Paul Fennessy

THE FIRST MORNING of the 12-week fitness challenge, I was informed of the need to strip down to my underpants, go on the weighing scales and take photos of my front, back and sides.

Reluctantly, I obliged.

Beyond that, I didn’t really know or consider much what was to come.

One of the first tasks was completing the opening workout.

Foolishly, I was reasonably confident there wouldn’t be any issues.

I considered myself not fit, but not particularly unhealthy either.

I had no real experience of rigorous workouts, having gone to the gym maybe twice in my life. 

I jogged very sporadically and went on hour-long walks four to five times a week.

And over the past year, despite just getting back from holiday, I had a healthy-ish diet overall.

Unfortunately, a wake-up call was around the corner.

I walked to and from work that day, so by the time I began, it was somewhere roughly between 7pm and 8pm.

After the first workout, my whole body was trembling, and I was close to vomiting.

Darren, a coach on the Kahunas app I signed up for, set up the challenge.

The agreement was to train three days in a row, one rest day, and repeat this cycle.

“We are going to build some real muscle now and drop body fat,” he told me.

There were three separate workouts.

In a move that was not the wisest in hindsight, I started with the ‘burn’ workout, which is ostensibly the toughest.

I began with a one-minute ‘burpee’ warm-up. That was okay.

I had done push-ups occasionally over the years, so three sets of 10 with 30 seconds in between wasn’t too hazardous.

I then undertook something called ‘Bodyweight Squats Hold’ – four sets of 20 with a 50-second rest.

This was more difficult than it looked in the demonstration and tough on knees unaccustomed to intensity.

‘Single Dumbbell Biceps Curls’ came next. It was essentially lifting a dumbbell up and down 15-20 times for three sets with a 45-second rest.

By the time that was finished, I was starting to struggle.

What came after was far worse.

The ‘Chair Bulgarian Split Squats Bodyweight Left’ again seriously tested the strength of my knees and thighs. I did three sets of 15-20 of those with a 30-second rest. I then repeated the whole process, only this time focusing on my right rather than left leg.

By this stage, I was so exhausted and physically depleted that I was considering quitting.

But stubbornly, I persevered.

The next exercise, I was relieved to discover, gave my legs a much-needed rest.

‘Dumbbell Seated Alternate Overhead Triceps Extension’ (three sets, 15-20 reps, 45 seconds rest) basically involved lifting weights up and down, and seriously tested those weak arms.

Then came a task that looked easy but turned out to be incredibly taxing.

The ‘Jump Squats Bodyweight’ (five sets, 20 reps, one-minute rest) was a pretty simple exercise. 

It was basically jumping up and down while repeatedly raising your arms.

After four sets of these, my body collapsed to the floor, unwilling to continue.

I could have finished them in isolation, but by then, my legs were spent from the previous exercises, and I was totally out of breath.

After extricating myself from the floor, I sheepishly hobbled over to the couch and spent what felt like an hour there, slowly getting my breath back and trying not to get sick.

It had been around five hours since my last meal, but I still felt my lunch from earlier.

The weighing scales.

It was somewhere between 9 and 10pm now. Fortunately, my wife agreed to make dinner (more details on my diet next week), which gave me a much-needed energy boost as I lay strewn across the sofa, questioning whether this challenge was a good idea but consoling myself with the knowledge that at least it would make good content.

Maybe naively, I was surprised by how badly it went. I only completed about 70% of a workout conceivably designed for beginners.

Was I really as ill-prepared as it appeared?

Sitting drenched in sweat, as I stared at the only thing that felt appropriate for the situation – mindless reality TV that did not require much in the way of concentration – I vowed to improve my fitness.

But something strange happened in the ensuing days.

The next workout, entitled ‘core,’ was admittedly very different, focusing more on other parts of the body and being less time-consuming; nonetheless, I completed it without too much fuss.

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The following day, the ‘pump’ workout was more challenging, but again I got over the line.

After a badly needed rest day, with my body as stiff as it had felt in a long time and legs feeling like jelly, I returned for another attempt at the dreaded ‘burn’ workout.

It wasn’t easy by any means, but surprisingly, I completed 100% of the workout this time.

And while I was quite tired afterwards, I was nowhere near as drained and defeated compared to that first night.

Had my fitness really improved that much in a few days? The exercise, no doubt, helped, but I was sceptical that it was the only explanation.

Probably, another factor I overlooked was my own stupidity.

That first night, I had done the entire exercise indoors. I had ill-advisedly assumed that, because it was late in the evening, where I did the workout wouldn’t make much difference.

But it had been one of the hottest days of the year, and the kitchen was by some distance the warmest room in the house, and the sun shone in on it more later in the day.

Every workout since then had been performed outdoors, and the sweat and feelings of queasiness, while still pronounced, were considerably less intense.

There was still a long road ahead and plenty of teething issues – I was convinced my technique was off on at least some of the exercises.

But I traipsed over to the scales slightly less reluctantly this time. I had been told two pounds was the normal weight loss after week one. The fact that I had gone from 175.9lbs to 171.7lbs suggested I was at least doing something right.