Hard to believe, but I’ve been with Elect Wellness for three years. In those three years, I’ve gained muscle in places I never new possible and watched my body make shocking transformations, little by little.
Elect Wellness taught me the only way to be truly healthy, physically challenged or able bodied, is to balance nutritious food with exercise. You can’t have one without the other for true results.
My entire diet and exercise regiment has been trial and error. It’s taken three years to finally get my body to a balanced or “zen” place when it comes to both nutrition and exercise. Now, I know exactly what my body needs, or does not need, to perform at it’s best. Before, I was clueless! But, “zen” does not mean content.
Every month, my entire body is thoroughly evaluated for overall health: blood pressure, weight, muscle gain, and fat gain. This is where my trainers and nutritionist make changes to my program if needed.
Two months ago, monthly evaluations indicated a plateau in muscle gain. Tom suggested tweeking my exercise routine since only small increases had been observed during the last few evaluations. Manual resistance was his new recommendation.
Internally, my darned ego took over. To me, this would be a huge step backwards! I could not believe that he wanted me to ditch my weights. What person in their right mind lessens the use of weights, hoping to see better results? Arnold Schwarzenegger would not approve of this travesty!
Or, would he?… My daily trainer, Bob, and I set the weights aside and started to do manual resistance exercises. Instead of using weights for resistance, or even exercises typically done on a gym machine, I would now use Bob.
My first mistake was assuming this would be a piece of cake. I soon realized that was not the case! Pushing against Bob let me specifically target a greater variety of muscle groups and allowed me to focus on muscles that, otherwise, could not be worked with just weights. He could, also, immediately evaluate the need to increase or decrease the amount of pressure placed upon each specific musle group, making him bear down harder, or gently back off, if needed. Working my shaky muscles to the point of exhaustion proved extensively challenging. After reminding myself that burning is a good thing, I actually broke a sweat! Never have I felt so sore in my entire life! This gave me immense pleasure because soreness leads to results!
Personally, I feel all of my hard work this month has paid off. Slight improvements in muscle mass are visible, but next week’s evaluation will be the true test!
My lesson most learned during manual resistance exercise is that I must remember to trust the Lord, especially when I’m most resistant.