It was one of those decisions I had made and I wasn’t really fully aware of what I’d done. How hard could it be ? At some points in my life I had been as fit as a butchers dog, the only problem with that was the simple fact I wasn’t 20 anymore and over the years I had abused my body and ignored what it had been telling me. My back was fine, what needed fixing was my head. Does a break fully repair ? I’d not experienced any pain in my back since I’d received my acupuncture but I was fully aware that I had lost a lot of strength and movement in the area between my shoulder blades. The rehab I was given in the army wasn’t the best and was designed to get me back to work and that was about it.
Just to go back a few years and explain the last statement, I broke my back in a motor bike accident that very nearly paralysed me. Luck was on my side and the doctors decided that nature should run it’s course and surgery would be the last option. So after a long spell in hospital and some rehab I was returned to normal work. More importantly I was back on a bike, a nice shiny new one with all the gear to go with it. In the mean time my old bike had been sold for garden furniture during my hospital stay. What more can I say ?
My ankles on the other hand, were just painful all the time. Years of abuse from jumping on and off tanks and lorries, followed by surgery to pin my left ankle back together after yet another bike crash and then sat behind a steering wheel had left me like an old man with arthritis.
The fit test consisted of 7 exercises and would last for 40 minutes. Was that 40 minutes in the same hour ? I can’t remember the last time I did a 40 minute exercise period. I had already been told to take my resting heart rate before I got out of bed. I was about to do it again before my warm up. At this point I had no idea why.
The exercises were to be a best effort and would determine my current fitness level. The exercises were as follows:-
a. Pull Ups
b. Vertical Leaps
c. Push Ups
d. Toe Touch
e. Wall Squat
f. Bicep Curls
g. In & Outs
Was I surprised at the results of my 40 minute exercise period ? Yes I was, I thought I was better than that and it just proved I was very, very unfit. My max heart rate was the next test and a piece of equipment that was going to prove to be very painful. The KettleBell, a very simple looking object that produced some amazing results and very quickly. A cannonball with a handle on it, mine was a cool 16 kg’s and the other one in the gym was massive 24 kg’s.
After being taught the Kettlebell Snatch, I was going to do as many as I possibly could and then my max heart rate was going to be taken. I didn’t last long and I never changed arms as directed to do so when the time came. I could only manage just over a couple of minutes, my thighs were on fire, my arms hurt and I thought my lungs were going to explode. No sooner had I finished, I had an overwhelming desire to throw up. What a great start, if this is what it’s going to be like, it was going to be a long rough road.
My first day over and it was a bit of a shock to the system. I’d gone from no exercise over the past 3-5 years to bursting point of my lungs. It was a great relief to me to hear coach say “the next few days and weeks would be much easier”. He was now going to work out my work loads according to my rest and max heart rate readings.
It can only get better, I hope.
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