The Pain (and Motivation) of the First Gym Class of the Year

Last week saw me back at the gym: I am fully aware that I’m a walking cliche – and Tuesday was my first boxercise class at Everyone Active Westcroft for a long time, let me tell you how it went. I had my arse handed to me on a plate. 60 minutes of high intensity all over workout finished me. It took less than one minute of warm up to realise that this was going to be painful; there’s nothing like the unforgiving studio mirrors to make you confront the fact that your comfy black gym tee is in fact too tight. The truth is I’ve put on all the weight I lost last year and after suffering pneumonia in the summer, my fitness levels aren’t something to shout about.

However whilst there was pain and a fair few swear words (I’m lucky that trainer Nick is use to my foul mouthed narration of my dislike for burpees and planks, ha!) there was also oodles of motivation to match the buckets of sweat. It’s no secret that you can’t out train a bad diet which is responsible for 80% of weight loss, but for me it takes the agony of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) to remind me that a mindless mouthful of stollen is not worth another gym class of struggling to keep up. So whilst I’m hobbling round with day 2 soreness from boxing I am firmly booked in for next week’s boxericse class where the journey will continue to make the gym tee baggy again.

P.S. If you’re reading this Nick, I’d be most grateful if I never had to do another burpee or mountain climber… just saying!

Disclosure: I receive complimentary membership of Everyone Active Westcroft.