Changes

Ok, well a few things are changing around here.  First off I think I have finally found a job that I can enjoy that benefits me, other people, and Red.  I am officially a Personal Trainer at Life Time Fitness and I'm actually really excited!  LT just sent its new hires to Dublin for a training week and I got to know the other new trainers that I will be working with, it was all expenses paid and a lot of fun!

One of the new trainers, Allie, is really cool and does marathons!  She's almost a foot taller than me, which is funny, but she has agreed to help keep me honest in my training this year.  We're both doing a marathon in May and she said she will keep me company on my long days since she needs to get long runs in too.  Well during all of this nonsense we were talking about jobs we have had in the past and how personal training is COMPLETELY different than either of our previous career paths.  We both agreed though that this is different in a good way.  I've wanted to be a doctor forever, and that didn't pan out.  Yeah I'm unhappy about that, but it's interesting because the entire week we were in training, and every time I talk to my training "mentor" of sorts, I'm super excited about what all I can learn and do with training.  I'm taking it as an awesome sign that I'm excited to start a new job that involves me pushing people and making them do things they didn't think they could do before.  I wanted to be a doctor to help people overcome illnesses and, incoming hero sounding, to actually save lives because I wanted to work in the Emergency Room.  If the opportunity comes up I will jump on being a doctor in a heart beat, but for now I'm embracing the idea of helping other people in a different aspect of life.  The one thing that I will enjoy the most is the fact that the people who would be coming to me would WANT help, they will be WANTING to get in better shape and prolong their health.  There were so many times that I would see 400+ pound people come into the hospital for health issues that could be nearly completely resolved if they lost 250 pounds or more.  These are the same people that don't want help, and their families enable them to the point where they are on track to become a freak show special on a tv show of "I'm trapped in my 800lb body and can't get out" or something.  With Personal Training nearly everyone is on board with the "I may be 300lbs over weight, but I don't want to stay this way and my family is helping me make changes as well" instead of buying 8 McDonalds cheeseburgers, they are helping them cook better or have better grocery shopping habits.  That is the part that excites me.  Plus, there are other certifications that I can get which would allow me to help people from more of a physical therapy stand point.  A lot of health insurance companies only pay for physical therapy for so long and the person may not be completely ready to go back to whatever it was they did before their injury.  I have been told that I could get a certification, like my mentor, that is all about corrective exercises which would help me train people to allow their physical therapy to be carried over instead of coming to an abrupt stop.  I wouldn't be training them to do olympic lifts or train for a marathon, I may not even be helping them lose real weight, but I could have the opportunity to help them do normal mundane day to day tasks and increase their rang of motion.

When I was in training this week our instructor brought in a client of his who should be the poster child of personal training and its health/medical benefits.  He was a 66 year old man who was battling/beating/dealing with prostate cancer.  He has been working with Noah for over 5 years, and statistically speaking he should be dead.  Most people diagnosed with his form of prostate cancer have a life expectancy of 39 months after diagnosis, he's well passed that and doesn't show any signs of slowing down.  In order to help him keep his cancer under control, which had metastasized to his bones, more specifically his right shoulder, he has to have hormone ablation therapy which obliterates his testosterone levels.  Without testosterone he cannot make lean muscle mass, another side effect is his therapy causes most people to balloon up and can gain upwards of 100lbs if they don't take care of it.  We were able to question him like crazy and he attributed much of his extended life expectancy and high quality of life to his ability to stay active through personal training.  He did physical therapy but they didn't push him enough and essentially were just waiting for things to get really bad before trying anything different.  He came to Noah and voila! He has become a medical anomaly, which he is WAY ok with, he says he's not the only one either though.  If I could get to where I was doing personal training for someone with cancer and you could see how you're extending their life, instead of helping them fit into a tiny bikini, that would be one of the coolest opportunities on the planet.

Well this is quite lengthy, but as you can tell I'm super excited :D  My training for running is going well and I've discovered that my sprinting abilities are decidedly down.  I played soccer last night and I don't know if it was the wine with dinner or the fact that I haven't played soccer in two years, maybe a combo of the two, but sprinting was something I was dragging out of my legs.  I am going to add a lot more speed work to my training now.  Happy days!