So, obviously I’m the last person you thought would be writing about fitness. As Larry Burns would say “I’m like a rug on Valium”. But that was before I realised the only clothes that fit me were pyjamas and that one pair of large jeans I bought by accident that one time. An opportunity came up to do an 8 week transformation, with the help of Ape Fit’s Adam Grootveld and I’m almost at the end of the first week.
We had a quick meeting over coffee to get an idea of my fitness level and goals, during which an old boss happened by, shook Adam’s hand and said “Good luck mate, Bec is the most physically lazy person I have ever met”. Off to a good start, haha. We agreed that plain weight loss wasn’t my overall goal, so much as fitting into my clothes and increasing my energy, which lately has been sapped to almost zero on some days.
So, the first day of training was weights. This marked two firsts for me. 1, leaving the house to exercise in the morning, and 2, proper weights. I have never done weights other than a short stint at CBD health spa when I was 20, and I can’t really remember if I did it more than a few times.
We started with an exercise that I thought would kill me- I’m not sure what it is called, but it involves pulling the bar (with a paltry 3.5kg on each side) from the ground to up over my head and down again repeatedly. This was a 30 seconds on and off thing. I literally can’t remember any of the other movements, as my brain has surely decided that it’s a traumatic memory and has erased it. There was a short cardio burst in the middle where I almost passed out, Adam seemed concerned as it was literally 5 mins of bopping around.
The next day, I wanted a cyanide tablet, such was the pain in my legs and pecs. I took a nurofen to get to sleep that night as nothing would soothe me. During the day, I took a short walk to warm up my legs, but I must have looked like a fresh zombie, as I waddled, groaning around the park. I decided to head to the salon for an infra-red sauna blanket. This was nice, it involves lying in a warm blanket for an hour which really helped loosen my muscles.
Second day was cardio. Jumping squats and jumping everything. I need a new sports bra – the one I have is 14 years old. It’s old enough to go on an ice cream date. Adam was sure I’d be trouble, so he distracted me with his vulgar, yet witty banter. Surprisingly, I didn’t die and was even able to talk during the torture – yes even the million ab crunches.
Today, my body hurts even less than yesterday, which I didn’t expect, I thought I’d be a ball of tears this morning. Disappointingly, I don’t have abs of steel yet.