Sunday, 21 September 2014

The Week Before Comp - A Touch of Reality

I feel the burning need to share with you a gym session during the last week of competition prep. It’s unique, gruelling, hilarious and heart-breaking all in one. As follows;

·        I walk into my home garage gym and feel immensely grateful that I can do this workout with only shorts, sports bra and bare-feet. I have no energy to put shoes on.

·        Exercise #1 is lying hamstring curls. My gratefulness is gone in a flickety flash. And now I’m searingly pissed off that the preacher curl attachment is where the hamstring curl attachment should be!!! WTF??!!!  How could I have been so stupid as to leave it like that last time?? Oh yeah – that’s right – I couldn’t be bothered changing it back and had no forethought of my next hamstring session. Typical. I want someone else to blame but can't find anyone within glaring distance.

I have to pull a lever out while lifting up the preacher curl attachment. It’s a near-on impossible task. I simply cannot pull that friggin lever and lift the dumb attachment at the same time!! IT WON’T WORK!!!!!!!!!!! I want to scream!! I need to do hamstring curls. Nothing else will do.  NOTHING. It's hamstring curls or I'll go inside and do nothing!
 
My mood has turned foul and I begin yanking at the stupid lever with the miniscule strength I have left. I end up sitting on the ground and bugger me if I don’t feel some little tears sting the corners of my eyes!! Ridiculous!!Having a sook over a stupid lever. All of a sudden the stars align over Jupiter and the lever gives way while the attachment flies off!!  

Next job – I need to reattach the hamstring curl attachment. Does this nightmare ever end?? That involves fitting one piece to the other with a bolt. Lining the holes up is an almost-impossible job and it takes every piece of focus I have to get them square. I fumble with the bolt and, for some reason, ‘lefty loosey, righty tighty’ just makes no freakin sense and I’m turning it all wrong and I’m getting mighty pissed off about it. I want to use a bloody great hammer and just smash the dumb thing in – and would have done so if the tool box wasn’t an eternity away in the garage. 

I finally conquer the worlds’ most stupid piece of gym equipment ever and now it’s time to get started. I feel like I’ve already done a workout and can’t believe that I haven’t yet completed even one set. The whole workout is looming like Mt Everest and feels too big to conquer. 

I contemplate my usual hamstring-curl weight and decide to halve it. Partly because I know that I have very little strength …partly because I can’t be bothered collecting anymore weight plates. Holy hell – has life come to this? Today it has. 

Believe it or not, I make my way through all 8 sets and go on to complete everything else on The List. None of it done with style and grace. More with glares and stares. 

And here’s the truth; On completion I don’t feel ‘Pumped’. I don’t feel revved up. I don’t even feel energised! I only feel a mere smidgin of satisfaction that I’ve been able to tick off the necessary activity for the day. I had no reason not to do it and it wasn’t appropriate to use it as a Rest Day. So it was a necessary activity. 

I finished with a somewhat half-hearted rendition of my routine. Rob made the mistake of offering a small piece of constructive criticism. I jumped down his throat like a lion on a zebra! I ripped his head off and let the blood run dry. I had a small conscience-stab that I was just perhaps over-reacting slightly to his comment …  just maybe … (bloody absolutely was!!!) but had no energy to concede this fact. Instead I stormed off like a madam and had to save my “sorry” for later – when I had some food energy to make it sound genuine!! Which I did - well I think I did - don't quote me on that. 

So that, my friends, is the reality of what my workouts can be like just prior to competition day. Glamorous hey??!!! Haha – NOT. Thank god every day is not like this.

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