The Evils of Exercise

My back is screaming with pain, my arms are limp and lifeless, my legs are pulsating and my feet are raw and blistered. One would think that i have just trekked the Himalayas or run the length of the Great Wall of China. Nope. I have simply been to a dance class at my new gym. All right, all right, stop laughing! I nearly didn’t go, but Naidel made a few comments about cleaning up the flat if i wasn’t going, and i was outta that door like a shot.
The changing room was filled with lithe, bleach-blonde beauties who apparently had no shame in standing around completely starkers and having a gossip. I prayed to God these girls were not in my class. I shyly changed out of my jeans and into my cheap leggings and wandered out past the fashionistas to the studio. The body combat class was still in full swing - in my haste to get away from the washing up and hoovering, i was half an hour early. I stood outside the studio, staring at my feet and feeling tension and anxiety knot in my stomach. I never was good at joining new groups, nervousness always got the better of me. What if i fall over? What if i can't keep up? What if i managed to trip one of the other girls when doing kick-steps? By the time the studio was empty and ready for the dance class i was practically catatonic with fear and nerves. I was comforted by the fact that most of the girls in the group were pretty much the same shape as me, some of them bigger, in fact. That dispelled a little of my worries, and as the music started i felt a little more confident. Until i caught sight of myself in the mirror, that is. I'm sure gym mirrors are specially crafted to make you look as fat and ugly as possible, so you work harder to do something about it. As we started the warm up, i was appalled to see my body looking so middle-aged and out of shape as i shimmied about.
I was lost in the first five minutes of the warm up. The nerves had counteracted my coordination and i found myself tripping up left right and centre. When i saw that i wasn't the only one, my legs and arms finally started acting the way my brain was telling them to. After the 'warm up' (by which point i was puffing like a smoker who's been stuck in a no-smoking building for 48 hours and has finally been set free to have a fag) we finally started the routine. There was a great deal of hop-skip-and-thrusting, and just when we'd gotten the hang of it, she added another bit, then another, then another, and more and more and more bits until i was completely lost and my brain my starting to sizzle. Eventually, we put it all together, and after about 4 attempts we all seemed to be getting it right. We were shaking our booties, swinging our hips with the best of them. As we took a breather, i felt a little bit of pride and accomplishment. I was a bit concerned that my whole body was bright red and pulsing and my lungs were struggling with intakes of oxygen, but hey, I danced the whole routine for Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack’! We all headed back to our places with a sense of accomplishment. Each one of us was standing a little straighter, heads no longer downcast. Until the teacher said those fateful words – “Right, now we going to do it at double speed”. DOUBLE SPEED!?!?! I CAN BARELY MOVE AT NORMAL SPEED AND YOU WANT ME TO MOVE AT TWICE THAT?!?! ARE YOU MAD WOMAN?!?!? I wasn’t the only one with shock and aggravation plastered on my red and sweaty face we as sped through the routine over and over again. When the music finally stopped and we were set free from the evil hall of mirrors, the pain began. Great seething pain all over my body, and especially in my back. What had she done to me? I was a broken, hollow shell of a woman whose body had just been violated by exercise.
I walked slowly home, and the sight of my squishy-squashy sofa was a great comfort. The sight of the piled-up dishes and dirty worktops was not, however. I sighed heavily, unpacked the shopping, did my housewifely duties and welcomed my Naidel home from his evening at the TA with an ‘owwwwwwwwww’ when he hugged me. “I’m old and non-flexible,” I said with great dismay as he asked how my class was. He looked at me with mild amusement and said “yup, I could have told you that.” I trained the last of my energy on an icy glare. He quickly backtracked and told me that “that’s what happens when you don’t exercise for so long", and I’ll “get better with practice.” Bah.
Getting out of bed this morning was harder than usual. I actually couldn’t sit up, I could barely move my arms, and my legs protested intensely against movement by sending little shocks of pain all the way up to my hips. And as for my back, I think I may have pulled every muscle I own in it! So what have we learned ladies and gellyspoons? EXERCISE IS EVIL!!! IT MAKES YOUR BODY VERY ANGRY WITH YOU!!!
Right, I’m off to limber up for next week. What, you didn’t think a few pulled muscles and some back pain would stop me, did you?