These exercises are too tough

I am keeping at those back- breaking, knee crunching, taxing, vexing things they call exercises these days. Since I am part of the group that does these 45 minute work outs each day, I need to keep going.  Seeing others do their part makes me want to become like them. It is a competition.

I am the slowest, weakest, painful -est person in the group. Yesterday, we were told to run two rounds around the gym.To be fair, I ran one round and walked through the second. But I completed the rounds.

He split us into groups of 4, doing 6 exercises, by turn.

At first there was the roller.  The trainer told us to run with the roller across the room. It seemed very easy. Don’t be deceived. It is so easy to lose one’s balance doing this exercise and my 49 year old body can ill afford to break bones at this stage. So of course, I cheated. There is always Susie’s way of doing the roller workout. A few steps walking, stopping, huffing, puffing and with extreme care I did one up and came back huffing and puffing even slower until the 5 minute whistle blew. I got away with doing just two ups and downs.

Next were press ups- which anyway I can’t do- no point even trying. How can my fragile arms lift up a 90 kg body ? Impossible ? I have not been brought up to carry heavy weights. So I got down on my knees to try to give an impression of a modified press up( women’s press up). Of course, I cheated there too. I went through the motions of the press ups, without pressing or upping.

After 5 minutes of press-ups, the next set were burpees and bench jumps. Ok, burpees, I seem to be getting better at. At least I can get on the floor like a four legged creature- and that is something for me. A short miniscule jump sufficed for the burpee jump and then I did a walk step up on the bench, which is the only exercise my ancient knees would tolerate.

Two runs around the gym wearing 10 kg weighted vests was next. And again I walked. My partners were waiting for me- huffing and puffing in their turn- because I was so late coming to hand over the vest to them, so they could do their runs.

Jumping rope is something I am familiar with- so I was happy that was next. Even here, I showed how inexperienced I was. All in all the exercises were a flop.

Why am I doing these ? I like something new and the gym is quite close to my house and the charges are affordable. So…

What hurts most ? My ego or my knees ? I am still deciding.