The next morning, it was time for me to live up to my promise.
I’d arranged to meet Cliff at the gym to go through the programme he had planned for me and then (I assumed), quietly to get on with it.
No such luck. I arrived at the gym at 9.30 to be met by the full Fellowship of the Ring, Cliff and a photographer.
‘We want proof of progress,’ grinned John. ‘Shirt off, you Old Fart, let’s have a look at your blubber.’ Suddenly, I understood how Mick felt. Humiliation is good for the soul they say. I contend that those who say so, have never had a bunch of Old Farts taking the piss as a photographer documents your middle-age spread.
‘Take one with Cliff squeezing the flab,’ smirked Paul. ‘No pain, no gain.’
For those of you who might be confused, Cliff is the one with the muscles. I know it’s confusing. For your amusement, and at the insistence of the Fellowship, here are the first Fat Old Fart photos.
The scary thing is, that until I actually saw these photos, I really did not think I was so badly out of shape. Much laughter later the Fellowship agreed by a vote of four to one that bi-weekly photographs would be needed, not so much to document any progress there might be, but rather to give the old buggers something to look forward to. Only Mick seemed a little subdued and conciliatory towards my humiliation, mostly because he was too stiff to let rip.
‘If I have to have photographs taken, then I think it’s only fair that you guys have them, too,’ I said in the hopes of ending the whole photograph thing.
‘Well, let’s take a vote on that,’ said Paul. ‘All those in favour of the rest of us being photographed semi-naked in the gym with everybody watching, raise your hand.’
By a vote of four to one it was democratically decided that I was to be the only person who needed to be photographed. Funny how the vote always goes against me.
***
After the humiliation came the pain.
Over a cup of coffee in the gym’s coffee bar, Cliff talked me through the twelve-week programme he expected us to follow. ‘The programme breaks down into three blocks of four weeks,’ he said handing me a sheet of paper. ‘This is the daily exercise schedule for the first block of four weeks, starting with back today then shoulders tomorrow, legs on Wednesday, chest Thursday and finishing with biceps and triceps on Friday.’
So far so good, I thought, glancing at the programme. The grouping of exercises looked quite hard and the number of sets was high, but with enough time and moderate weights I should get through it.
‘Okay,’ I said looking for the rest of the programme. ‘What about the next eight weeks?’
‘I’ll give them to you when we get there,’ said Cliff with a sly smile. ‘I’d like to keep the focus on four weeks at a time.
I thought it a little odd, I mean what was he trying to hide? ‘Is there something I should know that you aren’t telling me?’ I asked. ‘You all look like you’re sharing a joke I’m not in on.’
‘No joke.’ The man had been taking lessons from Mick. ‘It’s just the way I do things.’
‘Okay, so this is the first four weeks then,’ I mused, focusing on the pages in hand.
‘Right, the difference between my programme and others you’ve been on,’ continued Cliff, ‘is that this is cardio and weights training combined, or weight fitness, if you like.’
The blank look on my face let him know that I was clueless. ‘I’m not sure I follow?’
Cliff’s smile hardened ever so slightly, ‘We’ll do each day’s programme in 45 minutes using at least 75% of your maximum strength per exercise.’ He suddenly sounded remarkably like an army instructor. ‘We are going to maintain a heart rate above 120 for the duration of the weights session.’
I took another look at the schedule and blanched. ‘I don’t think I’m fit enough, strong enough or in any shape to do that,’ I squeaked.
‘You’ll be fine,’ said a stony-faced Cliff, surrounded by a grinning group of FOFs. ‘For the first two weeks we’ll slow it right down, finishing in 50 minutes. Let’s go shake and rattle that roll,’ he finished, pointing at my middle and striding onto the weights floor.
I knew I was out of shape, but what followed was ridiculous. I managed Day One in 77 minutes, after which I sat down in the coffee bar for half an hour before I could move. Cliff disappeared and ran for an hour on the treadmill. If I’d had the energy I would have punched him. I knew how Mick must have felt and was pleased he wasn’t there to see me shake, quiver and moan. Let me say to any Old Fart out there who may want to give this programme a go, first see a doctor about what you intend to put yourself through. Only attempt it if you’ve been going to gym for a long time, are extremely fit and familiar with what your body can do.
The other option is to slow the whole process down; for instance, to finish in about an hour-and-a-quarter. Try to keep your heart rate at about 120 beats per minute, and I would suggest you drop the weights down to about 50% of your maximum until you can cope with the pace, then slowly, over a number of weeks, up the tempo and weights.
What follows is the first four-week programme set out in a daily format. Check out the daily diet that goes with the programme. This diet is not brutal or expensive and is only a guideline, but as you well know, exercise and diet go hand in hand if you seriously want to change your physique. After all, look at the effect the greasy chips and beer have had on you.
To those of you who are still tempted, the long-term benefits are huge, so don’t be put off and go for it. For those of you who have no interest in persuing this programme, skip the next few pages that detail my day-to-day workout and go on to the next chapter … or glance through them in the smug knowledge that you will never have to suffer this kind of abuse.
DAY 1: BACK
You can download this body programme from our website here
NB. Each set of four exercises uses weights based on 75% max, 100% max, 80% max and 50% max.
The first two weeks will need a full hour; it should come down after that. If you are unsure of any exercise described in the following table (or any of the other tables), you’ll find a picture of it in the exercise chapter, Fighting Iron. If you still don’t get it, ask someone at the gym.
DAY 2: SHOULDERS
You can download this body programme from our website here
NB. Each set of four uses weights based on 75% max, 100% max, 80% max and 50% max.
The first two weeks will need a full hour, it should come down after that.
DAY 3: LEGS
You can download this body programme from our website here
NB. Each set of four uses weights based on 75% max, 100% max, 80% max and 50% max.
For knee problems, continue with the first four-week programme, up the weights by 20% and do more reps.
NNB. A softer ball = less intensity, a firmer ball = more intensity.
DAY 4: CHEST
You can download this body programme from our website here
NB. Each set of four uses weights based on 75% max, 100% max, 80% max and 50% max.
The first two weeks will need a full hour; it should come down after that.
Drop set refers to the last set of 20 reps, where, if necessary, you can drop the weights down further in order to finish the reps. For example, if you find yourself failing after twelve or so reps, you could drop the weight on the bar to allow yourself to finish the 20 reps.
DAY 5: GUNS (ARMS)
You can download this body programme from our website here
NB. Each set of four uses weights based on 75% max, 100% max, 80% max and 50% max.
The first two weeks will need a full hour; it should come down after that.
Week One was a revelation.
It was a large, eye-popping exclamation pushing me from behind.
Week One was like a bucket of cold water being poured on a body that has fallen into a deep sleep and can only dream of being stronger, forcing muscle memory, movement and ability (some of it from the distant past) to stretch and stir under its duvet of fat.
Monday, back. Tuesday, shoulders … every day another part of the body waking up and shouting, ‘Really!?’
My stomach muscles that had truly been warm and comfy under their layers of comfort food and sloth, were protesting loudest of all at this rude awakening. Actually the phrase ‘stomach muscles’ implies a six-pack, or at least the potential of a six-pack. As you can see from Humiliating Pic One, nothing could be further from the truth.
So let’s be frank and call it what it is, Timmy’s Little Tummy Muscle – singular – to be written in lower case, small print, emphasising lack of strength with no real ability to hold up the middle. When it grows up and strengthens, then maybe it will multiply and become ‘STOMACH MUSCLES’, but in Week One, it was definitely Timmy’s Little Tummy Muscle.
For some reason it seems that tummy muscles are the first thing to go as you get older, and the slowest to pull back into shape when you start to exercise again. The truth is that a lack of core strength (core being the area around your middle) is a major cause of pain to the back and neck. Lower back pain can radiate down through the sciatic nerve into the gluteus maximus muscle, causing pain.
In short, tummy muscles are a pain in the ass. But I digress …
Set the task of 50 sit-ups, Timmy’s Infantile Tummy Muscles would get to ten and burst into tears.
***
Cross training in sets, combined with limited periods of rest, had me gasping for breath and sweating like an old horse.
‘Don’t worry,’ said a buoyant Cliff as I squeezed off another sit-up. ‘Next week will be better and then we can try and speed up a bit … that’s twelve.’
‘Oh come on,’ I said sounding a lot like someone else I knew, ‘that’s at least 14, can we agree on 14?’
I think the rest of the FOFs in our club were writing his script. Mind you, Week One for them had been just as enlightening. Our conversations were peppered with ‘I never knew …’ and ‘I couldn’t believe …’ as Old Farts with eyes wide and cheeks puffed flirted with fitness.
Over and above the weights programme, Cliff had set me up with a knee rehabilitation programme that would take me 20 minutes in the gym pool every day. In effect it was like doing a 20-minute cardio session on top of everything else, but I had been using the knee as an excuse for not exercising for a year and it was time to do something about it.
It is astonishing what we are actually capable of if we set our minds to it. By the end of Week One I had lost 1.5 kg (mostly water), was managing the gym and the pool workout, not in the time Cliff wanted, but showing a small improvement every day. I will admit to still collapsing in a heap for a good while after each session, but at least my hand was steady enough to drink my coffee without spilling it.
The low-GI diet was not nearly as punishing as I expected. I still felt deprived and hungry at times as my tummy griped about the new eating order. ‘Get used to it,’ I griped back. ‘Have you seen your picture side on?’
On this matter of diet, I was on my own. The rest of the Flatulence (‘flatulence’ being the collective for a bunch of Old Farts) knew a diet was in their future, but chose to act like the Sicilians and be silent on the issue until it was shoved under their double chins. Who was to do the shoving was still to be decided. I think the unspoken consensus was, ‘Let us get used to doing exercise first, then we can think about the other thing.’
To be honest, it was only the thought of photographs being taken every two weeks that gave me the motivation to keep going and not cheat on the diet during that first week.
I kept repeating all the old gym clichés, including ‘no pain no gain’ and ‘push till you fail to succeed’ hoping not to use them on the guys, but it’s almost unavoidable because those clichés describe a truth about getting into shape, no matter your age or condition. ‘Push yourself beyond your limit and break through your barriers’ is only old if you’ve heard it before.
Of our lot, only John had heard the old pearls, and by the end of Week One, the Flatulence was quoting them to one another as though they were a breath of fresh air. Who cares; if it works, it works. The process is hard enough to kickstart so use whatever you can to get going.
The trick is to approach the whole thing in the same way you would approach giving up smoking or anything else you really enjoy but know is bad for you. The first week is difficult, but over time it will become easier, or it will kill you.
By the end of Week One the outcome was touch and go.