As well as getting out and training on the mountain, Cat and I are doing three gym sessions a week in the Chamonix 'Salle de Musculation'. We're very grateful to Rachael Woolston, who is a personal fitness trainer (www.bodybalancefitness.co.uk) for forming a specific training schedule for us. The gym sessions focus on building strength, particularly in the shoulders, arms, legs and core. In each of the three sessions we work on just one area to fatigue our muscles faster and give quicker results (it also means we can spend less time each session in the gym!) So we work on one of the following at a time: Back and shoulders; Core and chest; Legs and bum.Each session starts with 5 min warm up on the cross-trainer/bike and then for each exercise we do 3 sets of 12 repetitions. In order to get the right weight/resistance, Rachael told us the last 2 reps of every set should be very difficult....... so it's just down to our own judgement to make sure we're not slacking on the weights! The exercises are very varied, ranging from familiar ones such as push ups to completely new ideas which took a bit of practice at first, for example the Swiss ball. Having previously only played with a Swiss ball to see if I can kneel on it, I've been really impressed by how easily you can target specific muscle groups if you know what you're doing. In the photo above I'm working on the hamstrings by rolling the ball away and towards me whilst keeping my hips raised. Another favourite of mine is the 'kneel to standing' exercise. Pretty simple: kneeling down, holding dumbells, you stand up and then kneel back down. After a few reps this soon becomes surprisingly hard and you can feel the strain in all the leg muscles - a great exercise for simulating the sort of horrendous muscle fatigue we'll encounter in Alaska! Rachael has updated our schedule each month to make sure we are progressing. But with only 7 weeks left before we go, as I had expected, I can't help wishing we had more time to train.....!
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