{"id":25007,"date":"2011-04-07T16:35:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T16:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2011\/04\/07\/lenora\/"},"modified":"2011-04-07T16:35:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T16:35:37","slug":"lenora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/07\/lenora\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenora"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2011\/04\/07\/joining-the-gym\/\">&#8230; Continued &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>When working with a personal trainer, the first thing you have to do is to calibrate. Then, if the trainer does not crank it up to a higher level, she&#8217;s probably not worth her fee.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14264\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14264\" style=\"width: 198px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/files\/2011\/04\/376382_298466603509142_1395951026_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/files\/2011\/04\/376382_298466603509142_1395951026_n-198x300.jpg?resize=198%2C300\" alt=\"\" title=\"376382_298466603509142_1395951026_n\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14264\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14264\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lenora is the best physical trainer that ever existed, bar none. <\/figcaption><\/figure>By this time it had become clear that I was joining this gym with a life membership. I&#8217;d lay out a few hundred bucks and be a member for about $50 a year forever after. That may seem like a lot and these sorts of things are not always good deals. But part of my motivation for choosing the super-membership was to put the money down up front so I would be motivated to stick with the program for a long time. In the end, that worked.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the deal, I got six hours of trainer time. I knew from my reading that working with a personal trainer was a good idea if you don&#8217;t know what you are doing, and I didn&#8217;t know what I was doing. A good personal trainer could save you from injuring yourself, and help you to be more effective in your training. I&#8217;ll tell you about some of the things I learned about this later.<\/p>\n<p>Lenora was one of the personal trainers at this gym, and it eventually became clear to me that the sales rep and head trainer with whom I&#8217;d met when I joined up figured out that I wanted to work with a serious personal trainer, and so they matched us up. And I&#8217;ll tell you this, since that time I&#8217;ve watched a lot of trainers working with various clients, and there is a great deal of variation across trainers, and across trainer-client relationships. There are people throwing away their money, and there are people who are getting a very, very valuable service.<\/p>\n<p>I was determined to be in the latter group, and as a trainer, Lenora was determined to be in that group as well.<\/p>\n<p>Lenora is medium to tall in height, and thin like a stick. She has a sweet face with soft brown eyes and a pleasant countenance, a quiet conversational voice and a very polite manner.  When we first met she was very formal in her introduction, and after a few pleasantries and technicalities, she came to the key question.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How hard do you want me to make you work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, harder than anyone else you&#8217;ve ever worked with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A pause.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Are you sure?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, I figure that if I don&#8217;t work hard enough to puke at least once every few sessions, we&#8217;re not working hard enough.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She looked at me for a moment, trying to read how serious I was being. Then, just as she turned away to lead me to the evaluation area, she said, &#8220;Very well. We can do that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She may not have realized that I could see the grin appear across her face in the mirror towards which we were walking. Within three weeks I was to throw up once, and I was to collapse on the floor once. And those were the only times I was to see her grin in just that way again.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2011\/04\/08\/doing-it\/\">&#8230; Continued &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; Continued &#8230; When working with a personal trainer, the first thing you have to do is to calibrate. Then, if the trainer does not crank it up to a higher level, she&#8217;s probably not worth her fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4315,4313,4318,4319,4320],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5fhV1-lenora","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}