Week 4 – When the going gets tough…

I knew by about 9:01am on Monday morning that this week was going to be tough… and we all know the old saying about when the going gets tough.

After the previous week interstate without the usual access to email, I had a mountain of correspondence to attend to, things to organise, meetings to go to and decisions to make.  Not that I am complaining, it’s why I get paid.  I just knew that with the amount of competing deadlines and a list of  priority tasks as long as my arm, an exam to prepare for and take, not to mention a  mountain of housework to get through, I was worried that something was going to give.  Usually, this is the point where my exercise routine gets shoved well and truly on to the back-burner… so far back it doesn’t even rate a simmer!  Not this week.  This week I decided to go Old School and use the traditional ending to the statement: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going…”

Which ended up being a good thing, because Matt and Sam introduced me to a few new exercises and I certainly discovered muscles I didn’t know that I had.  I arrived at the first session of the week with trepidation as I knew that there was likely to be  a couple of new exercises that the group learnt during the week I was away.  I must admit it was great to get back into the Squash Court gym, full of  familiar equipment, friendly faces and lots of laughs.  Mind you, the laughs may have been at my expense as I clocked myself in the square in the face with a medicine ball after missing a catch.   OK, so the medicine ball looked like a massive pouf cushion and it was difficult to miss, I still managed it. By the end of Monday’s session I couldn’t actually feel my arms.  It made for an interesting time taking notes at meeting that afternoon… I still can’t decipher what I wrote and I was there!

Wednesday, Sam challenged me to tackle the “super sets” that Matt had left for us.  I took one look and thought…nah, way too hard.  By the end of the session I thought to myself that wasn’t quite the attitude.  So I set my mind to tackling the challenge on the Friday session and embracing the challenge.  This was great up until the last set of exercises where it was a combination of wall throws (with the dreaded pouf cushion), assisted chin ups and chest presses.  I literally could not feel my forearms… Sam assured me that it was because I was not use to the exercise and once I had built strength up, I would be able to start using the right muscles (instead of any muscles) to complete the exercise.  I hope he’s right…

Next week is the start of a new phase, bring it on, because you know what happens when the going gets tough…