Huff and Puff and Wembley

I went for my first session with Nick, my personal trainer, this evening. I was a bit apprehensive at first - what would the session involve?

It started off with chatting and some measuring different bits of me as a baseline - I'm as wierd on the outside as I am on the inside with my right side being bigger than my left above the waist, but the other way round below. I've never noticed it meself.

Then a session on the bike (which I like) followed by some stretching and mat exercises focused on my belly. It's very difficult to hold me belly still, breathe normally, lower back flat on the mat to stabilise it and lift a leg - sounds simple? Try it! Since I need to focus on my back then a lot of the exercises are meant to strengthen the band of muscle around my middle. That's going to take some time, I think.

The treadmill is out because it impacts on my back so I had a session on the cross-trainer and that was quite fun in a wearisome way. Then more time on the mats with some exercises followed by final stretches, again taking into account my back.

The hour was over surprisingly quickly and I'm pleased I did it. I can see myself leaving after 10 minutes or so exercises if there wasn't someone there checking up on me - I would rationalise that simply being there for 10 minutes is more exercise than I would normally get and take the easy way out. Now, of course, I've passed responsibility to Nick and, as I told him, it's his job to sort me out. My next session is on Wednesday.

So, that's the huff and puff, what about Wembley? Well, odd as it may seem, you can see the new Wembley arch from the top floor gym at my gym behind Streatham High Road. I was very surprised, but there it was when I looked out of the window wall beside the exercise mats...