Balance of Power

Monday 2nd August - Monday session week 4 - Tabata

Before I get into the session itself, I just want to talk again about music. Today we had yet another trainer, who had yet another selection of music. And what do you suppose got played today? Were you thinking a punk cover of Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl?

Well this time you’d be right. This guy also played Sabotage by the Beastie Boys and a few other songs that I not only have in my music collection but that I don’t skip over when they come up on shuffle.

So that was a good start.

Today we did Tabata. I won’t say “we did Tabata again” because, after reading the wiki article and looking at what we did today I can confidently say that it was genuine Tabata, and what we did last week was something else. So this guy had the room set out in four stations, and we did 2 sets of exercise at each station, 20 seconds on 10 seconds off, for a total of 20 minutes.

As usual, after the warm up I was tired and wanted to go home and was disappointed that we hadn’t actually started yet. But start we did and it was hard. Really hard. You would think that only 20 minutes would be easy, but with no discernable break, and with us being pushed hard (e.g. no pushups on knees) it really was amazingly difficult. Once we had got exactly halfway through the routine, he told us we were halfway, and again when we had four minutes to go, he told us again that we “only” had four minutes to go. This was hard to know (because all you want to hear is that it’s over), but also good to know, as it felt like there was definite progress.

Then when it all finished, he got us to lie down in a circle, and said that we would now do a kind of Mexican wave pushup. We would all get up into the pushup position, and hold that position (on toes) as each person in turn did 1 pushup, and it would go around the circle twice. At this point I put up my hand and said “what about ‘four minutes to go’? You told us we had four minutes to go, and we have done those four minutes. You’re a liar.” He admitted that he was, and then we did the thing. Oh, did I mention he wanted us to “woo” as we did our pushup? He did. I didn’t woo at all on the first one and, because there was a danger he would make us all do it again, I wooed - albeit sarcastically - on the second.

In all it was an incredibly disappointing end to an otherwise OK session. I could have, and indeed would have, been fine with the session. It’s exercise, and I hate it, and I would rather be doing almost anything else, but it was tolerable, the music was good, and felt like it was doing good (and there wasn’t a great deal of running). But the circle jerk, the lying and the woo-ing at the end of it threw it all on its head. I ended the session angrier than the previous week, and possibly angrier than I had been yet.

It also meant that I couldn’t let go of something that I had noticed earlier. At one stage I thought the guy was wearing two watches. Then I looked a bit closer and noticed it wasn’t a watch, but it was, in fact a Power Balance Bracelet:

For those who don’t know, a power balance bracelet has a hologram that is supposedly embedded with a frequency that… no look, if I describe it I’ll probably use biased words that make it sound like bullshit and skew your impression of it. I think the best way to describe this device is to take the text directly from the website:

Power Balance is based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow, similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies. The hologram in Power Balance is designed to resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body.

See? Not bullshit at all. So the wanker who is into the lying and the wooing (and the cool music) is also into magical holograms. I can’t say I’m surprised.

Those of you who know me will know my feelings on shows like Today Tonight, but nonetheless here is what they have to say on the matter (although I get from the intro that this is one of their “last week we told you how good something is, so here is the follow up to tell you how bad it is” stories. I suppose it’s one kind of balanced reporting.)

Now go wash your eyes out.

Backsliding

Sunday 1st August – Reflections before Week 4 begins

When I started this blog I had the idea that I would do a post for every day I went to the gym, and others when the mood took me. As you can see, I have not done a post since last week’s Monday morning session. This is not because I have been too busy to blog (although I have) but because I have not actually been to the gym (or done any other kind of exercise) since last Monday.

If you remember we did Tabata last week. We did a lot of leggy things, and punchy things, but I noticed the leggy things the most. My legs were wobbly from the start and got worse. I had trouble walking for the next 2 days, and on Tuesday night I checked my legs and had visible bruising on my thighs.

Visible bruising.

On Wednesday I started what would be a 3 day stay in Melbourne, and it began with me walking 1.5km to the train station in the dark and cold. I then ran around a room with a microphone for a couple of days, which wasn’t really a substitute for actual exercise, but it certainly loosened my very stiff legs. Then I stayed up reasonably late both nights and woke early, which meant that by the time I got home I was absolutely knackered, and spent the weekend reasonably sedentarily (although I did walk into Lara yesterday, which I normally don’t do).

Tomorrow, according the most depressing email in my inbox, we will be doing Tabata again. Also according to the email “this type of training is usually performed by the very fit…”. I have received some comments, both on the blog and in real life about whether this training is too intense for a noob like me. I am beginning to think perhaps it is. The email then goes on to say “…but can still cater for those of you that are less fit” by toning down the intensity of the 20 second blocks of exercise. Well that’s OK then.

“So if you are new to exercise,” the email continues, “make sure that you rest if necessary, as this type of training can bring you to a whole new level of intensity.” The thing is, though, I am in their hands. The whole idea of trainer based training is that they tell me what to do, and how much to push myself. Sure they can leave it up to me, but if it was up to me I would more than likely just walk, or hobble, out.

The email signs off by saying “Train smarter, not harder”. I do wonder if the smart thing would be to not go at all.

Hakuna Tabata

Monday 26th July – Monday session Week 3 - Tabata/Boxing

Today’s trainer told us that she mixed Boxing with Tabata because “it can get a bit boring otherwise”. Needless to say at no point in the morning was I bored. We did some boxing stuff to start off, which was similar to the punchfit I have previously described. Only I noticed today that, almost straight into the running bits, my legs were starting to wobble. While I didn’t actually collapse during the session, I was definitely unstable on my feet for the whole time.

Today I came the closest yet to leaving mid session. I seriously thought about it at least three times. Just getting up and walking out. The hatred, which I normally cover with a thin veneer of cynicism and snappy remarks, was more evident than ever. I was swearing under, and over, my breath and I scowled constantly. I even said to my boss “no point even asking me today”.

The last exercise was sitting up and punching, while your partner satup and blocked with the boxing mitt things. I struggled big time, but was rescued in the end by a coughing fit that I was genuinely concerned would turn into something a tad more gastric. It didn’t but it provided an unceremonious end to a really shitty session.

Then we went down to breakfast which was identical to the last 2 (except that the yoghurt had berries, rather than passionfruit in it). Still yummy, although a kick in the balls would have been looked upon favourably in comparison to what I had just gone through. Andrea told us that you get a twitchy eye when you don’t have enough potassium, which is presumably why you don’t see a lot of monkeys with eye twitches. She has an amazing ability to tell us things which, just because of the way she says them, makes me not want to believe her. Today she told us to drink water while exercising, but gave it as much credibility as a homeopathic website (who would probably tell you the same thing, as long as that water had some essence of “fatigue” diluted in it).

Now a quick word on Tabata. According to wiki, Tabata “uses 20 seconds of ultra-intense exercise (at 170% of VO₂max) followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated continuously for 4 minutes (8 cycles).” Can’t argue with the “ultra intense” bit, and I’ll take her word that it was 20 seconds. However, apparently “10 seconds of rest” means “the amount of time it takes to get from a standing position into a position on the floor” or vice versa. So it was pretty much the same as any other exercise thing we’ve done, only it didn’t stop. Oh, and it also involved squats, or squat jumps, and burpees. So it sometimes took a whole bunch of effort to use those 10 seconds of rest to get back up from a burpee into a position where I could stand with a weight held at arms length, ready to start squatting.

In my last post I said “I’ll be well shitty if all I can think is ‘Bloody hell I’m tired’.” I have not been able to walk properly all day. I have been well shitty.