Samantha Fritz takes readers through the gyms, fitness events, studios and boot camps of New Orleans to discover the best ways to exhaust yourself, lose weight or just plain feel better. Don't be afraid to try something new! This week she demoed a personal training session and talked professional bodybuilding with Ivan Blazquez at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center, Uptown, nojcc.org.

When I walk up to Ivan Blazquez to meet for our personal training demo and a chat about exercise and nutrition, he is eating what looks to me like rhubarb pie. It is pink and gooey, in a plastic container.

"This is not one of my best," says the 33-year-old Health Fitness Specialist and personal trainer at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center (AKA the JCC), referring to his homemade lunch. He eats a vegetable or fruit at every meal and recommends to all his clients to increase their vegetable consumption, even if it's just throwing a carrot on your plate next to the etouffee. He tells me that the brightly colored lunch I interrupt for our interview is actually a mash-up of beets, cucumber, mushrooms and sesame seeds.

I first met Blazquez at Harrah's New Orleans Casino for an event called the American Bodybuilding & Fitness Federation 2012 Pro-Louisiana Bodybuilding, Figure, Men's Physique and Bikini Championships. Very tanned, very muscular men and women posed and performed choreographed routines to show off their incredible physiques. I attended with my friend Nicole, who credits her enviably flat stomach to weekly training sessions with Blazquez.

Blazquez was at the UNO gym in 2005 when he saw another member's picture from a natural (meaning no performance-enhancing drugs) bodybuilding show. He was intrigued and says the guy told him, "You can do it."

Thirty minutes later Blazquez signed up online for his first National Gym Association show.

With a Master degree in Exercise Physiology and years of experience in training and bodybuilding, Blazquez comes with a lot of expertise. This is good, since personal training packages can be pricey; the JCC charges $65 per session or $420 for 10. But that doesn't stop Blazquez's roster of writers, doctors, attorneys, students and more from seeing him at least once a week.

After witnessing Blazquez win the Men's Lightweight Division in the ABFF Pro-Louisiana, he nearly sold me on a personal training package with his sheer enthusiasm, but I settled on a 10-minute "demo" session instead.

During this 10-minute session, I worked out harder than I ever would have in my own 60-minute workout. We "warmed up" with a machine called Jacob's Ladder that looks like a vertical treadmill with a wooden ladder strapped to it. Blazquez asked me to crawl up it for 30 seconds. After he saw I could do that, he told me to go for a minute.

I kept going for a total of three minutes, which Blazquez said put me in the top percentile of his clients. He added that he recently trained a 20-something male who couldn't even finish two minutes. Does this guy know how to hook someone or what? I wanted more challenges! There is a good reason the Jacob's Ladder machine is safely tucked away in the personal training room, out of reach of people like me.

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Don't Be Afraid of Personal Training (or Bodybuilding Perhaps?)