Trainer Notes: June 24th 2009

As Alicia mentioned in her last blog, she is now under 200 pounds! She has been under 200 for 4 weeks now and we don't expect to see those 200s ever again! Her training has been moving along nicely, except for a small set-back at the end of last week. Alicia was having some pain and swelling in her knee last Friday, so we had to scale things back a little and switch things up a bit with her workouts. We stayed away from running and any other legs exercises (lunges, squats, steps, etc) for a couple days. Luckily the elliptical didn't hurt the knee so we were still able to get some cardio in! She also did some boxing, which is a great cardio workout, but also didn't affect the knee. In addition to resting the knee, she also iced it several times over the weekend (those bags of frozen vegetables make great ice packs!). By Monday the knee was much better and we were able to add some of those legs exercises back in to her workout. However, to avoid pushing it too much, I switched her "Leg Day" to a "Back, Biceps, and Legs Day" so less stress was placed on the legs. Her "Upper Body Day" then turned into a "Chest, Shoulder, and Triceps Day." Alicia was back to running today so hopefully the knee will no longer be an issue. It's important to realize though that aches, pains, and injuries like this do occasionally happen when working out....especially when working out almost everyday. However, depending on the injury, it is usually possible to continue your workouts. You just have to make modifications to avoid causing further injury to the affected area. This can involve not working certain muscle groups, decreasing weights, switching cardio machines, etc. But of course, for more serious injuries or ones that don't go away quickly, it is always recommended to see a doctor.