When I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the gym mirror, I’d look away immediately.
Although I work at Kinective, I knew next to nothing about fitness before joining. No exercise experience, with no inclination to change that. At Kinective, I did PT once a week for about a year and a half, stuck exclusively to machines that felt safe, and avoided anything that required me to figure things out on my own. I told myself I was being smart. Truthfully, I was just afraid of doing the work. Until now.
“Why are you paying for PT? Why not just watch videos, use AI, or do research?” I’ve heard these questions time and time again. Even with an abundance of resources, I don’t know how to put them into practice. I don’t know how to move my body. I was never sure if I was doing exercises on machines correctly, and constant reassurance from others did little to quell my doubts. So I chipped away at my fears slowly: three sessions per week, macronutrients dialed in. Here’s a recap of the first four weeks.
Week 1
We established a baseline with a Wellness Assessment: six assessments covering body composition, cardio, mobility, balance, strength, and mind. Next, goal mapped and aligned on three separate workouts. Everything lives on the Kinective app: the workouts, instructions, results from both the workouts and each of the assessments, all in one place. As I scrolled through the programming my PT put together, I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s not happening.” Yet somehow, it did.
The first week’s focus was correct form. I could hardly manage a lunge. My trainer walked me through the positioning: step forward, lower knee down to the ground. Even after a demonstration, I had no idea how to mirror the movement he showed me. I wobbled the whole time. My trainer stepped in and physically guided me into the position. Who knew there’s a proper way to take a step forward?
During the first few sessions, my trainer always asked permission before adjusting my body. By the end of the week, I said to just move me however necessary. I can’t mirror someone and know I’m doing it right. I need to be physically moved and shown how. It needs to be tangible. I need to feel it in my body. That cannot be replicated any other way.
Trainer’s Perspective: “A big thing I notice with first-timers is an unwillingness to try new things. People don’t like being uncomfortable. You have to make it your new comfortable. There’s no magic code to getting in shape. You can’t rebuild an engine in a single day. Think of the body as the same.”
Week 2
As we continue with the workouts, I’m surprised by how intently my trainer watches me. Constantly correcting form and noticing things I didn’t notice in myself. I’m too focused on just doing the movement to see what I’m doing wrong. I’m struck by my trainer’s patience with me when I am often impatient with myself. The willingness to take things step by step, to start from nothing and build from there.
Take an incline dumbbell chest press, for example. That phrase means nothing to me. I know what the individual words mean, but put them together and I’m lost. We began by closing my hands into fists and moving them up and down. Then the same movement while holding a PVC pipe, then an easy bar, and finally the dumbbells themselves. Starting with nothing in my hands and working up is so much more gratifying than being handed weights and expected to replicate a foreign movement.
Trainer’s Perspective: “That initial trepidation that I sensed has waned. I want you to view the sessions less as something that has to get checked off and more as an hour where we’re just hanging out, having a good time. It’s the little wins that help us fashion the big ones.”
Week 3
By the third week, I actually looked forward to showing up. Not because the workouts got easier. They didn’t. The weights went up, the reps increased, we progressed from one or two circuits to three or four. It felt grueling, but manageable because of who was guiding me through it.
It’s a pleasure to see and work with my trainer. The sessions are fun. I feel safe. When we are in a session, I can tune everything else out. I’m not thinking about who’s watching or whether I look stupid. I can just focus on what we’re doing. My trainer does the same for me. I can see it. There’s trust in me when I don’t have it in myself. To have someone rooting for me matters more than any movement or exercise we do.
Trainer’s Perspective: “We’re moving past ‘I don’t know if I can do this’ and into ‘let’s see what I can do.’ There were sets where I could tell you were getting uncomfortable, but instead of backing off, you stayed with it and finished the work. Learning to sit in that discomfort and still perform is even bigger. We’re still early, but I like the direction we’re heading in.”
Week 4
As we wrap up the first month, something my trainer pointed out stuck with me: my facial expressions have changed when I’m faced with a challenge. During the first couple of weeks, if the work was harder than expected, I’d shy away. Now, the same expression appears, but I dig deep and face it. My trainer called it confidence in my ability to give it a shot, and said it’s something that can’t be taught. It’s me against me.
At the end of the fourth week, a close friend texted asking how the workout went. I responded: “It was so GOOD. It hurt so good. I felt euphoric. I was like ‘do I like working out?'” I then messaged a colleague about the week, saying: “I’m able to tune everyone out and look at myself in the mirror. I don’t look away when I catch a glimpse of myself. I can look at myself for who and what I am and honor where I’m at in this moment of time.”
Trainer’s Perspective: “You’re starting to shed the ‘I’m here with my trainer’ mentality and adopting the ‘I’m here to work’ one. I hope you’ve enjoyed the process of improving through effort and dedication. We know what’s coming. Now it’s about execution.”
These days, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I don’t look away immediately. I hold my own gaze and keep it.