The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. After spending all my life skinny and weak, like a cancer victim going through chemotherapy, I have finally decided to get fit.

So today I'm at something called a Bodypump class. I'm not even sure what a Bodypump is. Something involving farting, maybe.

A lot of the classes at the gym have names that start with 'Body'. Bodycombat, Bodyattack, Bodybalance, Bodyfuck, Bodybastard.

Everyone in the class has a barbell and some discs. Maybe I should get a barbell and some discs. The barbell and discs are on the other side of the class. So I walk over there, trying to look confident in front of the women. The class is mainly women, I don't know why. All the classes are like that. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, after having spent seven years in an all-boys school.

I get to the disc rack. There are 5 kilogram discs (orange), 2.5 kilogram discs (blue), and little piddly 1.25 kilogram discs (yellow). Fuck the little yellow discs. I'll take some of those big orange ones thank you.

I strut back to my place and put the two discs onto the barbell. Then the instructor comes in. She puts some loud pop music on. And the class starts.

Okay, here we go.

What happens next is among the hardest things I've ever done in my life. The instructor makes us do lots of things with our barbells. First, we do bent-over rows, then high-pulls, then overhead presses (where you lift the barbell over your head), then squats, and finally, lunges. Trust me, it's difficult. And all in time to pop music.

If I somehow get out of this alive then I'm spending the rest of the day on the sofa eating ice cream.

"Okay," says the instructor. "Now the warm-up is over, we're moving into squats."

Warm-up? Did she just say warm-up? Are you telling me there's more? And anyway, didn't we already do squats?

People are tossing down their barbells and wiping sweat from their foreheads. Then we all pick up our barbells again. And the dreaded squats begin.

After just five squats I discover that I really, really hate squats. And after fifty squats, my legs can't take anymore. They really can't. Yet I have to keep going, I have to, because all the skinny girls are somehow effortlessly lifting the same weight as me, and if I stop, then any chance they'll shag me one day is gone out the window.

The instructor keeps varying the squats. Fast squats, slow squats. Squats with your feet wide apart, squats with your feet together. Squats where you do three little bounces at the bottom of the squat. All of them are torturous.

Just when I think the squats will never end, the instructor tells us to take a break. I gasp for air and guzzle down some much-needed water. I've done over a hundred squats. I kid you not, it was over a hundred. That's a hundred more squats than I wanted to do today.

The class must be over by now, surely. But I look at the clock and only fifteen minutes have passed. How is that even possible? There's still thirty minutes left. Somehow, time is running more slowly than normal.

Next we move on to torturing our arms. First, we have to lift a barbell over our heads. I can do this one, just about. Then we have to do it nineteen more times. By the end, my arms are killing me.

Next, we're doing bicep curls. I'm sweating profusely. I blink sweat out of my eyes. My sweat drips onto the floor and forms a small puddle. After only a few of these bicep curls, I have to stop. I can't lift the bar anymore. My arms are too tired.

Finally, after more exercises that I can't bear to even talk about, the class finishes. Thank Christ.

On the way out, I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My whole face is red and the front of my t-shirt is drenched in sweat. My expression seems to be saying, "Please kill me."

I encounter a problem when going to the changing room: stairs. I discover that stairs are my new arch-enemy. My legs are so tired they can barely support my weight as I try to make it down them. I grip the handrail and hope I don't fall. I take the stairs carefully, one at a time, like an old man. Maybe someone will find me collapsed at the bottom of the stairs, like when an old person takes a tumble down the stairs and can't get back up, and they have to lie there until the next morning when a relative comes to check on them.

But I make it down the stairs without falling. I get my stuff from the locker room, while men with six-packs strut around and joke with each other. I wonder if I'll ever have a six-pack. Or if the only six-pack I'll ever have is a six-pack of beer.

Then to get out of the gym, I have to go up some stairs. Weirdly, going up stairs is a lot easier than going them, thank god.

On the way home, I have to walk slowly, like an old man or a drunk. I literally can’t walk any faster. My legs are jelly.

My legs were sore for five days afterwards.