Personal Training

Today we started off on the elliptical for 10 minutes.  I don't know what it is about the elliptical, but her heart rate takes forever to increase, whereas with other machines, it gets up pretty quickly.  I'm sure part of it is just the intensity that she's doing on the elliptical.  Usually, we do level 6 or so on a hill program or something similar.  I don't think that increasing the level is what she needs, I think she just needs to increase her RPMs, which I've said to her a few times, but I think she just gets tired.  We'll see, I just need to push her a little more I think because I know she can do it...I've just got to make her!  After that we walked on the treadmill for 15 minutes.  I did 2.7 mph and 6.5% incline for five minutes, then 3.3 mph at 4.0% incline for five minutes, then 2.8 mph at 6.5% incline for another five minutes.  She wanted to try to run again after this, so I increased the speed a little quicker this time so that she ended up jogging for about 40 seconds.  She seems to do really well with this and isn't breathing too hard.  Even when I look at her heart rate, it doesn't seem to be jumping up really rapidly or anything, so that's definitely a good sign.  I think that watching her heart rate is a VERY necessary part of my training since she's had 3 immediate family members die of heart attacks before they were 50.  After that we did a 3 minute cool down.  Our last exercise was the bike for 8 minutes.  Her heart rate stays pretty low (~140ish) or so when we bike, so it's a good thing to do last.