Do I look out of shape?
A question I raised at the Manitoban office water cooler this week.
My editor Ryan playfully suggested I should find out. Why not? I thought. I’m a pretty average person, after all. Sometimes I work out and eat right but, more often than not, I don’t work out and I’ll eat whatever is quickest, over the sink, drowned in ketchup.
Am I right people?
We met up with Kerri Gregoire, marketing coordinator of Bison Recreation Services, and together we decided that since the Manitoban office is located on campus, I should use the university as my testing ground to see what’s available for all of us, right at our doorstep. Maybe it was time to switch the old brand of beer for a different kind of six-pack.
Always happy to be a guinea pig, I marched on over to Bison Rec and immediately signed up for a yearly membership with the works, starting with, drum roll please, a healthy fitness & lifestyle assessment.
And this is how it went down: somewhere around the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. I arrived at the Frank Kennedy Centre and met up with Kerri, who took me to my assigned fitness testing coordinator Jennifer.
Jen ran me through some questions on my past workout experience and basic health information, then we moved onto the fitness testing, while Kerri took photos of me being poked, prodded and straining like a lab rat. I may have to buy those photos off of her — at the standard inflated rate of course — before TMZ gets a hold of them and shit goes down Lohan style. But anyways, let’s get back to the story.
The test consisted of the following: resting measures (heart rate, blood pressure), body composition (height, weight, BMI, skinfolds, waist circumference), cardiovascular endurance (submaximal aerobic fitness: bike, treadmill), muscular strength and endurance (vertical jump, curl ups, pushups, grip strength) and, finally, flexibility (back extension, sit and reach).
The results came in and apparently there was a reason I looked out of shape. I was. My fitness score, in a nutshell, needs improvement.
Fuck, I’m in high school again!
Jennifer asked me how I felt committing to a food journal, a time management journal and a programmed fitness schedule — the goal being to make healthy living a new habit and change my lifestyle for the better.
“Let’s go balls in,” I agreed. “You have to commit a full sack to a hell of a thing like this; it would be foolish not to.”
She smiled and nodded as I waved goodbye. One session down, many more to go.
What more can I say about my experience? I believe the immortal wisdom of the film School of Rock sums it up best: “You’re not hardcore, unless you live hardcore.”
And like the legend of the rent, I am way hardcore.
Will I keep working out? Will I stick to my diet? And what kind of crazy program is Jen going to come up with? Find out in the next installment of “Here comes Treble.” Or sign up for a membership and come join me, you bastards!
See you next time, folks.
