Training schedule

I am a 61 year old female who is getting close to goal weight. For the past 7 months I have used the treadmill at home 4 - 7 times a week with increasing speed and incline.

I have enlisted the help of a personal trainer to teach me strength training using free weights. I wanted to learn correct form, etc. I signed up for 10 lessons.

We have had four lessons and still haven't done much with free weights. The only exercises using weights are "side shoulder raises" whilst sitting on a stability ball and "seated row" using 30 lb weights.

The other things I have learned to do are "knees side to side", "scorpion" stretches, "lunge stretches", "handwalk stretches", "side lunge stretches", "forward reaches", "squat reaches", "front and side planks", "deadbug" stretches, "Glute bridge", "stability ball crunches", "squats", "elevated push-ups" and walking lunges. Not sure these are the correct names.

I obviously have to review with the pt where we are going with all this. Does this seem like a reasonable introduction to strength training using free weights? While I was at the gym solo last week, I observed a group class doing exercises with dumbbell weights and this was the sort of thing I had expected I would be doing.

Would appreciate any input.

Thanks

Sounds like your trainer is into the new "core" workout methods, and using body weight for resistance some.   Trainers and their preferred methods differ quite a bit from trainer to trainer, I'm not sure this one is the right "fit" for you. 

You can politely ask for more free weight exercises, maybe along the lines of something like "I find the exercises with the dumbell to be quite challenging, can we do more of those today?", and see where it goes from there.

Keep in mind that you might see better overall improvement with the newer "core" workouts, they tend to work more muscles at once in order to build your body as a system of interlocked muscles, rather than focusing on one muscle/group at a time.  If you're paying someone, you should be able to direct them to a certain degree in my opinion though.

donnie5150. Thank you for your input. I will talk with the trainer. The exercises with the weights are probably the least challenging at the moment. Some of the core exercises I find gruesome and have such difficulty with a couple of them that I know they are not doing anything. I suppose I just felt things were moving slowly - but I am sure that is the fault of my body and not her training.

I'd choose other descriptions than being "into core training" for the regime described - "incompetent fad-chasing" perhaps.

 There are some elements of useful exercises hiding in there, but there needs to be more to a solid program than a bunch of occasionally-useful exercises thrown together at random.

 Potential rationale for focusing on stretches and mobility at first would be if you've got mobility restrictions, joint impingements, that sort of thing that would keep your from doing useful exercises properly. But if that's the case your trainer should have been talking your through it and telling you why you aren't yet ready for loading/resistance with some of the exercises. One of the guys I'm training has a shoulder that's messed up beyond belief, it's been six months and he's just about ready to maybe try movements involving lifting his hands higher than his collar bone. But that's extreme, and if you were similarly messed-up and in need of rehab you'd probably know about it from the shooting pains through your arm and back from trying to lift your hands into position for an overhead press.

(At 61, you're at a perfect age for getting into serious training - Morjorie Newlin would be proud ;)

 Overall - I'd ask the trainer to explain how the current 'program' meshes with your stated goal, and tell them to change things right quick if they can't tell you exactly what you're currently doing is supposed to lead into. Or if it leads into something other than doing the base compound exercises using free weights as the foundational element of your program.

For the record, the base lifts are squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, rows and chin-ups. Variations of these are acceptable and frequently necessary due to mobility restrictions and whatnots, but any program that doesn't at least start by covering the basics is flawed from the word go.

Hm-mm. It is difficult for a novice such as myself to question a trainer because I know so little. I have no mobility restrictions or joint impingement's - possibly some "whatnot's" . I will talk to her tomorrow along the lines you mention. Thank you for your input.

It *is* hard to question the trainer, but, YOU are the one paying, so just summon up some courage and ask when are you going to be lifting more weights? Because that's what you were expecting. 

If you get no improvement, then you should join that class you saw lifting barbells - I've done them and they are fun.