Friendly persuasion that works

Let me now sing the praises of the personal fitness trainer.

I never thought I’d say that, simply because it sounds so Westside. Personal trainers, I thought, were for people like Tom Cruise and other Hollywood celebs who had to keep their bodies toned for the cameras.

And who could afford one?

But last December, I decided it was time for drastic action and opted for hiring a personal trainer for two months. It was a logical choice for someone like me, who had not been on a regular exercise plan for several years. Time that would have been spent working out had been taken up ferrying my children to various high school athletic and band events. And to be honest, the older I get (I’m 54), the harder it is to push my body to extremes. Inertia often sets in, especially if there’s a good basketball game on the tube.

As I chronicled in a Fitness Bound column in late December, my search for a personal trainer led me to Eric Coleman, whose small but well-outfitted Monrovia gym was only a five-minute drive from my home in Arcadia. As I wrote in that first column, the initial fitness evaluation was hardly memorable. In fact, it was downright discouraging. After a series of exercises that included the stationary bike and calisthenics, I managed to do a grand total of seven old-fashioned push-ups.

Needless to say, Coleman and I had a lot of work ahead of us. He said he would need me for at least three days a week if I were to make any progress at all. And so we began, at what my research indicated was a bargain rate of $35 an hour. Besides that, he guaranteed results.

Eight weeks later, the sessions ended. The bad news is that my weight still hovers around 190. The good news is that I knocked two inches off my expanding waistline and increased my body strength remarkably. For instance, in one of the last sessions with Coleman, I did four sets of 25 push-ups, interspersed with four sets of 25 leg lifts -- a gut cruncher of an exercise.

I was also able to easily run a mile and a half on the treadmill and endure the agony of the Exercycle on its most leg-searing setting. But the progress was not without its pain, particularly in the opening weeks.

The best thing about personal trainers, I’ve discovered, is their ability to push their clients to limits beyond the norm. At times, I’d be reaching the last ounces of my endurance -- usually while lifting weights -- and Coleman was able to coax another rep or two out of me. Then, when running at the end of my workout, he would gradually increase the speed and upward tilt of the treadmill. I knew it would be a particularly difficult session when Coleman would say, “We’ll do a little cross-country work today.” That would mean steep simulated hills. All of this he did in an almost beguiling tone of voice that masked the fact that Coleman was constantly upping the pounds on the bench presses, along with the repetitions. He interspersed the weight work with exercises on a mat, many of them designed to help flatten the stomach (more work still needed).

I began to notice significant improvement a month into the program, when I no longer felt exhausted at the end of each session. I also began to feel better and had more energy in general, which manifested itself in various ways, including an ease in picking up heavy objects and climbing stairs with little effort.

We decided to do our last session outside and agreed to meet in the afternoon at Monrovia High School, where Coleman is the sprinters’ coach for the track team. After a warmup run, Coleman put me through a series of exercises on the damp infield grass. Then I discovered he had a few final tricks up his sleeve, including jumping rope (I was terrible) and crunches using a 12-pound medicine ball. At the end of it all, he sent me on a half-mile run that left me wheezing and fatigued.

“It’s different outside,” Coleman said with a smile. “Running on wet grass is like running in sand.”

So, was it worth it? Absolutely. But it is also true that two months, no matter how intense, is not enough to get into great condition. It’s a start, I hope, to a more regular workout.

If there is any room for complaint, it would be that for three days a week, there was no room for flexibility in my early schedule. I also should probably have taken much more care about diet so that I could shed more pounds.

Coleman wants me to come back for a once-a-week tuneup and I am still thinking about that one. The alternative would be a membership in a local health club, where there would be more flexibility in scheduling a workout. I’ll be doing something, because the alternative is no longer acceptable. My daughter, the long-distance runner, was urging me on the other day.

“Once you get in shape,” she admonished, “you need to stay that way.”

Point taken.

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J. Michael Kennedy can be reached at j.michael.kennedy@latimes.com.