AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!! This HURTS!!!

For the past 3 years, albeit on and off, I try and get to the Gym thrice a week so I get some exercise….it’s gone well, for the most part…until last Tuesday that is!!

I was starting my usual 40 minute elliptical trainer session - when the Devil must have hijacked my mind! There was a 15 minute Ab session + a 30 minute TBC session just about to start and before I knew it, I had spread sort of like a yoga mat on the floor and was lying down on my back with an inflatable exercise ball clasped beneath my legs. What followed was 15 minutes of pure UNADULTERATED torture that would have shamed prisoners in Guantanamo bay or Abu Gharib!

I was feeling pain in muscles that I was certain NEVER existed in my body! What are the obliques for Chrissake?? Somebody told me that they formed a muscular band around my big fat belly and held my guts in place! I must’ve stretched those damn muscles BEYOND their elastic limits….coz them buggers were angry and swore revenge…After what seemed like an eternity of crunches, twists and turns in every conceivable direction, the 15 minutes came to an end! Phew…I was barely able to stand up by this time….

But that was only the beginning of the next step – the TBC Class…for the uninitiated, TBC stands for ‘Total Body Conditioning’. That my friends is THE WRONG damn explanation for the term. A more sensible one is ‘Total Body CLOBBERING’! And while I’m on the topic of providing sensible explanations for fitness terms, here’s another one. Remember WMDs? Our dear Bushda says that they’re ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. A new term por favor – WMR – ‘Weapons of “Mass” Reduction’. Bottomline – TBC is a WMR in the hands of the lethal trainers in the gym! :-)

I should have listened to my friend who quietly quit the class right after the Ab drill…..but Naah!! I looked around, saw a few people (mostly women, might I add) who stayed on and thought ‘Hey, I can do it….it cant be that hard’…but boy was I wrong! Those women kicked some serious ass….outperformed me in ALL aspects of that class…weights, balance, number of reps not to mention grace. To all men and women out there who work out, hats off to you all!

As for me, I still intend to continue taking this class every week….I’m sure I’ll get my ass whupped for some more time….but don’t have a choice really….Like Andy Dufrane says in Shawshank Redemption – “Get busy living (working out)…or get busy dying”.

Adios amigos.