May 17
Near death experience
A crazy man tried to kill me tonight (or so it felt at the time).
Jamie and I joined a gym last week (Fitness Pro Team). I’ve worked out there 4 or 5 times so far, and have been enjoying it. They have nice equipment, and because I go late in the evenings (9-ish), there aren’t a lot of people around.
Like most gyms, they offer various classes in addition to the gym equipment. When we joined, the guy who sold us the membership (Rodney) told us he taught an intro to boxing class on Thursday nights. I thought that sounded like fun, so I decided to go this evening. Now that I’ve had a couple hours to recover, I guess I can say it was fun - but it was also the toughest workout I’ve ever had, or even imagined.
I didn’t know what to expect from a boxing class, and surely didn’t expect what I got. Here’s a run down.
We start out by spending a couple minutes on stationary bikes. No big deal. Then we move on to practicing our boxing stance and footwork while holding 5lb weights in each hand, plus a few arm excersises. No big deal. Then we work at 4 different stations practicing punch combinations on bags. This is really starting to turn into a workout. Then we do some floor exercises - crunches and leg lifts. Yeah, this is a pretty good workout. Then we get back on the bikes. By this point, I’m pretty tired, but we were almost finished, or so I think…
Next Rodney sets out some orange cones at each end of the room and tells us to run from one end to the other, then run backwards to the starting position. We continue this until the bells rings. When the bell finally rings (after about a dozen trips back and forth across the room), we stop running and start jumping jacks. When the bell rings again, we stop jumping and start push ups. I thinking I’m going to collapse during the jumping jacks, but by the time we switch to push ups at the next bell ring, I’m certain I’m going to need an ambulance. Finally, the final bells rings and we are dismissed from the torture chamber.
I manage to make it out to my car, where I collapse in the seat and wonder if I should call my wife before heading to the ER.
The really sick thing is I’m thinking about going again next week!
