Another week, another torture session (sorry, personal training session) at Virgin Active gym. My training has been going well over the last few weeks. In between going to the gym, I have been going for brisk 5k walks, so I was feeling quite good about my fitness levels. That was until yesterday.

Demian introduced me to the ViPR. You may have read about Sarah’s experience with this innocent looking rubber tube last month, but just to reiterate what she said – it’s mean!

After 10 minutes on the treadmill I had to do squats with this thing- holding it in front of me, letting it swing between my legs as I crouched down and then swinging it back into the air and above my head as I stood up.

Then I had to lay the ViPR on the floor and flip it over several times until I reached the end of the gym matt. Sounds simple enough I know but it’s not and it hurts! You had to squat down to pick it up, take a couple of steps sidewards, swap hands and then squat to put it back down again. And when that was all over you had to take a couple of steps back the other way to pick it up again. Demian kept telling me if I wanted a toned bum and thighs I had to do the squats properly (maybe I like having a wobbly bum!!) and for any squats I didn’t do properly (there were a few) I was punished by having to do squat thrusts. See what I mean about torture?!

About half way through the session I started to feel dizzy and my ears popped so I couldn’t here Demian’s latest lecture about working harder, although maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing (only joking Demian). He noticed I had gone very pale so walked me around the gym to get my heart rate to slow down a bit.

But then my rest was over and it was five minutes on the cross trainer before doing weird crab-like things across the gym mat. I had to get in a push-up position and then move sidewards to the end of the mat and run back again. After several of these I felt like my legs were going to fall off and I was praying my hour with Demian was up. But no, then I had to get in the push-up position and crawl across the matt again; forwards and backwards this time. I must have looked like a right plonker but by that time, I hurt so much I didn’t care.

Today, pretty much every muscle in my body aches, so I have given myself a day of rest. There is no way I could go for a walk or go to the gym, even if I wanted to; tackling the stairs in my house is painful enough!

Jenni