A now a look at the week ahead…

Sunday 25th July – Reflections before Week 3 begins

The theme of Week 1 was “I really don’t want to do this, but I’ll do whatever everyone else is doing, so I won’t have to make a decision”. The theme of week 2 was “I’m a big boy now, and I can do this all by myself”. Needless to say I did a lot more in Week 1 than I did in Week 2. I did actually intend to go up on Friday, but forgot my gym bag (no really, I did – it’s still packed ready for tomorrow). So I had a curry with friends instead. It was yummy, there was naan, and the paper in the pappadam basket had that all too familiar “window to weight gain”. In all, I wasn’t that disappointed to have forgotten my gear.

I have been stiff all week, particularly across the chest. Not sore as such, but I can feel it when I move. When I put pressure on my arms, or if I twist my body, I can feel an ache in my shoulders, chest and those-muscles-that-go-down-the-back-of-your-arms that’s just a bit odd. An ache like I haven’t felt before. I don’t know how this will affect tomorrow’s workout, but we will see.

Tomorrow we are doing “Tabata”, with boxing. Surprisingly, I’m not looking forward to it. The boxing thing is going to hit the parts of me that are still sore, and the whole “exercising at 7am” thing is going to hit the parts of me that really don’t want to get up and exercise at 7am. The Tabata thing just seems like a great way to tire me out very quickly.

The rest of the week will probably follow more the theme of Week 2 than Week 1. After Monday, I’m working in Melbourne all week and staying there Wednesday and Thursday nights. The hotel I’m staying at doesn’t appear to have a gym, so I don’t think I’ll get much of a workout. (I could of course do situps and pushups and suchlike, but I doubt I will be up for it.)

I’m quite stressed about work this week. The thought of starting the week by putting my body through cycles of 20 seconds of intense boxing workout followed by a whole 10 seconds of rest, for an entire hour, doesn’t really help. I have thoughts that need to be thunk tomorrow, and I’ll be well shitty if all I can think is “Bloody hell I’m tired”.

So right now, at 10:47 on Sunday night, I am thinking “if ever there was a week to skip it, it could be this week.” But I probably won’t. For the whole deal to be free I need to attend 10 out of the 12 sessions. So I could skip tomorrow’s and I would still have a one session buffer. But I think it’s better to have those sessions for accidental sleep ins and illness, rather than a deliberate piking.

Here’s hoping I accidentally sleep in tomorrow, then.

Different kind of training

Friday 23rd July – Equipment overview

This morning, at what should be an unlikely - but which is becoming increasingly likely - hour of 7am, Andrea had organised a session to to show us through all of the equipment at the gym.

No one had thought to bring a notepad, as we didn’t think it would be necessary, but it soon became clear that she had a lot to say. I quickly started taking notes on my phone as she was throwing lots of numbers at us in quick succession. For example:

• Leg Press machine: set weight to 46kg, 20 repetitions each leg
• Leg Curl machine: set weight to minimum, 20 repetitions each leg
• Leg Extension machine, set weight to 16kg, 15 repetitions each leg
• Squat machine, set height to number 3, weight to minimum and do 2 sets of 20.

These were the first 4 machines she showed us. My notes stop there, because she started being less specific after that. There were, however, a lot of machines and a lot to take in. There are machines, or settings on the machines, for pretty much every kind of muscle you want to hit (although apparently the squat machine will get a lot of the leg ones at once – bonus). They also have your basic barbells and assorted weights for those who like to kick it old school.

They also have a Roman Chair, which she demonstrated to us:

She then assured us that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. We told her it didn’t look at all easy. This was, I felt, a bit of a theme of the session. The idea was that she would show us how to do stuff, and while she did indeed do that, the specific nature of the demonstration quickly waned. After the first couple of machines, she would quickly show us things, sometimes 3 or 4 different exercises on the one machine, and then move on. She made it all look easy, of course, but it also felt like she assumed we already knew what we were doing. Between that and the fact that we could hardly hear her over the dance music, I didn’t really get a lot out of it (which is a bit of a worry, as it looks like some of this stuff could kill you).

The assumption of knowledge seems to be a very important part of the gym world. It’s pretty much expected that I know what a quad or a tricep or a hamstring are, where they are, and which ones I need to work, which exercises will work them, and which ones I need to stretch after doing a particular exercise. It’s one of the intimidating things about gym that, in many ways, is a reflection of real life. We all spend so much of our time pretending that we know what we are doing, when really we are faking it, or just fumbling our way through. So often it seems that the worst thing you can do is let people know that you don’t know something.

(Interestingly, my spell checker also doesn’t know what a tricep is. Maybe it doesn’t actually exist.)

What do Eric Carmen and Billy Idol have in common?

Wednesday 21st July – Self paced training

Wednesday. This is the day that the gym has its scheduled lunchtime Spin class. I knew that some people were going up, and I was asked if I was going. I said “no”.

Aside from the “hating spin” factor, my reflections on last week made me wonder if I am perhaps taking things too hard and too quickly. I am extremely out of shape, and I know that if I want to get even a bit in shape then I need to exert myself. And I am concerned that if I don’t have an overly enthusiastic person going woo at me, or at least the simultaneous suffering of my peers, then I won’t actually push myself to do anything, and it will be too easy to just stop.

But having never done this before, it’s entirely possible that three really intense trainer-driven sessions in a single week is too much. Also the Wednesday and Friday session I went to last week were open to any gym member, not just the corporate group, which means they aren’t necessarily tailored to a potentially out of shape group just starting a 12 week program.

Besides, I really do hate spin, so if there’s any class I’m going to ditch in favour of some self paced training it’s that one.

So today I decided I would try the treadmill (we haven’t yet been shown how to use the big equipment, but I figured I could probably work out the treadmill). The idea was that I would still go up with the guys doing spin, but they left before me, so you know, whatever.

The treadmills are in the same room as the spin bikes, so it was vital that I brought my music and headphones, in case Jackie got played again. I had decided earlier in the day that, with such uplifting tracks as “I hope you die” and “Magna Cum Nada” (translated as “most likely to suck”), the Bloodhound Gang would make an appropriate soundtrack (one song even has the line “Luciano Pavarotti on a treadmill, not going nowhere slim chance we will”).

My plan was to do 30 minutes. I started out at a fast walking pace (6 on the screen, I assume that’s kph) and then after a while took it up to just fast enough to need to jog (8). Then I alternated between the two every minute or two. It was work and I was sweating, so I felt I was challenging myself and not slacking off, but it was manageable. But then around 12 minutes in my back started hurting. For many many years now I have had, especially when I’ve been standing “too long”, a sharp pain in my lower back, on one side. I’ve been to a chiro, who can make it feel good until I stop going. Usually it doesn’t bother me. Today it did. At first it only really hurt while running, so I did a couple of cycles of “run til it hurts/walk til it stops” but had to cut the whole thing short at the 20 minute mark.

I can’t help but wonder what I would have done had my back not hurt. I’d like to think I would have made the half hour. But also, I can’t help wondering what I would have done had it happened while a trainer was telling me what to do. Either way I stopped before my arbitrarily set goal. I don’t think I’m disappointed, though, as I did something.

Exercising without a trainer was definitely a different experience, and was, comparatively, good. I could listen to my own music and go at my own pace, and I could still manage to push myself a bit, but not to the point where I feel, as the Bloodhound Gang say, deader than the parents on Party of Five.

Such a lonely word

Tuesday’s reflections on honesty

One conceit that I have, and I’m sure I have many, is that I usually think that I am being honest with myself, whereas I am quick to accuse others of kidding themselves. This crops up quite a bit at the gym.

I see people who are red in the face, sweating like a drug smuggler on the set of border patrol, and looking very close to death, but when asked how they are going, or what they thought of that session will immediately (or as soon as they have caught their breath) say “good, good”. I can’t help but think these people are either lying, or at the very least being dishonest with themselves.

But if, while I am gasping for air and blood bursting through my fat lined veins, you ask me how I’m going, I am likely to be honest,

and simply say “shit” or “shithouse” or “shitty” or maybe even “cocking arse”. So when trainer Phil from yesterday asked, I wasn’t really sure what purpose it was supposed to serve. Presumably it’s some form of encouragement, but I responded pretty grumpily and, in my opinion, honestly. I expect he’s used to surly fat bastards, and I’m not going to lose sleep over it. No more sleep than I’m currently losing, anyway.

Likewise when my boss at breakfast (same breakfast as last week - and just as nice – but this time with serving spoons) again asked “Did you enjoy it this time, Robbie J?” I still said no, because I didn’t. She told me she was going to ask every week. This didn’t, as some of you might expect, annoy me. I’ll actually be intrigued to see how I answer.

A few people have assured me, both today and yesterday, that once I get used to it – once it stops hurting and causing me to be constantly tired – then I will start to enjoy it. Personally I don’t think that is likely. I can easily see myself saying “hey, it’s not as bad as when it was hurting and causing me to be constantly tired, but I’d still rather play Grand Theft Auto”. What I can’t see myself saying is “let’s do that again!”

Resistance is futile

Monday 19th July – Monday session Week 2 - Resistance training

It was indeed cold (just under 5 degrees when I stepped off the train which, thanks to the marvels of VLine was 5 minutes late, and which in turn made me 5 minutes late for the session). It was also dark. This is a very depressing time of year, where many people leave for work in the dark and return home in the dark, with the only sunshine they see being through the window of their office.

Good thing for me, then, that not long after I got there we all went outside.

But not before a little bit of public humiliation. I suppose it’s to be expected when you turn up late. I remember back in the early 90s I went to the toilet in the middle of a Doug Anthony All Stars set and was incredibly impressed with the verbal abuse I received from Tim, Paul and Richard. This was not like that, but I (along with another person who turned up late) were nonetheless asked to do some exercise in the middle of the room while the trainer (different guy again… Seemed like a bit of a Phil to me) pointed and laughed and said don’t we look silly. Great way to get me on side. (A few other times throughout the session he pointed and laughed at a other people. And yet the guy wasn’t a complete prick. Other than his enjoyment at putting people on the spot, he seemed like an OK guy.)

Anyway, after that we did some stuff with resistance bands. These are big elastic bands with handles on them. They can be used for wrapping around things (feet, bars, stoic animals), and stretching with them. They are also apparently quite an effective torture device. Here’s the thing. I was sore. My body had not yet recovered from Friday’s session, and here I was hitting the exact same muscles that, when I got out of bed just an hour earlier, complained in a loud voice that this was simply not on. My tiredness and grumpiness from the night before had not waned. And now I was 5 minutes into this workout and it felt like the last 5 minutes of Friday.

Gyms go to a bit of trouble to make sure that you understand the risks involved in exercising, and if you have a heart attack well, then, suffer in your jocks. But this is one risk they don’t tell you about. They should put a warning on the door: Exercise makes you forget all the good stuff that has happened to you since you last exercised.

So having wiped my memory of my excellent (if not sore) weekend entirely, we then went for a bit of a run outside and into a multi story carpark. We did squats and lunges, the kinds of exercises you might expect, but up and down the slopes and stairs of the carpark. We also did some fast walking (it seems that “stereotypical fat man at the back of the pack” may well be a running theme over this course) and Phil was quite encouraging and understanding, if a little hi fivey.

When we got back to the gym, Andrea (whose name has changed to something a bit more anonymous since my first post) took us through some obviously made up statistics on bone density and life expectancy. I’m not sure exactly what she said, as my brain is quite good at filtering that sort of thing out. But she did say that it was important that we damage our bones so that they can get stronger. An excellent piece of advice for a bunch of amateurs, I must say.