Steve’s Choose To Lose Blog: Week 3

May 30, 2019

Steve’s Choose To Lose Blog: Week 3

Steve, our Marketing & Communications Officer, has joined our latest fitness and weightloss course Choose To Lose, to learn more about one of our most popular classes and hopefully feel the benefits for himself.

Here’s the second instalment of his blog…

A sunny Bank Holiday Monday and a rainy Wednesday. Not the perfect times for hitting the Sports Park track, but with Choose To Lose there’s fortunately no chance to hide.

Monday was tough, and not just because I missed out on an opportunity for a pub lunch with friends. The intensity was ramped up once more and I could still feel a slight ache in my legs 48 hours later.

Yet my ability to recover is one of the most noticeable improvements made so far; whereas I had ended my first session a sweaty, ashen-faced mess, in just a couple of weeks my body has adjusted surprisingly well to its new normality.

A circuit of six exercises, including squats, planks and kettlebell lifts, required an increasing number of repetitions. Five of each left my muscles burning, but – with a run around the block in between each circuit – the increases to ten, 15 and finally 20 of each left me spent.

Wednesday, though, brought no such opportunity to ease our way into things: we were straight into a single four-exercise, 100-repetition circuit. The prospect of completing any one of the four on its own sounded daunting enough, and proved tough enough as I slowly pushed past the first 50 floor presses, lifting two 10kg weights straight into the air whilst lying on my back.

That was followed by 100 kettlebell squats, lunges and Russian twists, all designed to work a different part of the body in turn.

Logic suggested I admit defeat, or take a long rest, but hearing colleagues pushing on with their own repetitions – and the thought that I might be left behind – drove me on. We all completed the circuit slightly ahead of schedule and grateful for the respite. Again several muscles ached the morning after, particularly my shoulders and stomach, but these were signs of definite progress.

Every session has fortunately been the same: achieving more than I thought possible, and recognising the benefits of pushing myself harder than I wanted to.

Next week we’ll know for sure how far I’ve come, as we repeat the fitness tests of week one.