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.