I have to admit, every time I’ve joined a gym and been offered a private training session, I’ve made every excuse to back out of it. But when Tashe (pronounced Tash-E) reached out to me on Instagram after reading about my first experience at Crunch gym (where I wasn’t too sure of what I was doing since I’m normally not a gym person), I knew I had to take the opportunity to try it. I met her last Thursday night for my first private training session at a gym.

Tashe (who is also a figure skater trainer) first did an initial assessment of my body, asking the standard questions regarding injuries, health, etc. before we began our session. I told her that one of my hips tended to click when I did leg raises (does that happen to anyone else?). From there, she had me do a few squats and could see that my hip was very tight and my lower ab area around it was weaker than the rest of my body, causing my hip to click when I did leg raises. Tashe then showed me a few stretching and foam rolling moves to do before and after each workout to help open up my hips and strengthen that area of my body. Then, the hard work began!

Tashe asked what I normally liked to do at the gym (LOL), and I told her, I didn’t like machines or know how to use them and generally like floor work, so that’s what my session consisted of. We used a mat, a bosu ball and a set of 10lb weights, and did a full body workout including cardio. I was sweaty and out of breath by the end of it. The best part was that the cardio portion had the same intensity as doing intervals on the treadmill, but I didn’t even have to think about it while doing side skier intervals. After that, the session ended with a stretch and cool down where Tashe did a mini should massage to help my alignment.

I was definitely sore the next day! My favorite thing about the session was that Tashe was so knowledgable about body alignment and injury prevention, especially for dancers (she also has a dance and figure skating background). The session felt like it was part training and part physical therapy, and it was nothing like being yelled at to lift and squat like I had previously pictured. I would definitely recommend a session with Tashe to find out where your weak areas might be, and ways to strengthen and correct your body and workouts going forward. You can shoot her an email directly to get set up. As an added bonus, you don’t have to pay the gym membership if you’re doing a session with her!