Bodyboss: Week 1

In my wisdom and impatience, (I can be quite an impatient person) I elected not to do the 4 week pre-training and go straight into the 12 week course. In retrospect, this may not have been the greatest idea, but I’m committed now so that’s that.

Monday

Monday is ‘legs and booty’. This involves lots of squats and lunges and glutes exercises in 3 intense HIIT circuits. The book says it should take you 7 minutes to complete….it took me 9. I thought 7 minutes was a little ambitious, looking at what the circuit involved, but I went for it and it was tough. The second and third tries only took 7.40 so I guess I’m improving. My response to my first taste of bodyboss is…wow. That shit is tough. I’ve done circuit training and bootcamp before, and this is still one of the toughest. But hard work should lead to good results, so well done me for starting it. That’s the first hurdle.

Tuesday

Tuesdays are a workout free day, but they call it ‘recovery’ and suggest you go for a walk, cycle or do some yoga. In my excited planning phase I found some yoga classes and videos online and told myself I would do some. Turns out life gets in the way, so I made do with a 20 minute walk to and from the doctors and another to an unnamed supermarket.

Wednesday

The aches from Monday are real. Worse than yesterday. Climbing stairs was hard. Sitting down was hard. I work on a bar and me picking things up from a low shelf must have been comical to watch. I’m familiar with the first pains of working out after a period of relative inactivity but this was something else. I followed the warm up and cool down from the book so…this must be normal. But OUCH. Wednesdays are ‘arms and core’. However, this Wednesday (and next) are days when I’m at both of my jobs one after another, so by the time I got home it was gone 11pm. Needless to say, working out was the last thing I wanted to do but I’d played some mental tricks on myself during my second job and I kid myself I was ready and raring to go, so I got my kit on and started.

This workout was mentally tough. Pushups (which I hate passionately) and core work. My core is quite weak, I’ve known that for a while but the only way to strengthen it is to work it. Whenever I’ve been with a trainer or sports professional they say if you get pain in your lower back, stop. I get a lot of pain in my lower back, so it’s catch-22. What got me though were the V situps (google it). Bad enough that I find them difficult anyway, but the boss wants them in reps of 25. By the second circuit, my abs gave up and I was barely doing half a situp, and I was panicking and hating myself and feeling pathetic. Now, I was very tired, and I know I demand a lot of myself sometimes, but they say follow the regime exactly so I was nervous of swapping the exercise for regular situps, which I did on the third round. It’s better than giving up on them completely. So yes, that was the mentally hardcore aspect of this training which resulted in a facial breakdown and I ended up doing shoulder flies with tears of frustration streaming down my face, which is a cliché that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Bridget Jones movie. (Disclaimer; I have never seen a Bridget Jones movie.)

Thursday

Today is cardio. Again, not a workout day but they suggest 20 minutes of old fashioned cardio, such as going for a run. Now, I hate running. I find it very hard. I had planned to ask my boyfriend if he wanted to run with me, mostly as motivation for me, but I was pretty shattered when I got  home from work. As it turns out, he asked me first. I was debating ignoring the cardio (it’s not a strict part of the training, just a really good add-on to help) but he convinced me to come with him. After falling asleep on the sofa, we did go out together. I had pre-warned him that I would have to stop and walk, and he was prepared to be patient with me, but when we got going I found I didn’t really need to. He watched how I ran and gave me some tips about driving and pacing, then he taught me about breathing and how to match it to your footfall so they regulate each other. We ran together the whole way and his pacing was great. It turns out when I’d tried before I ran too fast and knackered myself in about 5 minutes, but with his guidance we ran 2 miles in 20 minutes and I didn’t stop once. I was amazed. I’d done no training at all but somehow did that. The feeling of achievement was great and I want to make it a weekly thing. Huge thank you to the bf :P

Friday

I feel like I’ve been run over by a tank. Every muscle I own hurts. Honestly, I think it would have been worse if I hadn’t run, so don’t let cardio put you off. You know when you pull a tissue in two and the fibres just sort of separate? That’s how my abs felt like when I got up this morning. So it was a pretty sore day. I had a bit of a longer break between jobs today (and I couldn’t face another midnight workout) so I popped home between jobs and did the ‘power-up’ full body workout that is the Friday training. Discounting the warm up and cool down, it’s only one 6 minute round of intense exercise, so it was nice and short. I felt loads better afterwards and went off to my second job energised.

It’s now Saturday. My aches are mostly gone and I feel better. It feels like my body has changed, even in one week – my rolls are slightly less when I’m stretching on my yoga mat and things seem a bit more gravity defiant. My belly in profile is just as round, but then it is only week 1. I know I have not eaten well this week (cake for lunch yesterday-what was I thinking?) but I have made it through the first week. Well done me! Next week’s goals are to be sensible with food, which is a big ask for me. I love food. We shall see.