D-Day The Gym Gets a Princess (Part 3 Assessment 2)

D-Day 7 January 2015

The Dreaded Assessment: Let's Get Physical

Assessment Exercise 2: Russian Kettlebell Swing

After my performance issue with basic squatting, 'A' took me to the middle of the group exercise area to demonstrate the next squatting routine. Before demonstrating, 'A' told me that I would be incorporating a kettlebell in this exercise. After a moment I said, 'What's a kettlebell?', to which she pointed to several rows of what looked like flat-bottomed balls with handles, each with differing weight. Mentally I began to panic, as I am certainly not the most coordinated human on the planet, so now in addition to squatting, I was going to be using a weight that looked neither like a kettle nor a bell. Using gay statistical analysis, I surmised that there was a good chance of me screwing this up and/or hurting myself in the process of becoming acquainted with a kettlebell. 'A' selected a kettlebell and showed me the motion that I would be using for this particular exercise, which was to sort of squat with the kettlebell between my legs, then swing the kettlebell up to chest height as I stood up, then do the procedure all over again in a fluid motion. I prayed that I wouldn't somehow slam the kettlebell into my testicles as I went through the motion of the exercise, which I calculated to be a strong possibility at some point. After a couple of reps, I decided that this exercise was definitely not From Russia with Love.

My assessment of my performance: This time, in my mind, I scaled back my prowess just a bit from being a victorious Roman general to something that is probably a bit more realistic. As I was squatting, standing and swinging, then repeating, rep after rep (look at my use of fitness speak there!), with speed, uncharacteristic agility, and good form, I knew what it must have felt like for that famous quarterback Babe Ruth when he stood at the free-throw line, raised his football bat to the sky, then pitched a 400 yard touchdown to win the game. I was feeling the burn--the burn of awesomeness.

Reality:
As I was performing this particular movement, I began to exude unicorn tears in greater quantities, especially since it took me several attempts to actually get the movement correct (again, I'm not exactly coordinated). There was no doubt that I was beginning to feel the burn on this one, and I was becoming winded. 'A' was watching me and corrected my form on occasion, but had a look on her face that I couldn't quite discern, especially when she had to remind me that I needed to actually breathe through the motion, something I was apparently forgetting to do. 'A' was surprised at how quickly I managed to get through the exercise and she reminded me that the point of exercise wasn't to see how quickly I could complete a particular routine. Additionally, she discerned that I am wound pretty tight, with an energy that apparently wants to get out out, hence the speed with which I completed my reps. My guess is that energy is all the potential energy that I magically had stored in areas not currently overrun by fat cells, just waiting to be released when I went from being sedentary to at least mildly active. I noticed that my heart was beginning to really take off, and I swear I could hear the blood screaming through my veins, or perhaps it was the screaming of my unicorn patronus wondering just what the f**k I was doing to myself, and on purpose no less.

Final result: I did all of the reps, and then, after a brief discussion about having good form but moving too rapidly, we took a short break so I could take a drink of water (which is something that I forgot to bring with me, so out of mercy, 'A' provided me with a bottled water--thank God!). I was definitely out of breath, and as a result, I was inhaling, ingloriously, desperately needed oxygen so as to prevent me from blacking out--had I been on a phone call with someone, they would have thought I was a pervert. While literally attempting to suck all of the oxygen out of the room, I began to notice that my stomach was in knots, but I wasn't sure if that was because I was hungry or because I wanted to throw up due to all the physical exertion. I put it out of my mind and came back over to where 'A' was waiting to show me another exercise. Little did I know that I was on the verge of learning a very important lesson regarding workouts. All in all, I got through the reps with good without hitting myself repeatedly in the testicles and managed good form.