. When we started last week, we were only completing 1 to 2 sets of each exercise, and not always completing all of the intended repetitions for each. Michael is adapting quickly, however, and this week we finished by completing 3 sets of almost every exercise and completing all of the reps for each. Plus, we made significant improvements in the resistance he could handle for many of the exercises and progressed several others to more challenging levels. During the final workout this week, I think Michael finally got his first real taste of how all of these things combined ramped up the overall intensity of his workout. He was pretty spent at the end and felt the affects when trying to finish with his cardio. As he mentioned today, he was definitely "earning" his weekend off. Next week we will continue to focus on progressing where we can and starting to gradually increase the intensity of each set in the workout. His cardiovascular workouts improved this week also, as he was able to increase his speeds and levels of intensity during challenging interval sets on the elliptical machine. The elliptical has been working well, as it puts very minimal stress and impact on the joints. This helps limit the wear and tear and allows him to recover a little better. We still mix in some treadmill work, but have been mainly using the elliptical. That's a wrap on this week, so hopefully Michael will get a good weekend of recovery and come back charged and ready to improve even more next week. Nice job, Michael! You should be proud of the work you put in this week and the progress you made. We will also be doing the first of our bi-weekly weigh-ins next week, so stay tuned for that.