Ain’t got rhythm

I was invited to the Shock Absorber Mateivator Blogger Event which was to give us the chance to preview a workout devised by certified personal trainer Elise Lindsay where you work out with your friend in order to get the best results for your body.

As I don’t have any friends in real life, I decide to ask my blogging/Facebook/Twitter friend and fellow Janathoner, Helen, if she’d like to come along and she said yay freebies, cool, ta. (They may not be Helen’s exact words.)

We arrange to meet outside the Tottenham Court Road branch of Fitness First, where the event is being held but Helen texts me and says she’s been down the length of Tottenham Court Road and can’t find it. I too have been walking up and down Tottenham Court Road and can’t find it either and so I tell her to meet me at Goodge Street Station and we’ll get lost together. When she gets to the station, she says she’s found it and it’s hidden up a side street.

Once inside, Shock Absorber’s PR girl hands us a goodie bag containing a Shock Absorber sports bra, a water bottle, and a keyring with a locker token thingy the size and shape of a pound coin (which wouldn’t be of any use in a Fitness First as their membership cards lock and open the lockers but my local gym uses pound coins).

We’re taken into a room where Elise Lindsay gives us a talk about, um, I’m not sure because every other word was ‘literally’ and that’s all I could focus on and when we’re led into the studio for our workout, I say to Helen if Elise says ‘literally’ one more time, I’m literally going to walk out.

There’s about twenty of us in there to do the workout and Helen and I hide at the back and Elise puts some REALLY LOUD AND REALLY RUBBISH music on and starts to shout over it but shouting doesn’t make any difference, as I still can’t hear what she’s saying. She starts jumping about and stuff and we’re supposed to follow her. Everyone else starts jumping about in time in a nice coordinated manner but no matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. I decide to not try and do it and just stand still instead and hope no one notices. Shouty Woman notices. Shouty Woman comes over and says ARE YOU INJURED? and I lie and say I’ve got a dodgy knee and point to my knee in case she doesn’t know what a knee is. She shouts something I can’t hear and goes back to the front of the room to shout some more and do some more of that jumping about thing.

PR girl has also noticed that I’m standing at the back not doing anything and comes over and asks if I’m ok. I say yes but I’m really uncoordinated and I can’t follow what they’re doing and I’m a runner and I do running not aerobics and she says it’s not really aerobics and I think BUT THEY’RE DOING FLIPPING STAR JUMPS and I don’t want to do star jumps and I feel stupid and ridiculous and embarrassed and self-conscious and now I feel bad for not doing anything and Shouty Woman and PR girl probably think I’m acting like some petulant sulky teenager and I want to sneak out and then Shouty Woman tells us to put boxing gloves and pads on and I’ve got the pads and Helen’s got the boxing gloves and Helen says I don’t want to punch you and I say I don’t want to be punched but Helen manages to only punch the pads and not my face and then we swap and I have to punch Helen for a while and then Shouty Woman says we’re going to do squats and lunges and I think oh no, I can’t do squats and lunges as they hurt my knees and when I used to do Body Pump the instructor didn’t let me do squats and lunges as she said I leant over one way too much and I would injure myself and so I sit down and Helen says she can’t do squats and lunges either as she’s got a bad back and the PR girl and the Shock Absorber girl have blocked the door so there’s no escape and I feel really really uncomfortable and find the whole thing excruciatingly embarrassing but after they’ve done their squats and lunges, Shouty Woman tells us to get some weights and I think hurrah, I can do weights, yay, and we do stuff with weights, then we do things with a heavy ball and then THANK FUCKING GOD it’s all over and there’s a Q&A with the Shouty Woman and I say to Helen shall we skip that and go to the pub instead and Helen says yes, that’s a splendid idea (they may not be Helen’s exact words) and so we get changed and go to the pub and have a couple of ladylike pints of lager and then we go and get pizza and garlic bread and drink lots of wine to get over the trauma of it all.

Stats (workout)
Star jumps: 0
Being punched: lots
Doing the punching: lots
Squats and lunges: 0
Things with weights: some
Things with a heavy ball: some
Hours of excruciating embarrassment: 1
Free sports bras: 1
Pints of lager: 2
Pizzas: 1
Litres of wine: 1 (between two)