Gammy hips

I picked up my fitness assessment results from the gym on Monday, and I have to say it was mostly a boring read.  Apparently, my cardio is excellent, my body fat and BMI are fine, and my upper body endurance is satisfactory.  My failures were far more interesting… like my almost non-existent abdominal strenth (8 is a pass and I got a 3!), and the unlikelihood of me ever being able to bend my body into the shape of a pretzel (a 69 year old woman would have failed her flexibility test with my results!). 

So, armed with that information my fitness assesor had put together a nice little program designed to improve my general fitness.  A nice boy was given the job of showing me my program and making sure I could use the weight machines properly.  Everything was going OK, and I was thinking ”Cool, it’s been a long time but, this is gonna be a painless entry back into the fitness world”.   And then, he gave me a sort of mini lunge exercise for my… quads or something.  To be fair, he did ask me if I had any issues with my knees, and I thought about it and said no.  So, he demonstrated the exercise and then got me to do it.  Oh. My. God.  It’s true I don’t have any issues with my knees but, my hips, oh my poor hips, I didn’t think I was going to make it through all the reps, and he was doing that gym thing “OK, that’s good, only 4 more to go, and 2, and 1, that’s good, OK, the other leg” and I was thinking “shit, I’m gonna fall over onto that bench if this keeps going… oh god, please let it be over”. 

At the time I thought I may have been being a little melodramatic.  So, I went for a run along the beach on Tuesday for the first time in two weeks, and I could barely walk by the end of the day.  I have been talking like an old lady ever since.  Saying things like ”Oh my hips, my poor gammy hips” to anyone who will listen.  Mainly to Eddie, who has been calling me an “old bag”.