Meet my trainer

So, you can't get into the best shape of your life by yourself. You need someone to be there with you, pushing you to your limit, making sure you aren't slacking. A little encouragement and even love can help too.

I do a lot of working out at home. I started about 5 years ago doing some home exercise videos and I have gotten increasingly more serious with these workouts. I know what you are thinking..."at home exercise videos? how hard of a workout can that be?" Let me tell you, you'd be shocked. I am currently using my videos more for weight workouts than cardio. And these weight workouts can really kick my butt. I love that. I love that I wake up at 5 am and walk across the hall to our "workout room" - turn on the TV and I am ready to go. Well, I don't really LOVE the waking up at 5 am, but I love the short commute to the gym at that hour!

When I get to the workout room, I get my weight bench and/or high step all ready to go...usually about 10 or 15 minutes into my workout, my trainer shows up. Sometimes he'll sleep in a little or he'll eat breakfast before he joins me, but he ALWAYS joins me. He has a unique style of training. If I am laying down doing chest exercises (bench press, chest flys), he climbs up and sits on my stomach and watches me. If I am sitting on the stability ball doing shoulder exercises (overhead press), he'll jump up on the ball behind me and sometimes crawl around and sit on my lap. This has resulted in at least one popped stability ball. When I am doing pushups - he sits between my hands and is sure that my face gets all the way to the ground - he rubs my nose with his face to keep count.

His favorite part of the workout is the stretch - I am on the floor for an extended amount of time. This provides an opportunity for a full body review - he'll check me up one side and down the other, just to be sure that I am doing okay.

I know you are probably thinking that Trevor is my trainer...close...but not right. Its my cat Gus and he is the best trainer/workout partner I could ever have.

Here is a picture of him checking to be sure that I am pushing down with my heel while I do squats against the stability ball. (yes, the room is a mess....Gus needs to hire someone to clean the gym)

Next, he is checking to be sure that the high step is stable for me. He figures if it can hold him, it will hold me just fine.
This is how Gus relaxes after a hard day of training. He thinks that stretching is really beneficial and is constantly demonstrating.
I just love this picture, so I had to put it here - you probably can't read it - but there is a tag on the mouse that says "cat toy". For some reason, that's funny to me.
Trevor came to Gus' gym last week to do an ab workout with me. It was during this workout that Gus realized that his gym was at capacity and he couldn't take on any new clients. He sat between us while we were on the floor doing our workout and just looked back and forth between us. He didn't know who's face to rub first. He suggested that in the future we do our workouts individually, that way he could give us each his full attention.

I've said it before. I love this cat. Without him, who knows what kind of shape I'd be in!