Gathering Dust

My right knee has been done in. It hurts when I bend it. The Beast has told me to stay out of the gym. This may prevent further pain in my knee but it is proving to be a massive pain in the arse. Maybe the two are linked. At least there's some consolation in that; no matter what The Beast says, my brain and arse can't be connected as I'm not getting any headaches currently. Score 1 for me.

My knee started hurting last week Wednesday when I burned 800 calories - my new target as dictated by The Beast - on a treadmill, cross trainer and cycle, after which I looked like the slightly tubby result of a genetic cross breeding experiment involving a human and a radish. The knee ached slightly when I sat down and I ignored it for most of the day. When I tried standing up it felt like someone had whacked me in the side of my leg with a ballpeen hammer. I spent most of the week limping around like an unconvincing Bond villain. I'd love to be able to blame it all on The Beast, but unfortunately I did this to myself.

What I can lay at The Beast's door is a bout of projectile vomiting. I've never exercised so hard that it caused me throw out my lunch, but as I'm finding more and more in The Beast's company, there's a first time for everything. It happened after a particularly grueling cycling session with The Beast and X - the only other member of The Crazy Weights Club. X by the way, looked in about as much pain as me by the end, although in fairness, he'd only joined us expecting a quick cycle at the end of an hour-long workout.

We began with a 20 minutes of lightweight cycling - when I say lightweight we pedaled like buggery until we'd all burned 400 calories and the dashboards of our separate exercise bikes were soaked in sweat. As X tried to dismount, The Beast flicked him with a sweat-sodden towel.

"Where do you think you're going?"
"Oh come on," came the more than reasonable response.
"Come on, my arse! Back on the bike!" yelled The Beast.
"I'm tired," wailed X.
"You don't see this bitch complaining, do you?" said The Beast, jerking a thumb in my direction. "Right, off we go!"

We then proceed to do another 20 minutes, except this time we did 3 minutes on a normal setting and then 2 on the hardest setting available. During this time, FrankMusik's new number was blaring out of the gym's TV. To fully appreciate what we all went through, imagine pedaling up hill through quick-drying tar while listening to this:

At the end of this horrible, vile, disgusting and torturous escapade, we all flopped off the bikes, hit the showers and got dressed. It was only when I was leaving the gym I suddenly felt like Mt Krakatoa was erupting in my gullet. I barely made it into the men's room before a yellow stream of liquid ushered forth from my mouth and into the toilet, leaving the most bitter taste in my mouth I believe I've ever experienced. As I exited the cubicle I was accosted by a man who seemed equal parts muscle and hair wrapped in red spandex and a loose T-Shirt bearing the legend "I'm The Daddy!"

"Been working hard, eh?" he chuckled.
"Too hard, maybe," I gasped, wiping my mouth.
"Nonsense! I used to puke all the time when I first started working out!"
"Really, did you?" I thought, suddenly fearing for my life.
"In my old gym they didn't mind when I puked on the floor in the middle of workout," he said, staring wistfully off into the middle distance. "Of course, the wimps round here have a problem with that. They say it's unhygienic."
"Well, must be off!" I said.

I left the bathroom in search of The Beast? No matter what the side-o-beef with eyes in the loo had just told me, I was sure that puking in the gym couldn't be normal. I must have been pushed too hard. Upon finding that he'd already left, I furiously texted him.

JUST THRU UP! AND IT'S YOUR FAULT!

I nodded in satisfaction and put my phone away. As I made my way back onto the street and towards the tube, my phone beeped in reply. As I scrolled through the text from The Beast, my anger threatened to boil over.

JUST THINK HOW STRONG YOUR STOMACH MUSCLES WILL BE, NICOLA!
SEE THAT? SEE HOW I CALLED YOU GIRL'S NAME?
THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE BEHAVING LIKE ONE!

Mind you, what did I expect? In The Beast's view you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs and you can't slim a fatty without making him cry. At least he rang me out when he found out I was having trouble with leg.

"I was just calling to see how you're knee was doing," he said. "Any improvement since Wednesday?"
"Well, it seems to be okay. It feels..."
"Good, good," interrupted The Beast. "I've bought an Xbox 360."
"Oh?"
"Yes," he continued, "but it doesn't have any cables or a hard-drive. Now I know you have some spare so bring them to the gym tomorrow."
"Okay, are we training tomorrow?"
"Yes. A spare controller wouldn't be a bad idea, either."
"A what?"
"A controller, for my new Xbox 360. I know you've got a couple laying about. Bring me one."
"Right."
"Oh, and bring me some Xbox 360 games to play or your knee will be the least of your worries."

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when I was a fit, cut and handsome individual, I used to work out three times a week in a gym in South London. It was a good gym, a fine gym, and most important of all, a gym within 2 and half minutes walking distance from my house.

Every Monday it was rammed with the Monday Night Crazy Weights Hollaback Squad. That wasn't what they called themselves. I called them that. And not to their faces. Because they were all built like Mack Trucks with arms and legs. What the Monday Night Crazy Weights Hollaback Squad used to do was this; they'd take over a bench press and then take it in turns bench-pressing weights of fucking eye-watering magnitude. One of them would lie on their back lifting a weight of around 1,000 kilos, with their face contorting into a mask of pain of such magnitude that it looked as though their eyes would either dissolve into pools of claret or be shot out of their sockets at Mach 3. The others would stand around the bench yelling expletive-ridden encouragement at their mate, who would proceed to do one repetition (with an admittedly colossal weight) and then leap from the bench to the cheers of the Monday Night Crazy Weights Hollaback Squad and say something like this:

(ahem)

"YEEEEEAAAAHH!!!!! YEEEEEAAAAHH!!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!! YOU FUCKING LIKE THAT!!!!!! HUH!!!! YEEEEEAAAAHH!!!!! (etc)."

I only mentioning this because this Monday I was late for The Beast, and as is his wont, he decided to start training with another professional torturer/personal trainer by the time I arrived in the gym. I thought that this meant I would have to do cardio, which has now been upped from 650 calories to 700, and reflect on how precious The Beast's time is, and why I should make every endeavor to be punctual in the future. However, The Beast had other plans for me.

It seems The Beast and his mate (who from here on will be known as X, because he might not like seeing his name in an online blog and he's big enough to snap me in half using only his earlobes) have their own version of the Monday Night Crazy Weights Hollaback Squad. It's called the Crazy Weights Club. So-called because if I decide to be sarcastic about their weight-lifting activities in this blog, I might not survive my next gym session with The Beast.

Basically, it's like Monday Night Crazy Weights Hollaback Squad except there's more repetitions on the weights and no celebratory victory lap. There are however, words of encouragement yelled at your head from close range by the person spotting for you. X's preferred phrase of encouragement is "Be aggressive!!". I'm sure this is meant to fire up machismo to power the muscles, but unfortunately it makes me want to laugh because I instantly get the cheerleaders from Faith No More's "Be Aggressive" playing in my head:

By the way, when you start to snigger while holding a 20kg barbell with 35kgs of weight on either end, you damn nearly kill yourself.

The Beast's preferred phrase is "One More! Come on, one more!" which is ingenious in its inherent sadism. When you hear the phrase "One more!" you automatically think you're on your last repetition and so you push harder. It's only at the crest of your repetition that you realise that you're expected to do another one and so you struggle away as The Beast repeats the phrase "One More! Come on, one more!" again. The pain experienced between lower the weight to your chest and lifting it again is enough to black out your memory and reduce your concentration span to about 3 seconds. This means that by the time you start lifting the weight and you hear The Beast's catchphrase again, you actually believe he means it. Of course he doesn't and then you're back where you started.

Aside from these concerns, the only other problem with this activity is the size of the weights we're lifting. The Beast and X work out about six or seven times a week so they can handle these sodding weights. Next to them, however, I feel like a slightly tubby mouse trying to bench press a hundred times his body weight.

However, a couple of miracles occurred during this horrible, horrible afternoon. Apart from me dying of course. The first was that I was able to lift the sodding weight eight times. I may have ground my teeth into powder and felt like I'd been on a roundabout for an hour afterwards, but I managed eight reps on a huge, nasty, former-me-killing weight. Second, I realised that the shirt I was wearing for the gym felt looser around my stomach and tighter around my arms. I haven't lost more than eight kilos since the beginning of the year but my belly seems to have deflated somewhat. When I mentioned this to The Beast, he nodded and clapped me on the back.

"It's ll down to hard work, sport! All down to hard work!"
"Wow," I said. "I know I'd been putting in hellish hours, but this is the first time I've seen it pay off. It's really...

My ramblings are cut short by The Beast boffing me on the head with one of the gym's oversized loofas.

"I meant MY hard work. It's all down to MY hard work. You are nothing more than the clay mould. I am the hard-working body sculptor! Now hit the showers, shitbird!!"

It's good to be reminded of one's place from time to time...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apparently Singer Doll might be leaving the Pussycat Dolls after all! Maybe she's jealous that High-Kick Doll is getting more attention? Seems my predictions were right.

There you go, folks. Join a gym. Unleash your inner beast. Get buff. Become a Pussycat Dolls groupie and follow their developments in your spare time.

It was late today that the symptoms started. It seemed okay for a spell and then I suddenly realised that more temperature had shot up, my throat was feeling scratchy, my ears felt blocked and OH FUCK!!!!!!

I had a head cold coming on. Or a full on cold. Or a sore throat. It didn't really matter what the according to Hoyle definition was. I was coming down with something. I was getting sick. I am ill. This means exercising activities are suspended.

This means no gym.

In past days I'd probably have welcomed that state of affairs. Today it's made me mad enough to fart chlorine. As much as I hate going to the gym (and I do hate it, with a passion that borders on the murderous) I loathe and despise not being able to go to gym. I don't like the pain The Beast inflicts upon my body, but I hate not having the choice to have the pain inflicted. If that makes sense. Overall I hate it when my body breaks down because it's almost as though every weak aspect, every lazy impulse and every passive fibre of my being have joined forces to sabotage my efforts to look less like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

It's not just my body has let me down. Now I have to drink vast copious amounts of Vitamin C, swallow mouthfuls of Echinacea (which tastes like ear-wax) and stay on a diet that doesn't include bread, pasta or anything nice. It's soup and water from here on in until I recover. Recover - ha! If I was out for the count I'd be recovering. As it is I'm just sniffling and shivering.

And this is really what pisses me off! While my pussy immune system has managed to prevent me going to gym (The Beast has demanded I don't come in and infect him - and if I do, I'm dead, you understand?!) it's putting up just enough of a fight to make me work-fit. I'm not bed-ridden, I'm poorly. I'm not sick enough to stay home, but I am too sick to go to gym. And of course, this happens after a week of hellish cardio, in which I put in five fucking days of sweating all over the place and burning off nearly every calorie that went into my body. Just when I get back into the groove of going to gym on a regular basis, my body decides to hold a white flag and fail like the little bastard it is. Right now I feel like punching my own lights out!

There's more to being unhappy than a vicious task master. There's also dietry concerns; ie not drinking any booze, not going out to dinner, avoiding lovely food like burgers, pizza, ice cream and anything else that isn't good for you - and then of course the guilt when you fall off the wagon with a resounding thump, as I quite frequently do. The only thing I have managed to avoid all year is cigarettes - I had my last cigarette the night I watched Chelsea limp to a 2-1 win over Cluj (who? EXACTLY!!) at Stamford Bridge in December last year. December 9th to be exact.

I haven't had a cigarette since then, and while I'm sure it's done wonders for my health (HA!), I miss them terribly. I miss them like an old girlfriend. An old girlfriend from a damaged teenage relationship. The sort of girl that everyone told you was bad for you. The sort of girl who was bad for you. The sort of girl who'd hurl tantrum after tantrum, play you like a cheap, cracked viola, and generally treat you like shit but you didn't care because she was smoking hot and dynamite in bed. And she could bake great cakes.

That's how much I miss them. The only reason I haven't taken up toking again is that giving up a second time (yes, I'm stupid enough to have quit and then started again!) was such a collossal bitch, I'm not sure I could take round three. Also, my new, enhanced lung capacity can barely cope with some of the things The Beast instructs me to do and I shudder think what would happen I was forced to run up a flight of stairs while nursing a smoking habit. The goop in my lungs would probably be forced into evolving into a sentient being which would then choke me to death if that happened.

Speaking of which, something strange has happened in the last few months - and no, unfortunately it isn't weight-loss, although hopefully that'll be on the way shortly as The Beast has informed me that the next packet of BBQ-flavoured cashew nuts I eat will be the last meal I get to enjoy before he kills me. I am now able to burn 650 calories (if the cardio machine read-outs are anything to go by) without feeling like my innards are going through armageddon. In the last week I've visited the gym three times (and I'll be going again after I finish this, God Help Me) to do cardio, and was able to make it through 40 minutes are sweat-spraying mayhem with little to no ill effects. I'd like to believe that this is my body learning to cope with regular exercise, but then, I'm such a pessimist that I find it more likely that my body is gearing up for some sort of inner rebellion at some stage.

At the very least, I'm in for more pain. I know The Beast reads this blog and will probably be devising some hideous torture to test the limits of my new found endurance. Why print this, then, you ask? Well, he was going to do it anyway. The least I can do to limit the damage is let him know everything's going according to schedule...

My hands still haven't recovered. Yesterday they were fucking so painful, I had to quit writing early. Today I feel as though weights have been tied to my wrists and typing any other way than two-fingered like some fucking pre-PC-primate is damn-near impossible. This is because yesterday, after making me row, cycle, lunge and lift dumb-bells The Beast decided to teach me how to box.

Okay you can stop laughing now.

No, seriously you can stop laughing.

Shut up, okay!

Fine! Fuck you! Okay?

Anyway, we walked - we he did, I kind of lurched - over to the training mat area and he proceeded to tape up my hands. Initially I thought this was an exercise where he just strangled me to death and was done with it, so imagine my surprise when he pulled out a pair of boxing gloves and slipped them over my hands. All of a sudden I heard Survivor's number one hit belting out through my brain.

I started bouncing on my heels, jabbing the air. I circled the mat aggressively. I faked, ducked weaved, and lunged. I bounced up and down and again, and shook my head.

The Beast slapped me in the face.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" He yelled.
"I'm, just... you know... getting into th-"

The Beast slapped me in the face.

"Rhetorical question, dingbat! You don't know what you're doing! So allow me to enlighten you. Rule number one about boxing; you're an idiot. Seriously. Eliminate the thought process from your mind. The moment you try to start thinking during boxing, you're fighting an uphill battle. The trick is to learn the basics of what you're capable of and build on that. Then you don't need to think."
"So you mean, you react on instinct?"

The Beast slapped me in the face.

"Don't try to make yourself sound cool. You are not cool. You are an imbecile who knows nothing. Now, let's begin!"

I learned how to jab. I learned how to deliver a right hook. I learned that you need to keep your stance wide. I learned that you need to keep your body turned sideways to reduce the target area. I learned to keep my arms up to prevent being hit. I learned to lead with the left and then throw a right cross. I learned that the heel of your back foot needs to be off the ground at all times. I learned that boxing gloves are heavy. I learned that hitting pads is hard. That The Beast has no mercy. That sweat stings the eyes. That properly delivering a right cross makes me feel like I've been kicked in my ribs. That heavy breathing is a sign of weakness. That pads hurt when someone hits you with them. That farting while boxing isn't funny. Not in the slightest. That it results in being poked in the nose. That boxing gloves really weigh a ton after fifteen minutes. Well, actually it was about ten. Okay, it was five, but they are still fucking heavy. That I am an idiot. That if I just do as I told, that within a split second I can deliver a decent right cross. That if I get cocky I will be poked in the nose.

After fi..te..five minutes we stopped. Sweat is running off me in rivers. The Beast looks like he just woke up.

"Very good," he says. "You will hurt soon."

I will hurt soon. This is good. I want to do this again.

I have obviously lost my mind. It's a good place to be...

So the evil canteen at evil work has evilly started stocking an evil product. Evil, because I am now addicted to it. Every time I'm at the canteen's counter ordering a cup of what they laughingly sell as coffee, my mouth starts to salivate, my hands start to shake in anticipation and it takes every ounce of willpower to resist buying it. Walking back to my desk without it feels like I've cheated myself, and acts as a downer on my mood for the next few hours.

I'm talking about cashew nuts. BBQ-flavoured cashew nuts. Here are some cashew nuts. Look at how yummy they look.

Look at them. Yummy. Not as yummy as BBQ-flavoured cashew nuts, but yummy just the same. Now if you could imagine them covered in MSG and salt and BBQ flavoured "stuff" you'd be staring at a food stuff that actually makes my heart beat faster. Of course, they're very bad for me. Well they would be. They taste nice and yummy and the world is a cruel place and if there is a God, he's a sadistic prick. This is why everything in life that tastes good is bad for you. Cashew nuts are bad enough, but BBQ-flavoured ones are a heart attack in a bag, apparently. I found this out while I was Googling them to find an image of them. The second link that pops up under that search string tells you just how bad they are.

The Beast confirms this when I arrive at the gym and pick his brain on whether the internet is right.

"Cashew nuts?" he sniffs. "They're awful. Full of oil and saturated fats - and that's just the normal ones. If they're salted or dry roasted, they're even worse."
"Really?"
The Beast looks at me through narrowed eyes.
"Yes. That means you can never eat them. And don't ever question me again."
We amble over to the rowing machine and The Beast programs in 2000 meters.
"I want you to finish this in under eight minutes and twenty seconds," he says.
My jaw hits the floor.
"I'll never manage that!" I wail.
"Well, you won't if you keep whining!" snaps The Beast. "Get to it."

The first couple of minutes on the rower and I start to wheeze a bit. I keep going though, as The Beast has changed the time to show what my projected finishing time will be, rather than how many minutes I've been strapped into this horrible fucking contraption. The time alternates for what feels like eternity, flashing 08:15, then 08:11, then 08:21, then 08:25, then back to 08:16. Every time the projected finish time shows higher than 08:20, he throws me an exaggerated wince, causing me to laugh. Or at least, I would laugh if I had any fucking air in my lungs; with every stroke on the rower, my knees push my stomach in and force out a mouthful of much needed 02. Towards the end, The Beast starts tapping his foot rhythmically and barking "Ramming speed" at random intervals. I finish and he gives me a little round of applause.

"Well done. I'm almost tired having watched that!"
"I... I... I'm so... so glad that I amuse you. May... Maybe you..."
"TO THE CYCLES!!!"

On the bikes he sets the speed at an equally sadistic level, except this time I have the upper hand. I've been following his horrible 600 calorie program at the weekend - recently the little fucker upped it 650, if you can believe that - mainly using the bikes. I pedal furiously, looking like I'm about to die, but secretly rebuilding internal organs that were reduced to paste on the rower. By the end, I've almost returned to normal.

This doesn't last long. The Beast takes me over to the squat rack - the place where all legs go to die - hands me two dumb-bells and then forces me to do some horrible combination of lunges and vertical presses which reduce my legs to jello and make my arms feel as though someone's shoving bits of broken glass into my triceps and shoulders. This, however, is just the beginning...

(Be here tomorrow for part 2 and find out why this entry was cut short and why my hands are in so much fucking pain right now, that I don't care this entry is incomplete, I can't fucking type anymore.)

This bank holiday weekend I was very bad. Very bad indeed. Not only did I spend an awful lot of time imbibing the finest wines available to humanity, I spent at least a day plonked on my bum in front of the TV watching the first four episodes of a TV series called Burn Notice.

Burn Notice, if you aren't aware of it, is absolutely brilliant. It follows the trials and tribulations of Michael Westen, a blacklisted CIA contracter who has been sold down the river by his superiors. He's trying desparately to eek out a living with what scant contacts and resources he has left and hopefully avoid getting killed in the process. The plot is essentially an excuse for grand-theft-auto-stylee adventures with an espionage-themed backdrop. It's very funny, violent and smart. Usually all at the same time. Westen is played by Jeffrey Donovan, a dark-haired clone of Guy Pearce in Memento. They even have the same taylor:

While there's plenty to recommend this marvellous show, one of the small things I like best about it is that the character of Westen only drinks water. Like I said, it's a small thing, but one I appreciate. This is because I am fed up of watching TV shows and movies in which the heroes look like they're carved out of marble, yet seem to exist on a diet of fast food, cigarettes and booze. I want to exist on a diet of fast food, cigarettes and booze, and have done so at various stages - and I have the belly to prove it. Westen may have the hero physique, but he drinks water all the time and only seems to eat tofu and pasta in very small portions. He is also fairly miserable as a character and this is probably down to the fact that he has to drink water all the time in between eating miniscule portions of tofu and pasta in order to stay fighting fit. The fact that Westen has horrible diet has made me warm to this character. In fact, his diet is almost as appealing as his sarcastic manner and unconventional looks. I could almost believe him as a spy if he didn't dress so well - let's face it, if you're tailing someone in Hugo Boss and red shades, they're more likely to spot you than if you're wearing something from Primark.

Anyway, this water-drinking thing. I think I might have to go back to drinking exclusively iced water - or fizzy iced water if I want to experience a bit of a thrill - after this last weekend's shenanigans. I woke up on Monday feeling not bad, but not too great either. My throat felt like it had been coated with bee's piss and I was aware of a dull, dusty sensation behind my eyes. No matter, I thought, onward and upward. I went downstairs, showered, dressed shaved, made sandwiches for the wife and I, cursed the name of the cunt who invented the working week (even though I don't know who he is) ate a hearty breakfast of weetabix and toast and then set off to the bus stop. As I closed the gate, my throat cleared and I felt a twinge in my bowels. Probably just the after effects of the weekend, I thought.

The twinge in my bowels turned into a dull, throbbing ache by the time we got to the Tescos near the Tube station. Apparently the bee's piss had detatched from my throat, run down into my stomach, mixed with the brekkie I'd eaten and my body was now working on ejecting this foul compound from my bowels as quickly as possible. The fact that I was about a mile and a half away from home didn't seem to concern my body's need to fire waste out of my anus at the earliest possible juncture.

"There's a public loo in Tesco's" The wife said, helpfully.

We entered the supermarket and I headed over to the public convenience. My wife went in search of immodium as I entered the men's room, opened the cubicle and almost burst into tears upon seeing a large turd and a bowel of urine water threatening to spill over the sides of the loo. Men. Are. Scum. I tried the door of the cubicle for wheelchair-bound toilet visitors and found that unless they were wheelchair-bound individuals with lockpicking skills, then they were shit out of luck. I angrily pulled out my phone and rang my other other half> I was trying to move as little as possible as the contents of my guts were now churning and kicking like a small mutant demanding to be let into this world.

"Yes?"
"Get over here quickly! I need your help!"

Bless her for not laughing when she arrived as I got her to first check that the ladies' room was empty and then to stand guard outside while I rushed into the cubicle and proceeded to pebble-dash the toilet while making the most unholy noises in Christendom. The ladies' room is emaculate. Presumably because women aren't scum. This is a new one for me, I thought, having a shit in a supermarket. I think it's time to adopt a diet of water and small portions of tofu and pasta. This will save me ever being in a position where I may conceivably lose control of my bodily functions in public. Who knows. It might even give me a nice physique. I already have a jaded outlook on life, so I'm at least one third of the way towards getting cast in a UK re-make of Burn Notice.

No. More. Booze. (For a bit anyway)

Something has changed about The Beast's demeanor. He's always in a foul, sadistic mood when I see him, but today it seems there's something even more aggressive about him. This, I think, is bad news for me - an instinct that is soon confirmed when we head over to the bikes.

"Today, we try something new, tubby!" says The Beast. "Today we're going to alternate your speed a bit."

I climb on the bike and cycle away for about 2 minutes and then The Beast twiddles the controls and ramps the speed up to 20, and suddenly I feel like I'm pedaling through a moat of cement.

"Stand up!" barks The Beast. "If your revs drop below 60 I'll hurt you!"

I plough through the next five minutes as my legs turn to jello and my breathing slows to a wheeze. The temptation to slow down is immense but after The Beast gives me a crack to the back of my bare legs with the flat of his hand, I speed up. Now I know what if would feel like to be a horse pulling a cart through a bog.

After the bike we walk (well, he does, I flop around slightly) to the squat rack.

"Right," snaps The Beast, "I want you to do lunges. Then I want you to do squats. Then I want you to do push-ups. Then bicep curls. Then push-ups again. Then deadlifts. Then..."

He trails off as my mouth falls open and my eyes bug out of my head.

"Pffft! Nevermind," he says, "Just do what I say when I say it. GO! LUNGES! NOW!!"

I start with the lunges, my body wobbling a bit as my centre of balance is off. I count out loud until a rubber-band pings off the side of my head.

"Who told you to count, arsehead?"
"It helps if I know how many I have to do."
"You have to do as many as I feel like making you do!" says The Beast, collecting his rubber band off the floor. "Squats, now!"

I begin my squats and get through about two before the rubber band pings off my head again.

"Don't you dare straighten your legs all the way! I want them bent at the peak of your squat!"
"The peak of my what?"
"DON'T! STRAIGHTEN! YOUR LEGS!!" And the rubber band pings off my right cheek.

The pain is fucking excruciating. It feels like a dwarf is using a hand-drill to bore a hole straight through my knee cap. Furthermore, it feels like my body's forgotten how to breathe. I stare into the mirror in front of me and see a pink-faced sweat-gland who looks like he's about to cry. I'm actually about to cry.

"Push-ups!"

At least down on the ground no one will see me cry. The Beast for his part pings the rubber band off my arse this time, and then sings the lyrics of Everclear's "Wonderful" over the top of Shontelle's new video for the single "T-Shirt". Well, they are the same song after all, even if the latter is a key lower. Eventually I'm allowed to stand up and he hands me a barbell and barks the word "CURLS!!!" in my face. By now I've stopped fighting. I've stopped whining. I've stopped crying. I just want to die.

"What was that?"

Oh shit, I said that out loud.

"You just want to what?" yells The Beast "You want to die, huh? You want to to die? Then why don't you quit, you pussy?! Why don't you just put the weight down and quit??!!"
"No!"
"Why not!!??
"CUZ I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GOOOOOOOOOO!"

At the end of the workout, The Beast offer me a cup of orange juice and delivers some of the most horrible news of all time:

"You have lost weight, but your figure will not change until you change your diet. Also you now have a weekend assignment. You are to lose 600 calories every weekend. I don't care how you do it. Treadmill, rowing machine, cross trainer or bike. But you need to have burned 600 calories a weekend. If you do not do this, you will die in the coming months. And I shall inherit your games consoles and your comic book collection. Understand?"

I nod and head to the showers with The Beast's final words echoing in my ears.

"600 calories, bitch! Remember that! 600 calories!"

I used to love the cross trainer. Out of all the cardio machines of death The Beast used to torture me with, the cross trainer was my favourite. Not because using it makes me feel like I'm training for a secret mission involving long-distance alpine skiing (although it does). Not because it makes everyone, no matter how cut, gorgeous and fit you are look absolutely fucking stupid when they use it (and it does this too). No, I used to love the cross trainer because you can coast on it. You can take it easy. You can pedal away on this stupid contraption for hours and you never feel like your legs have turned into rubber and that you're about to start shooting feces from either end. Well, like all great relationships, my love affair with the cross trainer was doomed from the start and is now over thanks largely to The Beast. To commemorate the occasion, I've composed a short poem.

Ahem.

Oh cross trainer, you of easy cardio work-outs.
Oh cross trainer, you with the decent screen and working headphone jack.
Oh cross trainer, you accomplished what the treadmill and bicycle couldn't
Namely prevent my beer belly from bouncy around like I was carrying bag of suet under my shirt.

Oh cross trainer, you with levels 1 through to 14 out of 20.
Oh cross trainer, I can go as high as 14 with much sweat but no asphyxiation.
Oh cross trainer, at 15 it was still okay.
Even though my lungs felt like someone was pouring rock salt into them.

Oh cross trainer, why did you allow The Beast to turn you against me at level 18?
Oh cross trainer, your pedals that feel like I'm wading through tar.
Oh cross trainer, you handles feel like I'm pulling ten ton weights.
People are staring because they think I'm going to turn one deeper shader of pink and then explode like Michael Ironside in Scanners.

Oh cross trainer, what's that high pitch-whistling sound?
Oh cross trainer, is it the nerve-endings in my legs about to snap like cheap guitar strings?
Oh cross trainer, is it wind escaping from my body through my arse?
Because it's certainly not going into my lungs like it should.

Oh cross trainer, you have betrayed me
Oh cross trainer, we had something special
Oh cross trainer, but now it is over because I have discovered your true, treacherous nature.
There's obviously a reason you were designed to look like a giant metal praying mantis

My Miserable Existence is on hold until Monday, due to the fact that I went to New York for the week and this weekend I'm attending a wedding. This means that not only will I have missed gym for an entire week by the time normal service resumes, but that I will have been stuffing my face with lovely food and booze in time for a hellish session when I get back to it. I expect to feel thoroughly dreadful by Monday evening, which will hopefully entertain the handful of sadists who have started to email me about this blog not being more regularly updated. You may all start salivating now...