Throughout my personal training journey with That Squat Bot, I’ve been documenting my progress in monthly updates – and so here goes my 3 Month Update! As I’ve started as a total beginner to functional training and weight lifting, my coach Sarah has been taking me through a different phase each month to keep me progressing whilst also ensuring I’m learning to lift weights correctly and with good form.
My third phase of my functional fitness and weight lifting journey has been learning to become an ‘explosive athlete’. This is something that Sarah and I joke about a lot as I personally find it hilarious that I might ever be referred to as an ‘athlete’ ( I mean, come ON, I ain’t kidding anyone) let alone an ‘explosive’ one!
As far as my amateur understanding has it, it is the ability to perform powerful lifts with maximum output in minimum time; I’m thinking lifting a lot of weight in a short space of time or a quick movement. I believe it helps you to develop and improve your power output and the most common parts of explosive workouts including jumping and sprinting.
My favourite part of this month’s training has been learning some new lifts. We have been continuing with the main lifts I learnt on my very first month but building variations into them. For instance, I am loving learning the Sumo Deadlift, which requires a wider stance with your hands closer together to create more resistance than a regular deadlift. There’s something about this lift that feels very fun around the hips!
During my 3 month workouts, Sarah and I have been concentrating a lot on jumping. Well, she’s been concentrating on jumping and I’ve mostly been freaking out about it. I don’t know why, but I’ve discovered I really hate jumping and am actually kinda scared of it… I guess it might have something to do with a pretentious metaphor about the fear of falling or summink, but I just can’t get over the nerves of trying to jump and landing flat on my face in a gym full of hardcore trainers. Still, I’ve been giving it a go and Sarah has been working sets of 10 or 12 jumps onto a stack of weights as part of supersets we have been doing in-between weights. The goal is to eventually work up to being able to box jumps, but I think I’ve got a long way to go!
We have also been preparing to move into our four month phase of endurance training, which will see me lifting slightly lighter weights but for a more prolonged amount of time. As part of that, we have started doing dead hangs, in an effort to somewhere in the very, very distant future lead on to managing my first pull ups. Not gonna lie, its gonna take about a year to get there but dead hangs are new for me and feel kinda cool!
As I mentioned in my 2 month personal training update, my physical results have slowed down after an initial heft loss of inches around my waist and hips. My main concern is still my stomach and I am a lot less bothered about other areas of my body like my arms and legs which I feel relatively confident with. I think the main problem with this is my diet… But ya girl’s gotta live life and if it means I have a squishy tummy for longer whilst I can still enjoy food and socialise then so be it!
My next phase of training will be the endurance stage – see you at month 4!
Full time I'm an ambitious Head of Marketing and Communications in the luxury industry. Part time, I'm an enthusiastic British Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle blogger and YouTuber from Manchester, UK. This blog has been my outlet for the past 7+ years, and as a longstanding, Award-winning blogger I take the most enjoyment from creating content I truly love and believe in. All authentic. Always.