So after a month or so of getting my bearings at the gym after a decade away, I hired a personal trainer to have a look at me and see where I’m going wrong.

I’ve had not much success with the trainers I’ve had in the past; Extreme Fitness was the only place I had them and frankly… they sucked.

I was pretty good at self-assessment of what was wrong, but I had no idea how to correct it.

Basically, my squat is terrible. Awful. Painful to watch.

I knew that.

Brian, the nice chap I hired to fix where I’m wrong, had me come in on Wednesday night to do my regular workout. Prior to the workout, he did a full mobility assessment and got to see just how messed up I am.

And how messed up am I? Pretty messed up. Some muscle groups are way over developed and some are barely even there. This was clearly evidenced when watching me do what can laughably be called a “squat”.

First off, I’m not the most flexible guy in the world. In fact, despite a decade of Tae Kwon-Do and a lot of Yoga, I still can’t touch my toes. This is contributing to some real mobility issues on full body movement, namely, the squat.

Lemme put up a quit video of a good squat, for that, here’s my go-to fitness blogger, Cookie Monster:

That’s a good squat. (I still don’t think Cookie Monster actually exists and is really some very good CGI…)

Here’s a representation of what mine looks like:

Actually, this kinda looks better than my squat.

So what did Brian have me do?

Well, weight down to 65lbs from 205lbs. Switching from 5x5s to 10x10s. And there is now a bench behind me that I have to lower my ass to, touch, and then go up each time now. Basically, box squats.

It’s brutal. (That guy has his legs incredibly wide, almost in a sumo position, which is odd… but whatever).

Hopefully it will work.

I will say my squat was looking a lot better towards the end of the session, however my legs are sorely mis-developed. And that’s my own fault.

As for my bench, I was pleasantly surprised.

I’ve never really done the bench press as I didn’t have access to a bar, well, ever. So I didn’t have any bad habits formed. This is good.

Anyways, I’m supplementing with the abductor machine until my hip-flexors catch up to the size of my quads.

So, a setback in the weight, but I’m happy with learning and being on the path to corrections.