For the last year I have been doing Group Training classes with Johnny. I am 65 years old and I am determined to stay strong and healthy as I age. By working with our Team trainer Johnny Gillespie 3 times a week, I am building and maintaining the strength and endurance I need to remain active and healthy in my retirement years.
Training with a small group with a professional fitness trainer makes a big difference making my workouts much more productive than just exercising alone.
Every session is personally designed by Johnny to continue to help each group member build strength and endurance over time. Our group is small, 4-6 people, so we get a lot of support and guidance from Johnny in each session. It is fun to train with a variety of people of different ages and fitness goals. We all have one thing in common, staying fit and supporting each other to get through Johnny’s tough workouts.
I have found that when I go to the gym and workout alone, I never seem to push myself as far as I can go with group training or with one-on- one sessions with a trainer. In our Group Training Class, Johnny designs a workout that makes us sweat, grunt, and whine and you feel pretty exhausted after each session. But, you know that each workout took you to your limit and that you will recover stronger and healthier.
We start each work out with a warm up of about five minutes. Johnny will have us run the hall, do air squats, TRX Rows or body movements like lunges or the dreaded inchworm.
After our warm-up we have two, timed circuits of exercises, usually one for strength and one for endurance. In our 20-minute strength session we will work with weights to do 8-12 reps each of a series of exercises repeated 4-5 times. Johnny makes the rounds with each of us to train and guide us in keeping the right position for each exercise.
After a five-minute rest, we start a second circuit of exercises doing AMRAP or “As Many Reps As Possible”. That last set can be the toughest and towardthe end of the 15 minutes I am dragging and wasted. It’s a great feeling to finish the set and to see how all of our team members encourage each other to succeed. Small group training is fun and makes a real difference in my personal fitness quest. I look forward to each class and hate when I have to miss one.
But the real difference comes from a professional trainer like Johnny who gets to know each of us as individuals and guides us around our personal limitations, aches, pains, injuries and mental barriers to exercise. Johnny has taken several certification and nutrition courses and shares his knowledge of physiology and exercise technique with every member of our group.
If you are thinking about taking the next step in your own journey to fitness and health, sign up for Group Training with Johnny.