fitness

My buttocks are not firing!!

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It started so well.  I got up incredibly early to make sure that I was ready for my first personal training session.  I had laid out my kit the night before, black capri running tights, black sports bra (industrial strength), black T shirt and shoes.  I had a light breakfast with blueberries for extra antioxidants and then walked the seven minutes to the gym.

As I waited in reception I smiled encouragingly at at least three young men whom I thought were my trainer, all of whom looked at me in confusion (and slight horror) and continued on their way.  Finally my trainer did arrive, all six foot 3 of him. Once we had introduced ourselves he sat down and we went through a series of questions about my exercise history, past injuries and what I wanted to achieve.  This last question made me want to point at a very lithe thirtyish woman who was running on one of the treadmills and say “I want a body like that” but I went with the more realistic “I just want to get fitter and lose some weight”.

He then took me into the gym, and made me lie facedown on a mat.  As I lay there thinking that the session wasn’t going to be so hard after all, he grabbed my legs and attempted to  bend them into various unnatural positions.  Seeing his face fall after failing to place me in what I can only assume is a very advanced yoga pose, I asked if I had a problem. Apparently my hip flexors are too tight and therefore my buttocks are not firing correctly.  Apparently buttocks have to fire to push you forwards.  Who knew?  The solution in my case is endless squats with a kettlebell.

The day after, I can say that my beleaguered buttocks are still not firing and are now incapable of carrying me up and down the stairs.  I am so stiff that every step is agony.  But as the saying goes, “no pain, no gain”.  Next week my trainer says we will concentrate on my core.  He’ll have to find it first!

 

You have to start somewhere..

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Well it was inevitable really.  The birthday that I had been dreading finally came around and luckily passed with a whimper rather than a bang.  But on paper I am officially no longer a “spring chicken”.  Nothing much changed in the mirror from the day before to the day after, but as the months have passed it has dawned on me that now is the time to grasp the nettle, before too much food and creeping stiffness make getting back into shape impossible.

I want to ski like a lunatic this winter and go surfing with my family next summer, and not be that sedate mother who watches from the mountain cafe or the beach.  I want to put on my favourite shirt and not be convinced that the buttons will fly off and take someone´s eye out when I sit down.  There is also the small matter of groaning when I bend over  (a dead giveaway of getting old so I am told by my delightful children) and being frightened of my back seizing up and having to walk around bent over after loading the dishwasher.

So I have joined a gym (I hate gyms but it is better than bootcamp), booked in my first personal training session (oh the horror of being weighed and measured by a twentysomething fitness fanatic), have sadly put the gin bottle out of reach (midweek only, there is no point in making myself completely miserable) and I am ready to go.  How hard can it be?