National Personal Training Institute - Update & Such.....

So, as many of you know, I'm enrolled in the National Personal Training Institute (NPTI) to become fully certified as a National Academy of Sports & Medicine (NASM) personal trainer with an additional certificate in Basic Nutrition.  After class tonight, I decided it's time to give you all a little update on as to what it is that I'm currently doing in my classes....and to vent some minor frustrations!  I've spoken about personal training on my blog longer than I care to remember.  When I enrolled in NPTI, I really had no idea what to expect in ways of the amount of course material and how it would be structured during class times.  This course that I am in currently is a year in length and I will be set to graduate in June 2014.  It's funny in a way...when I casually mention that I am pursing this to friends of mine, immediately  at least for some, they pick my brain about health, exercise and nutrition topics.  I usually tell them what I know but always carrying the disclaimer, "I'm not certified yet, so please talk to a medical professional!"  For as much base knowledge as I have about the human body, I can't begin to wrap my head around all the intricacies of how we are actually built.  Our bodies are incredibly resilient and we really don't give ourselves enough credit when it comes to pushing the limits beyond what we think we're capable of doing.  So anyway, what am I doing in class?  Well.........

In two very short months I've been learning the nuts & bolts of how we made put together, on a structural level as well as a chemical one.  How the bones and such are assembled, what muscles move in which direction, what nerves innervate where and things of that nature.  Having been in Physical Therapy school for 1 year, I did receive some education that touched on these exact things and then some, so my instructor, Adam, tends to pick on me the most when it comes to anatomy and kinesiology questions because he ASSUMES I know what he's talking about.  WRONG!  At least with some things anyways.  Structural anatomy is 95% memorization, at least from my point of view.  Your bones never change location in the body, they remain fixed at a certain position so memorizing the names of bones is fairly simple when you break it down.  Even the names of muscles and knowing where they are is simple after you get the hang of it.  You develop mnemonics to assist you in learning the different bones/muscles of the body.  What's difficult is when things get more specific.  Origins and insertions.  Not my favorite topic for discussion.  Basically, an origin of a muscle is where it starts, usually adjacent to a particular bone or process.  An insertion is where the muscle attaches to, usually on another bone either close to the origin point.  Depending on which doctor you ask, we have from 656 to 855 different muscles in the body, do you know how many origin and insertion points you have to memorize for all of those??!  Well, it's a lot.  But I just plug away at studying and participating in the class week after week and some of it is actually starting to click relatively easy.  We also are learning how to perform basic fitness assessments on our clients (other classmates) such as blood pressure, body fat analyses and total daily caloric intake.  I have a new appreciate for nurses and anybody who takes blood pressures on a regular basis!  It's tough!  There are noises called Kortokoff sounds that you have to listen for to give you the diastolic and systolic numbers for the blood pressure.  It also doesn't help that Club One, where this class is held, has an African Drumming and Dance class right underneath our room every Tuesday night.  The last time we were doing pressures was a nightmare.

My instructor, Adam.

Aside from the formal classroom component, there is also a practical component which allows us to gain hands-on experience and feedback from training inside an actual gym.  This part of class is obviously the better part of class because you are able to apply the knowledge that you just covered upstairs in the classroom.  Every class something different is covered.  Different exercise techniques, modes of exercise, progressions and regressions of exercise for clients and so much more.  Now, here's where I vent a little bit.  We have an exam this coming Tuesday on basic nutrition and joint actions and what muscles are assisting in the exercises we've covered.  I'd think by now that I would get this like I know the

back of my hand but do I?  Of course not.  What's more discouraging is that there is a guy who is 11 years younger than me, who, by the way is very nice so this isn't some kind of dig at him, but he is spouting off the answers like water coming from a faucet!  It's so frustrating and Adam knows it too!  He always tells me and another girl, Jess, who is in the same boat as me, to just breath and relax.  The material is so simple it's complicated and I know I'm putting way too much thought into it.  I'm a perfectionist who likes to be right all the time!  I know I'll get it with time and studying but I was so frustrated last week, I let out this huge scream in the middle of the gym, luckily it was pretty empty by that point in the night so nobody cared.  It actually made everyone laugh a little.  Trying to learn about something that really interests you and wanting to make a career out of it is so frustrating when you want it that bad and I've been trying for this for a LONG time now.  I do believe that soon I'll see light at the end of the tunnel, I just have to go through the storm first and eventually the sunshine will start to peek out of the clouds.

Physically speaking, I workout every class period, so I am seeing vast improvements in my body and things of that nature.  I'm at a point now where I'm forcing myself to try new things and workout as often as possible.  I've even started running.  I know, right?  I've haven't run, on a track anyways, in over a decade and a half, from when I was a kid.  I've just always hated running due to my shortness of breath and tightness in my chest that I would always get.  But after meeting with my allergist about 2 weeks ago, he said that I have Exercise-Induced Asthma.  Here's what I think on that:  EVERYBODY has this to some degree.  It just depends on how much oxygen you get in and out of your lungs when you are doing cardiovascular exercise.  Anyway, I have an inhaler now but I really haven't used it that much.  I find myself being able to take in more air and the tightness in my chest subsides faster than it usually has.  I've also joined a Functional Fitness group in Pittsburgh that meets once a week at Schenley Park to perform a circuit workout that changes every week.  It usually consists of a tag team run or individual run followed by a circuit of various exercises.  This past Monday there was a contest for who could hold a plank the longest.  Guess who won?  That's right, I was able to hold a plank position for 4:00 FLAT!  Needless to say, my stomach was sore the next few days.  Pushing myself physically to do more and learn more about my body mechanics is something that is in my DNA I think.  When you grew up with my history, you seem to be more in tune to what works in the gym and what doesn't.  It's all about variety.  

Another thing about the class that is a little discouraging, speaking of my body mechanics, is the fact that physically, I'm a lot more restricted on some exercises I can perform at 100% than the other two students in class.  My lower back is, in a word, F'ED.  Now, everybody pretty much has some sort of lower back problems, but mine is a cluster of issues that gives me a headache to even think about.  In a nutshell, my lower back and the muscles that surround it are either weak or extremely tight.  What this does is create tension or pulling on the bones under the muscles.  I like to think of my body as a yo-yo.  In the morning, when I get out of bed, I'm wrapped up tighter than a dial on a watch but as the day go on, my muscle stretch somewhat and I feel okay.  What the problem here is, when I go to bed, during the processes of the night and being immobile for 8 hours causes my body to start back at square one the next day.  It's really a bitch but I've learned to deal with it.  The discouraging part in class is due to the fact that I have these issues, when Adam is prompting everyone to try an exercise he just demonstrated, he always looks at me and says, "Do this exercise, if you can."  From a trainer's standpoint, I fully understand why he tells me that, he doesn't want me to injure myself.  But like I said, it's kind of disheartening and makes me feel limited in what I can do.  But I'm also stubborn as well, so I usually push through and do whatever it is that he wants me to try.  

I want to fully immerse myself in this experience.  This journey is probably one of the most important ones that I've been on in a long time because it means so much for my future as a fitness professional and just an overall healthy person.  I enjoy learning new things and practicing what I already know on family and friends at this point.  Like anything that you want to get in this life, you have to put the work in.  Nothing is handed to you for free, at least the things that mean the most to you.