Gym, more detailed than you need to know

This is what my leg looks like now. Yes, it is, shut up.

So I went to the University's gym on Monday for the first time. I went up to a (hot) trainer guy and was all,

"Hey, can you help me out? I don't know what to do."

And he was all (hot),

"You don't have a routine? It's your first day, then? Okay. Warm up on a bike and I'll design a routine for you."

So I went and got bored on a stationary bike (usually when I'm on one, I have my laptop handy to watch sitcoms), and then I went back over to the (hot) trainer guy. He weighed me, asked my age, how much water I drink, my opinion on tuques with pom-poms on them, etc. etc.

"So what's your goal? What do you want to achieve?"

"I want, you know, muscles!"

"Muscle mass? [hot, slightly entertained smile] Okay. Glutes back, hold on to the machine here, five minutes."

After the stair stepper it was lower abs, then leg curls and extensions, and then... squats.

The squats are where three years of LesMills classes proved their worth**. First the (hot) trainer guy had me do twelve squats. Then he gave me a 20-pund dumbbell and told me to do eight more, but stopped me after two. He walked with me over to the barbell (!!) and said,

"I don't usually do this, but you're strong. It usually takes people a month at the gym to get to this level. Think you can do it?"

The barbell looked huge and I was all, "Ummmm, how much does that weigh?", but it was just 20kg, so that was fine. Eventually another (hot) trainer guy came over and they decided together that I could squat with the barbell plus another 15kg. I wasn't sure about the last five, but it was okay.

When I say it was okay, I don't mean it was easy. I mean I went all the way down and got a little bit stuck there after a few reps, and needed a tiny bit of help getting back up. Not a lot of help, but just a smidge, to get past the first bit. Also there was a constant stream of,

"Face up!"

"Glutes all the way back!"

"Face up!"

"Squeeze your knees!" (Squeeze? My knees?)

"Face up, look up!"

"...five... six, no, I didn't like that one, do it right or don't do it, six, better..."

At that point I fell in love. We want a June wedding.

And as for the knees, apparently I let my them bend inwards when the going gets hard. This is annoying because a BodyPump instructor pointed that out to me like, a year ago. I thought I'd taken care of that. Damn.

Then I did some other painful things, was released from the gym, and flopped over on a near patch of grass to eat my protein jello*** and do my homework before going back to my faculty to tidy up and attend class.

Phew.

** Actually, they pay off all the time. Other people's abs get sore from laughing.

*** I came up with it just this week. I made rum-flavored jello, but added powdered milk, almond extract, vanilla extract and protein powder. The protein powder separated and made a delicious layer on the top and it was AWESOME.