Up close and personal

Well, not in the biblical sense. I'm talking about my personal trainer Chach who's been inspiring me immensely. As I keep telling him, he's the only man I ever listen to (and my husband agrees with that comment).

Chach came to Ireland from the United States and has been living in Ennis, Co. Clare, with his family for the last 4 years or so, but he's been a personal trainer for 15 years.

I came to know him by pure chance. When I started going to the gym again in January this year, I spotted this very energetic man training 2 guys on various occasions. Not being backwards about coming forward, as the saying goes, I approached him and asked him if he was a rugby coach as the two lads he was training looked like rugby players to me. Chach then explained that he was a personal trainer.

Out of curiosity and because I was serious about my own training and fitness, I asked him how much he charged and was positively surprised that his rates were a lot lower than what I had imgagined. Fair enough, we're not talking Hollywood here or celebrity trainer, but I'd seen him in action training other people and was impressed, so I arranged for my first session with him.

That was quite something! Not once in the last 15 years since I stopped my karate training have I been pushed this hard. Sit-ups and weights, more sit-ups, dumbells, leg press, leg extension, treadmill, chest press, pec machine and whatever else they have in my local council-run gym. All exercises in quick succession, so you can hardly catch your breath.

However, Chach knows what he's doing and times the breaks between the sets. He also varies the exercises and weights in order to stimulate your metabolism and enable fat burning.

But the best thins is, he does it all with a smile. When you think you really can't do another set of sit-ups or weights or whatever, he will encourage you and make it all look like fun. But if you're really exhausted and feel like giving up, he will give you a hand to finish your set.

I couldn't speak more highly of Chach as he's giving me so much encouragement with my training. I found it hard to lose weight because of my underactive thyroid, but he talked to me about my diet and pushes me very hard with fat-burning exercises, so I lost a few kilos since I started training with him in February. (A "normal" person would've probably lost a lot more weight in that same period of time.)

Another thing is that Chach treats everyone the same, men, women, young, middle-aged and older people. Middle-aged people like myself often don't feel great about themselves as they feel that they're past their physical best, but with all the encouragement this personal trainer gives you, you feel like you're on top of the world and that you've really achieved something.

I usually train with him once a week for one hour but will go to the gym for another 2 sessions by myself. I'm more aware of what I'm eating and have cut down a lot on carbohydrates, especially refined ones. So white pasta and white rice are usually out as are potatoes. And that in conjunction with the exercise seems to be helping me.

As some of you know, I'm now training hard for the weight lifting competition next week, 6th August, something I would've never dreamed of in a million years without Chach's encouragement. Ok, I only started training for it a couple of weeks back, so I won't expect any miracles, but I will take part in the competition which is the main thing. So watch this space!

I asked Chach what he likes about being a personal trainer. His anwer was:
To be part of people's physical transformation and to see their confidence grow as a result of it.

I couldn't agree more!

Chach is a personal trainer in the Ennis Leisure Centre and is involved in the physical training of Garda officers (Irish police) in Ennis.