One little injury and I stopped going to the gym. Okay, there was a lot of common-sense in stopping gymming (is that a real word?) when everyone was telling me to rest – and that working my arms too soon would simply make the problem worse and make the recovery period that much longer….

…. but….

but one thing led to another and so on. In fact what happened was that one injured arm led to another injured arm as I attempted to avoid using my left arm altogether, thereby knackering my right arm….. That in turn led to a twisted ankle as I lost my balance and couldn’t catch myself or stop myself falling because my arms didn’t work properly.

As I said, one thing led to another – and then I discovered it was six weeks since I’d been in a gym and I’d put on over half a stone.

So now the long, hard fight-back to fit-and-slim begins. On the upside I now know what I’m doing – I know what the most efficient ways of training are and I won’t spend much time on the less effective exercises. On the downside it’s somewhat disheartening to look at the readouts and realise that no matter how close to death I feel right now, six weeks ago I’d not even have been sweating by this point.

If I let myself, I’ll become one of those gym-goers I used to despise… the kind who put so little effort into their time on the cross-trainer that they could manage to read a book (small print) and have a conversation on their phone (hands-free) without missing a word on either.

Time to dig deep. Hit the video button and see if the dancing nymphets distract me enough to not feel the pain. Not this time as I seem to have hit the spot on MTV labeled “ugly male rappers”.

I use every trick I know. Counting, Fantasizing (which comes close to hallucinating, to be honest) – I even resort to pacing myself to the person on the machine next to me, but this turns out to be a mistake as, despite appearances, she turns out to be a machine herself. Something in the Terminator Range, Deluxe Model, I’d say!

Wheezing like an old man having an attack of asthma, I finally hit my targets and do a brief cool down… I start talking to myself… I’m getting too old for this shit. Really I am. I should be at home, watching the telly, not training in the gym so that I can go back to climbing ropes and swinging from trapezes on weekend mornings…..

Ahhh…. now THERE is my motivator. I’m not old. I will not get old. I refuse. I will be forever young. I will NOT grow up. Is that clear? Crystal, thank you. In which case, Simon, get your winging lazy arse off the chair, waddle your way over to the far side of the gym and give me 20 pull-ups.

And no cheating, either!

Simon