I went on leave as planned and it was fantastic and made even better when I bumped into some old friends who I hadn’t seen for about 4 months. The first thing they said was “you’re looking well and you’ve lost weight”. Not a great deal but enough to be noticed by those around me that hadn’t seen me for a while. It’s a great feeling to know your hard work is paying off. It was even better when I put on my trousers and discovered I needed a belt to keep them up.
My leave went by in a blink of an eye and I was on the plane back to work. The first day back is always a rest day and the gym sessions would start the following day.
I felt as if I had only just got to bed when the alarm went off. So I started the day of as I intended to continue the tour. I opened my first bottle of water for the day. It was going to take a few days to get back into the swing of things. There’s no time like the present and there’s no point in putting it off.
Coach was waiting for me at the gym with a grin like a Cheshire cat. What on earth has he got planned for me ? Through his grin he told me the workout had changed, the first change was that the training period was going to last for an hour. As I was a boxer in my past, very distant past I might add. We are now going to be doing some boxing training to spice things up. So an extra 15 minutes and he was going to thump me, all on my first day back.
It turned out to be a really good session, I was a bit stiff and sore from leave but it was good to get back into it. The first part of the session was speed and strength training followed by 20 minutes of boxing orientated abs. It was my first time on the pads and it was great fun. Pad work is very new to me and I have a lot to learn. It does help if I can count from 1-20 and know my left from my right. It’s been a while and I’m a bit rusty, as it showed.
The following morning was a different story, I ached from head to toe and it felt like I had started again from scratch. I’m glad to say it only lasted for a couple of days and I was fine after that.
The pad work is coming on well and I’m getting a bit faster and a bit less like a robot. Just as I think I’m getting it, coach makes me switch to south paw. I lead and jab with my left and that feels very normal to me but change it round and lead with my right and I have no idea what to do with my feet. I’m also terrible at throwing a punch and backing off at the same time. It will come with practice and I’m sure there’s plenty of that to come.
There’s just one thing I cannot get my head around. As soon as I put a gum shield in I can’t breathe, my mouth is open all the time and I could drink Lake Windermere dry. Take it out and all is well, what’s that all about ? I even put tooth paste inside it, I’ve got no idea why I tried that. One thing is for sure, I want be doing it again. I just need to learn to cope with it. But when I ask a question with it in even I don’t know what the hell I’m on about. Coach says I talk too much anyway and if I’ve got the energy to talk I’m not working hard enough.
I was doing round the worlds and windmills today with the Kettle Bell as well as my normal exercises. The round the world was a shock to the system but once I got going it was OK. I can’t say that for the windmills, they were hard to do and got worse the more I did them. It’s not an exercise you can do fast to get them out of the way, even if coach would let me. The shocker came when I had to do a renegade push up with two Kettle Bells. At one point I thought I was going to head plant the floor. I didn’t and it went very well.
My first week back has been really good, the boxing has been great fun and I really loved the abs of death. Walking backwards and being thumped in the abs for two circuits of the ring. I know boys will be boys, we don’t grow up we just get older. As for the Kettle Bell, I think there’s still more to come.
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