One of the things I wanted to do when I was off on holiday this week and next was to try to get back into the swing of things at the Gym. It has been pretty hit or miss over the last few weeks and I hate to say it, but I was really beginning to miss it. Time to get seriously focussed again!
So Tuesday at high noon, I stepped back into the Gym at Western Health and Racquets Club on Hyndland Road for my PT session with GymGuyMark. Now when I said get serious, I did not mean THAT serious. GGM was running a bit late so I had a wee bit extra time on the treadmill than I had planned. I have been mixing things up a bit and trying to do 30 minutes at 6.5 speed, starting off flat then raising it up to an incline of 3.5, attempting to do 15 minutes each. This kills my thighs especially when it is at an incline but I am hoping that is the reason the tops of my legs look like an antique table, all lumps and bumps because they are gradually toning up.
GGM seemed to have an arm thing going on, my poor limbs were tortured, pulling, lifting, swinging various weights and even when it came time for sit ups, no rest for my arms. They had to hold a kettlebell while I tried to haul my lazy tummy into shape. It was perhaps not the brightest of ideas then to decide to walk into town to meet H to go to the Cinema.
So as you can well imagine by the time I eventually got back home, I was finished. Tuesday night was bad enough but Wednesday morning, OMG! It was like I was back at the start. No part of my body wanted to get out of bed. Everything ached, everything yelled ow and my thighs just refused to move. So as I was trying to persuade my body that it was a good idea to get out of bed, the idea of going to Metafit last night was perhaps not the best. As it was the Gym God’s were against me and instead of sweating out to Metafit with GGM, I was on a freezing cold train, in the middle of nowhere.
It is now Thursday, the legs are still aching and my shoulders are still stiff, but again it is a high noon session with GGM. After my usual treadmill warm up, it was straight up stairs and hitting the weights. The good thing about working with a PT like GymGuyMark is that he knows what I am capable of even if I don’t believe I am. But he also knows when it is time to stop. I have no idea what I did today but I felt a sudden stabbing pain in my lower back on the left side. It was very weird, it felt like I had pulled something but was not agonising. Now I will admit to being a woos sometimes and have to be coaxed into carrying on when I am losing the will to live hauling a weight around but I think GymGuyMark realised that this was a bit different. One of things I have learned from GGM is that if you feel sore or stiff, the thing is not to stop; we went through to the bikes and cycled it out to get the blood pumping again. The ache soon felt like more like a stitch in my side, so much so that we went back through to start doing weights again. However after one sit up the twinge got worse, even an attempt at a plank was starting to hurt. Time to stop even though the rest of me felt fine.
By the time I left the Gym with strict instructions from GGM on what to do, my legs and arms were staring to hurt so the ache in my side was starting to pale into insignificance. I had a nice warm shower then headed off for a walk down to Kelvingrove Art Gallery. A nice chilled out afternoon looking at paintings old and new, was just the ticket. So, today, not only did I find a new artist I like, I think I may just have found a new muscle!