You Can Start Calling Me ‘Buff’…Or Hate Filled…Either One Will Work

As a new member of Bally’s Total Fitness, I’m entitled to one free session with a personal trainer. A woman named Erin had given me a few calls asking if I wanted to work out with her, so this morning I finally gave in and headed for the gym.

Erin was a nice woman who looked to be in her late 20’s or early 30’s. She was small as hell and could probably have used my sneakers as a two car garage for her house. I still got the impression that she could bend me in half, though, if she had the slightest whim to.

When I arrived, she started me off with a few ball exercises as a warm up. After a few minutes of that, she got me started on cardio, which I can only assume is personal trainer language for ‘humiliation’.

It started with a two square game of hopscotch. I stood in the middle of the gym, right between the work out floor and the weight machines, and hopped. From one square. To another. And WHOA back to the first square. This was done for a solid minute.

After that, we jogged to the other side of the track. The side secluded from the rest of the gym. What I did here can only be compared to that freshmen boy with his pants down, waiting to be smacked in the ass by a frat boy with a paddle.

First she had me crab run. As I stood facing the wall in a squatting position, I raced all the way down the track and back, taking care not to trip and go flying down the lanes. After this, I ran backwards. This was only to prepare me for what she called the ‘butt kicks’, a run where my heels are to hit my ass in every single stride.

When I thought she could embarrass me no more, she began to pull out all the stops. Remember in the 70’s [I think...] there was a popular dance moved called ‘the grapevine’? Do you ever wonder why you don’t see it used as much anymore? I don’t. Because I found out personal trainers across the globe have incorporated it into their training sessions in the highly likely situation their client will trip over their own two feet and dislocate their face after it’s planted in the track.

Thank the Baby Jesus that I didn’t kill myself while running up and down the track while dancing the grapevine.

After I had gotten back to start, I picked up my water and waited for her to tell me we could leave the track and continue the work out in the hot tub, perhaps maybe with some cheese and crackers and a mojito. This is when little, tiny, super in shape Erin became the visage of death and hatred.

Okay, one more exercise and then we’re done here!

…Okay…God, I’m tired…

That’s great! Okay, now this one’s called ‘The Hitler’.

…What?

Kick your right leg out, keeping it as straight as possible, while holding out the opposite arm. Try to reach your leg to your hand. Then switch to the other arm and leg. And let’s see you go all the way down the track and back.

…You want me to goose step down the track?

C’mon, and we’re almost done!

And so for a tenth of a mile, I hate marched down the lane and back. Keeping my feet as straight as possible and my morals as loose as Paris Hilton.

For the next 30 minutes, we then did a variety of exercises that focused on resistance [obviously not along the lines of freedom and acceptance], then ended with some stretching. A word of advice to all of you out there planning on using a personal trainer. Go poo poo before the class. That way you’ll save yourself the embarrassment of farting as the trainer lifts your leg, and you’ll save her the cost of plastic surgery to replace the face that got burned off my the noxious gases that escaped your rectum.

After the stretching, she brought me into an office to discuss personal training packages. It was at this moment I realized how poor I really was. Either that, or how much I need to live in a socialist community in order to keep my sanity. 24 training sessions? Oh, just $1400.

Right now, I have 10 times LESS than that in my account. For that type of money, I could probably afford to have Erin spill hot coffee on me while I try to fit an entire workout into a 41 second session.

I haven’t had a work out that intense in a very long time. By the end of the hour, I was sweating, tired, nauseous and a newly inducted soldier of hate.

So to reward myself for a job well done, I stopped by McDonald’s on the way home and got their new Snack Wrap [a chicken tender with cheese, lettuce and ranch wrapped in a soft shell tortilla], a medium fry and a medium Hi-C. And dammit if it wasn’t the best thing I’ve eaten in weeks.